Tag Archives: Facebook

A Newbie Blogger’s Best of 2013

Don’t Be a Dick on Facebook

This is dedicated to a good friend who was inadvertently caught in the crossfire of a really stupid “discussion” on Facebook this week. Names have been changed for humorous purposes.

Today’s lesson is: Don’t be a dick to my friends on Facebook (I won’t abide it).

Dear Diary, today I was a huge cock…

So this is my life, weird but true. Yesterday my husband demanded that I unfriend (on Facebook) an obscure in-law because he indirectly (and then directly) insulted a close friend of our family and also her son, who just so happens to be my ex boyfriend from high school. Just a typical Sunday morning at our house… Here is the story, coffee around the table style. Me: “I ‘Liked’ a picture that had special significance to me, simple as that. Next thing I know, I’m in a “discussion” with this condescending person who I don’t think I’ve ever met!” Hubby: “Just unfriend him, he will only cause problems.” Me: “It gets worse. Mrs. D was offended by some inflammatory comments he made. Rather than just stop posting, he began directing the comments at her, and then he managed to also insult her son.” Hubby: “He did WHAT?! Oh you unfriend him right now. No one insults ‘Dirk’!” Me: “Yeah! Wait, what?” Then things just got weirder.

Why my husband cares so much about a dude that I dated 15 years ago…well that’s really more of a Bro Code Army thing but it added to the sweet, sweet awkwardness. The hubby, very emotional about the whole ridiculous mess, was flailing around yelling “Who is he to say anything judgmental at all about a true American hero!!” But the hubby’s right — you don’t harass the mother of a war hero, especially when — now lean in — you’re a total stranger!!! Okay, so here I am with a husband who seems to have a man crush on my ex boyfriend and a justifiably angry mom/friend on one side, and this random pretentious in-law from hell on the other. What to do?

I tried to shut down the conversation. Nope, diplomacy made it worse. I considered my husband’s demand and the consequences of allowing this relative who I don’t even know to run rampant all over my Facebook posts obliviously bedeviling my other friends. Yikes! Then I remembered how my old boyfriend, by then a brother in arms, would come visit me at my camp in Iraq in 2003 when he wasn’t busy kicking insurgent ass (and also probably being awarded medals of valor). His reputation is above contempt and his character is certainly above scrutiny or snide remarks from a total stranger on Facebook. A comment and link addressing PTSD, presumably for ‘educational purposes’ was waiting for me when I logged back in. Oh…HELL no! People, don’t give unsolicited advice about PTSD to veterans or to the parents of soldiers, especially after you have already pissed them off! Clearly this guy couldn’t take a hint.

I said to myself “No, I don’t abide this kind of bullshit at all!” and I unfriended the obscure relative, explaining why (ie: you have managed to insult one of the world’s finest soldiers and his mother, therefore welcome to my shit list). I apologized profusely to the mom/friend who got caught up in the whole mess, and she was very gracious about it. After all, the fact that she and I have been friends for about fifteen years accounts for something! Good, lasting friendships are hard to find and worth fighting for, even if it means cutting loose the people that hurt our good vibes…and allowing our husbands the occasional man crush (‘Dirk’ is pretty awesome). Yep, we do things for our friends.

If you take nothing else from this story, please remember two things:

1) Don’t be a dick on Facebook.

2) If your husband seems to have a man crush on your high school boyfriend, (I know it’s weird) just go with it. Men never have made sense to me.

— G

Afterword: Normally I wouldn’t include additional information to a published post unless it proved crucial, but in this case there has been abundant interest expressed outside the blog, compelling me to provide extra explanation.

All kidding aside about my husband having a man crush on a former boyfriend, this particular person is a treasured friend who was one of my biggest cheerleaders during crucial times in my life. When I joined the National Guard he strongly supported my urge to serve. After he joined the Army he told me that I was one of the people who inspired him to do so, stating that if I could do it then so could he. Not many high school sweethearts go their separate ways and remain friends, but I have always felt that he was there as a comrade many times through my life. The fact that my husband has tremendous respect for this person speaks volumes about his character and the friendship that has endured for many years after our high school days.

