Social Media And Real Life
“No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.” — Ansel Adams
I am a social media addict. This is of course, in addition to my many other addictions. I have an addictive personality, it’s how I roll. Maybe I should start attending random group therapy sessions, like in Fight Club. Yes, movies are another addiction of mine, and books too, but I digress. Back to my original addiction….social media. These days I particularly love blogging (duh) and Facebook but am pretty hooked on twitter too. It all started with MySpace, which I now consider to be a playground for pervs and children…not a good combo. I do maintain my account on MySpace just to keep tabs on my nieces and nephews but I rarely use it.
The reason I’m even writing about any of this is that my fellow social media addict, blogger, mortgage industry professional, weight loss nazi inspiration and online buddy (soul mate?), Tammy, over at A Moment In Time, wrote a blog post about social media that I have been pondering all day.
Basically, she met up, in person, with an old friend from school who she originally connected with on Facebook. They had a great time and it was as if no time had passed at all. Later that same day, she saw someone else from her past in a store and ducked out without any interest in connecting with that person at all. It didn’t seem as if there had been any animosity, just no desire to reconnect.
Pondering this all day, as I tend to do, has led me down two different paths. The first one is about a friend from high school that I connected with on Facebook when I first joined. I was thrilled to find out that you could fairly easily connect with folks from high school. We hadn’t spoken in about twenty years. We had some ridiculous fight about a year after high school and she basically told me to go to hell. At the time I was confused and extremely hurt. It was a petty argument and I thought we were BFFs. Twenty years later, I was over it and figured she was too. We did connect briefly on Facebook but she seemed reluctant to really chat and then one day she was gone. I was dumped again. This time I’m not confused or hurt. Her dumping me from her Facebook friends may have nothing to do with me at all. If she would rather not reconnect, that’s ok. Sometimes there are people who are better left in the past.
I have a difficult time cutting people off, even when I know I should. Even when I know they are bad for me. Even when I really look at the relationship and realize I’m not getting one good thing out of it. Even when they just aren’t good friends for some reason. Even when I know they are narcissists, and incapable of real emotion or healthy relationships. I’ve gotten better at this in recent years but it’s still tough for me to stop all contact. I think I always hold out hope, despite all evidence to the contrary, that they must care about me or they would just stop all contact with me and move on. I am always waiting for that one moment when they’ll toss me a crumb of emotion, something that indicates I am important to them and that they do care. It’s like this carrot that is always there but also always out of reach. It’s another addiction.
That led me to my second path. Why do we (most of us anyway) have such a difficult time expressing positive, loving emotions to our friends, family members and acquaintances, even when we feel them. Assuming we aren’t narcissists and neither are they, just normal flawed humans, why do we hide how we feel? Why is it so difficult to put ourselves out there and just say, “You’re a good friend.”, “I enjoy spending time with you because…”, “I miss you.” or even “I love you.”.
I have no trouble expressing emotions with my kids and husband. But pretty much anyone else, I rarely feel comfortable saying anything close to resembling real feelings. I’ve gotten better at it, especially in writing, but still struggle with it, particularly in person or even on the phone.
I suspect that it’s the fear that they will not feel the same way or that even if they do, they will be uncomfortable with me being so honest. Or, what if they interpret my feelings to mean more than what they are? If, for example, I were to tell a long-time co-worker that I admire her for some reason, might she then think that I feel our friendship is much closer than she does? Is it simply a fear of intimacy of any kind? Fear of rejection?
Isn’t this all ridiculous? I mean, we all need relationships with our fellow human beings. We all like to know that we are important, liked, admired, cared for and loved. Life is so short and the only truly important things in it are our connections with others. Maybe this is all just psycho-babble brought on by nicotine withdrawal. Or maybe not.
Thanks for stopping by!
