A Slap in the Facebook
I felt inspired to write this blog having had the warmest welcome
from you guys here at The Word Cloud. Thank You. I will get round
to commenting on some of your stories very soon. I'm a very very
very slow reader (and slightly dylsexic) so I have to psyche myself
up before I read anything!
Writing for me comes easier than reading if that makes any sense.
Anyway, I've never actually written a blog before. This is my first one. I am a blog virgin so treat me gently, respect me in the morning and maybe we can enjoy a ciggie together afterwards .
I would like to talk to you today about my experiences with Facebook. It's not been all bad but sometimes quite frankly it has left me in tears (cue weepy violin music). But i'll start with the good stuff:
The good thing about Facebook is that I've managed to hook up with some old schoolmates on there and it's really good to be in touch with them again. Some I don't have much in common with but there are one or two which I hope to keep in touch with for the rest of my natural now that I have found them again.
I'm ashamed to admit this but there's one friend on there that I used to "disown" sometimes when I was at school. For most of the time I was her friend but sometimes I was horrible to her.I wanted to be with the popular crowd and she was just way too eccentric with her wacky hair, unusual clothes and a passion for Georgette Heyer novels (in a 1980's secondary modern school this really was a no no. The only approved reading "literature" was Patches magazine and My Guy) . Thing is her eccentricity is what I absolutely loved about her . She was different and to this day I really admire that in someone. We were birds of a feather but back then as a shallow teenager I didn't have the courage to stick up to the people who bullied me for being her friend. She's a really wonderful person though because she put up with my bitchiness and now I wish she lived round the corner from me and not in Essex because I'd really like to see more of her. It's funny how the people we pick as friends when we are kids or teenagers are sometimes the people we still have has friends today. My friend and I still share the stuff in common that we had then-books, writing, music and horse riding. We've changed as people but our interests have endured and that's what keeps any relationship fortified.
Now for my negative experiences of Facebook:
Well, asa woman who has come to the realisation that she will never have children it's really hard to see the "we're so fertile" family pics that are so often uploaded on there. I don't blame the people who do it though. If I had fruit of my loins I'd probably do it too along with funny stories about what my kids did or said.
The other hard thing to swallow sometimes is the pics of people having the time of their lives in exotic or exciting locations such as the Bahamas, Thailand or AyresRock when I'm stuck here in rainy Warrington too skint to go on holiday. The nearest I get to Ayres Rock is listening to Pam Ayres reciting poetry on Radio 4. WhatI'm trying to say is that Facebook sometimes gives you the impression that other people's lives are morefulfilled. But maybe this isn't a bad thing. Feeling a twinge of jealousy perhaps makes me think about reframing my own life and finding ways to make it happier.
However what really upset me recently, what really gave me a slap in the Facebook was a nasty email I recieved from someone I used to know.
Now on Facebook you have to use the term "friend" quite loosely at times. Sometimes I just add people on there that I have known but they're not friends in the true sense. However I am interested sufficiently enough in them to keep in touch with their news. I think everyone on there does this. Anyway recently I put a "friend" request in to a woman who we shall call Claire. Now this was probably in hindsight a pretty naaive thing to do becauseClaire was a platonic friend of my ex partner. Thing is it had been an amicable split from him about 4 years ago now so I didn't think anyone was taking sides. Now bear in mind that I had entertainedthis woman in my home, I had bought her birthday presents and I had encouraged her with her dream of writing a novel. In short I'd never been anything else but very pleasant to this woman. She got married recently and I was admiring her wedding pics on another friends site so I sent her a brief email and a friend request. It didn't mean that I wanted to be her best buddy, it just meant that I was interested enough in her to keep in touch with her news right? Anyway she sends this horrible email back saying "I never was your friend, I don't want to be your friend. Please do not contact me again" I was stunned. I felt like a stalker.And to this day I really don't know what I've done or said to deserve that. So I wrote back an ultra nice email to make her feel guilty saying something like "Well I WAS going to compliment you on your lovely wedding pics. Never mind. Seems I liked you more than you liked me. I wish you well"
So all in all Facebook has raised me up and dragged me down. It's put me back in touch with some great people but it's also made me realise just who my friends and "friends" really are or who they really were.
Writing for me comes easier than reading if that makes any sense.
Anyway, I've never actually written a blog before. This is my first one. I am a blog virgin so treat me gently, respect me in the morning and maybe we can enjoy a ciggie together afterwards .
I would like to talk to you today about my experiences with Facebook. It's not been all bad but sometimes quite frankly it has left me in tears (cue weepy violin music). But i'll start with the good stuff:
The good thing about Facebook is that I've managed to hook up with some old schoolmates on there and it's really good to be in touch with them again. Some I don't have much in common with but there are one or two which I hope to keep in touch with for the rest of my natural now that I have found them again.
I'm ashamed to admit this but there's one friend on there that I used to "disown" sometimes when I was at school. For most of the time I was her friend but sometimes I was horrible to her.I wanted to be with the popular crowd and she was just way too eccentric with her wacky hair, unusual clothes and a passion for Georgette Heyer novels (in a 1980's secondary modern school this really was a no no. The only approved reading "literature" was Patches magazine and My Guy) . Thing is her eccentricity is what I absolutely loved about her . She was different and to this day I really admire that in someone. We were birds of a feather but back then as a shallow teenager I didn't have the courage to stick up to the people who bullied me for being her friend. She's a really wonderful person though because she put up with my bitchiness and now I wish she lived round the corner from me and not in Essex because I'd really like to see more of her. It's funny how the people we pick as friends when we are kids or teenagers are sometimes the people we still have has friends today. My friend and I still share the stuff in common that we had then-books, writing, music and horse riding. We've changed as people but our interests have endured and that's what keeps any relationship fortified.