It pained me greatly to see this friend and his mother, also a very dear family friend, put under a microscope on a public forum by a total stranger with an elitist attitude. In our family we have one rule that encompasses all rules: “Do the right thing.” Once that rule was applied to the situation, it was not difficult to decide how to handle the rude stranger. In the two days since, many memories of my old friend have come flooding back. Truth be told, I haven’t really thought of him much in years, mostly because I know he is doing well, and also because I really like my husband (I love him too!). But he really was there for me, even when I didn’t want him around. And I know that he looked out for me at times when I didn’t even realize it. Because of him, my National Guard unit was much safer during our deployment in Iraq. I will always treasure his friendship and hold tighter to my friendship with his mother.

So, as I said before, all joking aside, this was a matter of doing the right thing to show respect for friends who have always been there for me and my family. We do what is right and we look out for our own.

People You Need To Unfriend On Facebook Immediately (buzzfeed.com)
7 Types Of People Who Deserve An Immediate Facebook Unfriending (makeuseof.com)
Facebook Doesn’t Want You To Know Who Unfriends You! Do You? (socialfixer.com)

Facebook for Dumb Me

Facebook Verdict: Like

4 Replies

After years of avoiding Facebook like the plague, I finally took the plunge! Will this be my undoing?

Well it has been one week since I started my blog and also since I joined Facebook. I have learned three important things:

Almost everything from the Ellen sitcom of the 1990s is back in style again. That has nothing to do with my blog or Facebook, but I have been watching that show lately and it interesting that styles from the ’90s are once again so popular. Who else is loving their soft flannel grunge tops and combat boots?
I am really enjoying writing this blog. I don’t know if I have found my niche yet, and I still need to figure out how much cursing is the proper amount for this site, but otherwise this is quite thrilling!
Facebook is incredibly addictive. I had to establish ground rules when I chose to ignore the tornado siren because I was reading a particularly interesting post. It turned out to just be the monthly test siren, but I decided to impose Facebook rules to insure personal and family safety, cleanliness, and overall wellbeing. To that end I only check my account after the children are fed and we all pass the minimal hygiene requirements established for our family. So I am sitting on the couch with no makeup, hair un-brushed, and a box of crackers at my side – super classy. But I am fully clothed and my kids are at school so I can be glued to my computer all day. Rock on!

I really had no expectations about my blog when I started writing posts. Just the goal of getting something written was daunting enough that pushing the ‘Submit’ button was a triumph in itself. To see that people are actually reading the blog is very flattering! At this point it is too early to speculate whether it will eventually lead to a new career or end up as just a fun hobby, but it will be a healthy way to express all the energy bottled up inside through hilarious, touching, gut wrenching, and super weird stories that are trying to burst out. Because without a hobby of some sort, I am basically a disgruntled, overly frazzled, frumpy housewife with just enough spare time to write these super weird stories and release them into the World Wide Web to live on in infamy. So to those of you who have been reading this past week, thanks for sticking with me. I promise to try to get better, or worse if that helps. You, my friends, are my motivation to keep going.

I would like to prattle a bit about Facebook, because it is incredibly fascinating! I had no idea how much FUN it would be to reconnect with people from my past simply by creating a profile page. I don’t know why it took so long for me to do this. Contrary to popular belief, my husband and I are not cave dwellers and we do use technology extensively; we are just super choosy about what and how we use it. And my husband (who is not on Facebook) is still not completely convinced that Facebook is not the work of the devil. Actually I am also not completely convinced either, but the fact remains that I have been able to come back into contact with so many amazing people from my childhood in the course of a week. This feat is beyond comprehension! Maybe I am a cave dweller…Something that touched me especially was a comment from one friend who wrote in my timeline that she had thought about me frequently over the years and had looked for me on Facebook. It made me realize that I had been missing out on the chance to maintain friendships through continual conversations on a virtual platform of goodwill and good vibes.

As I continued to find old friends and send requests out (and confirm requests too!) I was delightfully surprised by my reactions. I found myself smiling back at the photos of old classmates, gasping to see them with new babies, exclaiming my glee over their children’s antics, their fantastic careers, my great looking grown up re-found friends! Then I encountered a problem. I found people who I didn’t think I could ‘friend’. They were people with whom I had parted ways due to some sort of drama, or they were simply people who I believed wouldn’t remember or care to know me after all these years. Why re-hash any new drama by inviting an old enemy onto my page, or possibly be turned down by someone too cool to remember me from fifteen years ago because even back then they were too cool to be my friend?