Love this post and love the bumper stickers! I have always been the kind of person to drop you like a sack of potatoes if you cross me. I don’t hold onto resentments and negative stuff, I just recognize that I don’t need you in my life. So — I tend to keep my Facebook to the bare minimum of friends and family. I’ve been on it for maybe 3 years and have 64 friends (18 are family and about 10 are really Johnny’s friends). A few people from my past (I’m talking like 2nd grade was the last contact) have found me through there and I just have no interest in them. I don’t hate them and I’m not dumping them out of animosity, but to me it’s no different than adding some random person who happened to bag my groceries. We aren’t connected to each lives, and I don’t want to bridge the gap to work to make that happen. I’d rather devote my time and effort (b/c you’re right.. we live once!!) to the small group that I already DO have existing relationships with! I don’t want to cultivate 300 acquaintances through Facebook, just because we once sat at the same lunch table.
Great entry! It’s my first time here (thank you, Twitter!). I’ve marked it as a favorite so I can come back and read more later.
You said:
“I have no trouble expressing emotions with my kids and husband. But pretty much anyone else, I rarely feel comfortable saying anything close to resembling real feelings.”
Me too! I can do it via written word without much difficulty. Verbalizing is another thing altogether. And my best friend showers me with positive reinforcement — almost to the point where I’m wondering if she’s sincere or just programmed that way. Either way, it makes me uncomfortable.
When we exchange gifts (Christmas and b-days and the “just because”), I don’t want to open them in front of her. Not sure what that’s about. Yet, I always include sentimental cards with hand-written notes of deep expression that I can’t bring myself to say to her out loud. Her cards (on rare occasions when she gives them) are joking in nature.
Funny that we both (my friend and I) frequently talk about the narcissists in our lives and how we deal (or not) with them. We both know this is a big issue. We both have cases where we haven’t had a problem with breaking such relationships clean. But we also have cases where we CAN’T escape other narcissists (in both cases, parental figures). I also think, for us, the reasons are both fear and/or rejection by the persons who haunt us. It doesn’t really make much sense. Does it?
I have addiction issues as well. I won’t go into the smoking — considering your current endeavers. I’m only just considering to consider THINKING about trying to quit.
Dare I go into my latest Facebook encounter of my friend from middle and high school (some 22 years later)? No real falling out ever. We just grew apart. But she was mentally ill and tried to take her life many times. Her father (she only told me NOW) was a sociopath! When we were friends in our youth, I only knew him to have manic depression (bipolar). That was the least of it! Freaked me out b/c I used to sleep at her house a lot.
Yes, she was institutionalized a great deal and continues to have mental illness. I think she’s harmless. She told me she has OCD, which kind of surprised me. I knew of her other issues (schizophrenia and bipolar). On Facebook she writes, almost exclusively, about Sufi/Islamic faith that she practices. It’s a bit strange considering she was a New England protestant and I was a CBPF (Catholic by parental force). I told her in email that I’m not a believer, but I respect others’ beliefs. That is true.
Yet, she almost exclusively posts on those Sufi things on Facebook to the point where I am embarrassed/uncomfortable. I rememeber learning about some early origins of OCD stemming from religion. So I kind of get it and think it’s her best mechanism for success. I try to roll with it, but I did end up “hiding” her facebook entries. In email, she’s not like that. She NEVER mentions her religious beliefs. We share honest stuff (I think).
I digress. You provoked a lot of thoughts. I’m a bit of a psych buff from reading and college (went to school as an older person) and my addiction to narcissitic criminals (OJ, Scott Peterson, Drew Peterson). I constantly look for the “why’s” in behavior. But I’ll stop now
you know i get this. we sure as hell ought to tell people more often how we feel. and we hate doing it sometimes because it makes us vulnerable. i just hope you do a better job than i do….”uh, i think you’re really cool….”
I love me some eeCards–great use of them in this post!