Now for my negative experiences of Facebook:
Well, asa woman who has come to the realisation that she will never have children it's really hard to see the "we're so fertile" family pics that are so often uploaded on there. I don't blame the people who do it though. If I had fruit of my loins I'd probably do it too along with funny stories about what my kids did or said.
The other hard thing to swallow sometimes is the pics of people having the time of their lives in exotic or exciting locations such as the Bahamas, Thailand or AyresRock when I'm stuck here in rainy Warrington too skint to go on holiday. The nearest I get to Ayres Rock is listening to Pam Ayres reciting poetry on Radio 4. WhatI'm trying to say is that Facebook sometimes gives you the impression that other people's lives are morefulfilled. But maybe this isn't a bad thing. Feeling a twinge of jealousy perhaps makes me think about reframing my own life and finding ways to make it happier.
However what really upset me recently, what really gave me a slap in the Facebook was a nasty email I recieved from someone I used to know.
Now on Facebook you have to use the term "friend" quite loosely at times. Sometimes I just add people on there that I have known but they're not friends in the true sense. However I am interested sufficiently enough in them to keep in touch with their news. I think everyone on there does this. Anyway recently I put a "friend" request in to a woman who we shall call Claire. Now this was probably in hindsight a pretty naaive thing to do becauseClaire was a platonic friend of my ex partner. Thing is it had been an amicable split from him about 4 years ago now so I didn't think anyone was taking sides. Now bear in mind that I had entertainedthis woman in my home, I had bought her birthday presents and I had encouraged her with her dream of writing a novel. In short I'd never been anything else but very pleasant to this woman. She got married recently and I was admiring her wedding pics on another friends site so I sent her a brief email and a friend request. It didn't mean that I wanted to be her best buddy, it just meant that I was interested enough in her to keep in touch with her news right? Anyway she sends this horrible email back saying "I never was your friend, I don't want to be your friend. Please do not contact me again" I was stunned. I felt like a stalker.And to this day I really don't know what I've done or said to deserve that. So I wrote back an ultra nice email to make her feel guilty saying something like "Well I WAS going to compliment you on your lovely wedding pics. Never mind. Seems I liked you more than you liked me. I wish you well"
So all in all Facebook has raised me up and dragged me down. It's put me back in touch with some great people but it's also made me realise just who my friends and "friends" really are or who they really were.
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10 Comments
I think your 'nice email' response was just the right thing to do. I always try to live by one of Solomon's proverbs: The soft answer turneth away wrath. Well done, you.
Do you play the tennor sax, btw?
Nice first blog!
Sad and somewhat depressing end but all in all the blog holds its own! ;o)
Facebook is a dangerous creature with the soft purring and fur of a well fed kitten but the teeth and claws of a rabid bear on steroids. I don't use it anymore - mostly because it takes a billion years to load and then only to discover the fourteen items in my "inbox" are "pokes" and requests to join the latest dirge of "applets" all of which - bar none, mark you - are awful. I mean, why do I need a Facebook app to contain all my "Family" from my "friends"? I know who they are, they know who they are, who the hell else needs to know?! Sigh.
I'm with Tony by the way; your response was perfect. Yay you! You go girl! (That just so does *not* work written down does it?!)
Welcome to The Cloud and welcome to blogging. You'll never look back. (Because typing cricks the neck so badly that you'll stoop over worse than quasimodo and he couldn't look over his shoulder... it used to give him the right hump...)
EzBloke
I use Facebook and have fallen into a few traps along the way. I experienced the flip side of what you did (though I hope I was much nicer about it!). I was contacted by a girl who had been my friend for many years through childhood but for various reasons (partly to do with hurtful things that she had done and that I had put up with as a child) we had drifted apart as adults. Any time we met up, I remembered why we had drifted apart and in the end I made no effort to stay in touch.
When she approached me on Facebook, I just didn't want to start it all again so I "ignored" her friend request. She requested my friendship a further three times by which point my usual inability to be horrible kicked in. I could have blocked her but instead I sent her a nice but bland message expressing that it was nice to see her on facebook and hoped she was doing well etc. I was rewarded with torrent of enthusiasm and desires to phone (she sent me her number), meet up, come to stay....I was forced at that point to make a choice: let her back into my life or make it clear I wasn't interested. I spent days composing the message back so that it sounded politely interested in her life but made it clear that Facebook correspondence was all I was interested in. I felt awful for a long time after but to date it seems to have worked.
The problem with Facebook is the same as any other virtual communication. We glean so much in terms of body language, expressions and gestures in face-to-face conversations but it is easy to forget that when you communicate virtually, you have only words and they can be interpreted in unintended ways sometimes.
I love Facebook as a way to keep in touch with my friends who live far away from me but I rarely use it anymore to communicate with people I hardly know.
Skylark
In this case and in the other cyber-bullying stories I have covered Facebook has done nothing to deal with the problem. I am actually on Facebook myself - I signed up before I did these stories. But I don't bother with it now.
Even here on the Cloud there have been rows and falling-out. You'd think that it shouldn't bother us; we never meet each other so what does it matter. But the rules of social engagement have changed with the Internet; we get as involved with people we never meet as we used with those we did meet.
I've been guilty of getting sucked into arguments rather than walking away. There are a couple of people here I avoid and/or they avoid me. But it's like a big room full of people - there are plenty of others to talk to.
I also signed up to Friends Re-united and I realised that after an initial flurry of e-mails you ran out of things to say. Once you'd brought each other up to date, what else was there to say.
We have a rule of thumb in journalism in deciding whether it's worth covering a story; it's simply, what is your second question going to be? If you can't think of one then it's not interesting. The same principal should apply to on-line relationships - what is your second e-mail going to say?
Click here to sign up now.