In case it hasn’t become obvious, I have always been a tad sensitive and self conscious, and making friends has not been easy for me until recently. I never really had a clique in high school, although I did have some wonderful friends who took me in and dragged me on many wild and crazy adventures. Instead of cementing myself into one group of people and assimilating their ways, I sort of floated all over, absorbing a bit from every clique but never really fitting in anywhere. Perhaps that has lent to my overall balking at getting on Facebook as well as my hesitation this past week when encountering some of the classmates from my past. As intimidating as they were back then, with their perfect grades, Olympian athletic graces and impeccable wardrobes, they are even scarier now! Most have gone on to become exactly what I knew they would: Titans of creativity, ingenuity, and beauty. I never felt like I measured up to them in high school, and this crippling revelation has resurfaced with my rediscovery of all these successful classmates and friends from days gone by. So, I am faced with a new challenge for the next week. I can either be a wimp and cower in shame from the people who I believe are so much better than I simply because I didn’t know that I was cool enough to hang out with them in high school. Or I can get over myself, extend a hand of friendship and see what happens.

—G

32 Hurts!

2 Replies

Today I am in pain, but yesterday was great. Yesterday was a good birthday. Several adoring fans (parents) called to sing to me off key, I received lovely cards and gifts, and I had a pretty wonderful day. I finally set up a Facebook account. Please stop laughing at me. I know that I mentioned in my previous post that I do not do technology. For years now people have been asking me why I don’t have Facebook and I had so many good answers: creepy stalkers, Taliban spies, baby photo thieves, computer hackers, not enough time, carpal tunnel syndrome, PMS… the list goes on. But now I really do need Facebook to help me network. All I need to do is Friend ten million people on Facebook and convince them to read my blog and then I will be set. Simple enough!

Anyway, impossible dreams aside, my birthday was awesome. I got to do mostly what I wanted. I did still have to go to work, but what I do for money is a pleasure. Whoa! Let me restate that. What I do for money involves kids. Hmm, somehow that’s worse. Might as well just say it: I work as a noon aide at the neighborhood school, so for a few hours each day I basically herd 400 unruly children between playground and lunchroom, scolding and consoling in turn. I am sort of a mix between Mary Poppins and R. Lee Ermey. There are many reasons why I like this job. Although I am not being paid hand over fist, I get to work minimal hours and I get free time for the rest of the day to do things like run errands, take naps, exercise, and hey, blog! I also get to see my own children at the school, and who hasn’t had the dream of literally being paid to yell at their own kin. An unexpected bonus of this job, and the reason I love going to work, is that I have learned so much about myself and humanity through the eyes of children. It is amazing and humbling to be around a group of tiny people who put so much trust in you and depend on you so completely to wipe away tears, solve territory disputes, organize schedules, and be a disciplinarian without being a tyrant. Very humbling indeed. So I try to temper my drill sergeant spasms with sugary sweetness and have found that my method seems to be working. The kids I have yelled at the most over the last year love me the most and give me the most hugs. Go figure.

So after being hugged by more adoring fans at work I still had kids hanging out at my house (again the perils of being a favorite noon aide) and once I chased them off it was party time. The hubby and girls surprised me with the most beautiful handmade outdoor coffee table, with a beer bottle cap grouted top! They had been not-so-secretly working on it in the garage for several days and had hidden it under a sheet. It is so cool, and I am afraid to put it on the deck and subject it to ugly Kansas weather, but I also can’t wait to sit on the deck when the sun comes up and have coffee on my new coffee table! We also went out for dinner at my current favorite local Mexican restaurant, La Fiesta. I like going there because the wait staff is very willing to coordinate with the kitchen staff and accommodate my several annoying food sensitivities, and the food is quite delicious.

Everything was going great until a horrendous migraine struck and I ended up curled up on the floor of our living room after the rest of the family went to bed. Coincidentally, that is how I found the sweet, secret birthday message that my husband and girls wrote in marker under the coffee table. It made me feel a little better. It’s the little things, ya know? This morning I have a migraine hangover and feel every second of my 32 years. Today will be especially rough. Migraines always leave me loopy and weird, not the best way to start out a new year of life. Life in Kansas has been rough on our family. I can’t say living anywhere else would be easier, but it has been difficult to the extent that I cracked a joke to my neighbor one day: “I’m not Catholic, but I think we are in Purgatory”. A devout Catholic, she laughed, and continued to be on speaking terms with me. I must be on to something.

My super cool new coffee table, hand made by angels!