I also have a very addictive personality (bet you could never tell that about me, huh?? LOL!), so I definitely relate to this post.When it comes to sharing feelings though– I have to say that I’m probably on the other side of the spectrum. I’m notorious for giving cards to people to tell them how much I admire them. Or to write an unexpected letter just to say I’m thinking about them. Or just walking up to someone and giving a big hug. I think it’s because I’ve had so much loss in my life at such a young age though. I constantly worry that I will never see someone again–that my one chance to tell them how I feel will never come again. Morbid, I know, LOL…but there really is “No Day But Today”.
That being said– I think you’re brilliant and if I had your phone number, I would totally call to tell you!!!
I have NO problem expressing tons of affection to my kids, and I think I’m affectionate with hubby (but he doesn’t seem to think nearly enough). To most other people, I have a horrible time picking out cards because they all seem too mushy. I don’t know why–I’m just not feeling it–even though I often care about these people in a way. But I can’t be a hypocrite. I KNOW I’m warm and fuzzy–but only towards very few people. And I don’t know why.
Another addict here lol. Books, Movies, TV, Blogging, MySpace, Facebook I’m afraid to go on twitter !
Kas
Thank you! I envy your ability to drop people if they cross you. Like I said, I’ve gotten better but I get all caught up in the analyzing and then there’s that damn carrot! I don’t have a whole bunch of these folks bogging me down but those that do are big ones. I try to just limit my contact with them since I can’t seem to cut it off completely…yet.
I completely understand not wanting to connect to everyone you’ve ever known on FB, that’s why it really didn’t even register as anything but a little odd when my former BFF dumped me (as opposed to just never connecting in the first place). Most of my FB is current friends, family, co-workers and even some blogging buddies. There are some blasts from the past but that’s just kind of fun to see what they’re up to once in a while. Mostly I just love the bumper stickers and other nonsense! Life is never too short for that.
Thanks! Yikes, that may actually be a FB friend that I could bring myself to drop. Of my FB friends that are from the past, we generally just keep it pretty casual. I don’t think I’d want to get reconnected to someone I hadn’t seen in 20+ years if the issues were that serious. I’m a psych major myself, back in school as an “older person” and narcissists are fascinating to me as well…also due to N parents.
That’s, right! I forgot about it but that was a great post! Feelings….
Awww..thanks Jess! I don’t think your “No Day But Today” code of living is morbid at all. It’s true. We all know we can all go at anytime and still most of us are more afraid of just telling a friend how great she is than we are of dying!? It makes no sense. Do you ever get a negative reaction to your openness? I’m guessing not…
BTW…did you catch Mraz on Idol? I have to see him this summer. So damn sexy, and I won’t be afraid to tell him!
Yes, yes, yes… you definitely DO need to catch Mraz live!! It’s amazing & the hotness is something you have to see first hand to believe. I want to go hang out with him on his avocado farm and surf. Granted, I don’t know how to surf, but maybe he’d be willing to teach me:)
Re: negative reaction to openness– Um, I’m going to say no. I’m sure I freak some people out, LOl, but most of the people in my life either A) feel the same as me that life is too short to mince words and B) are so pleasantly surprised to receive and/or hear something nice. My mom raised me to write thank you letters, and it’s something that I still do– the first time I wrote one to my mother-in-law, I thought she was going to cry. I think we need to get back to the old way of doing some things. Although I am really thankful that social media brought us together, hehe:)
You’re right about the potential drop. But I do think she is harmless — weird, but harmless! I do find facebook a medium that encourages more casual exchanges, which is great for me. Sometimes Twitter (which I’m fairly new at) breeds more intimate exchanges. Go figure!
I like twitter for the new people I meet. I’ve found jobs from folks there, great sites and blogs, and learned a lot.
Oh yeah, mushy cards are NOT for me. They just sound so contrived and fake. I usually go for the fun, sarcastic ones. Those fit me perfectly! I too am warm and fuzzy underneath the tough shell. I’m working on getting rid of the shell, or at least taking it down once in a while.
LOL – I don’t blame you – step away from the computer!!!