Sunday Reflection

As a good friend reminded me – and people on my Facebook page –

The divisiveness, the hate and the rhetoric has been there a long time.  Trump is just the catalyst that brought it into the bright light of day and made it acceptable.          (thanks ButchDK)

Last night I had to remove a nasty comment – from my own brother – on my Facebook page and block him.  While it made me both angry and sad to have to go to that extreme, I am just sick and tired of listening / reading the ignorant remarks of the minority few that still remain tolerant of hate and supportive of Trump.  And I came to the decision after some long thought, that I would not start deleting people from my life who act in this fashion.  Thus, any and all of those individuals continue to promote and invigorate this hateful rhetoric on any social media platform that I am part of and who either comment to me or directly promote this bullshit, will be deleted, erased, removed, unfriended, unfollowed and otherwise prohibited from communicating with me or across my pages.  Period.  End of Story.  I now have a ZERO tolerance policy on this issue.

Now, let’s turn our thoughts toward Spain.  The Barcelona terrorist bombing…I was very, very shaken by this bombing incident.  As many of you known I was very much involved with a young Spanish/American woman who resided in Barcelona a couple of years ago.  When I heard the breaking news of the bombing my heart jumped into my throat.  Was she okay?  Did it happen right near her, where I thought it happened?  I was very concerned and while I no longer had contact with her, I still care very deeply.  You can’t just turn off love…it doesn’t work that way.  So, I swallowed my Butch pride (and that’s a BIG fucking swallow) and emailed her at her work account, asking if she was alright.

Two days went by, no word.  I would tear up; get choked up when I thought about her.  She has this really vulnerability about her and I know that this kind of thing is very frightening to her.  I could only imagine how scared she was.  I kept trying to not think about her or the bombing…but it was all over US television and in my heart.  I understand that I chose to not be part of her life – or have her be part of mine – when things were “over” so to speak, because I just couldn’t do the “friends zone” stuff with her.  I would never have been able to move on and love another.  She had burrowed deeply into my thoughts, broken down my walls, crashed through the barriers and become someone I didn’t wish to let go of ever.  In the end I had to because moving on was what she wanted, and was doing, and I needed to do it also.  I know I’ve never talked about this, because it hurt too much until recently.  While I will always have space in my heart for her, I have moved on now.

She did answer my email.  She’s fine and yes, the bomb went off right in front of a business that she would frequent daily.  She was lucky not to have been there at that time. But she was fine even though it was very scary for her.  I thanked God, then I thanked her for responding and left it at that.  It was extremely hard for me to not want to talk to her further, to ask how she has been and how things were going in her life these days.  But I can’t know, I just can’t.  I need to focus on what I can have in this life; on those great things in store for me, and on the woman who loves me.

Terrorists are active around our world.  The past week of news stories happening around the world proves this.  Here in America we are engaged in internal strife and being divided as a people.  Abroad ISIS and the Jhadists are employing truck bombs and IED’s on civilian populations – such as in Barcelona.  It’s sad.  It’s infuriating.  It’s frustrating.  All of these things affect us all.  That is the goal of these terrorists – whether foreign or homegrown.  They want disruption, fear and chaos.  And sadly they are achieving that goal in many ways right now.  When will it stop?

I’m going to turn off the television today.  I need a day of rest from all of the news coverage coming in from around the world.  I am going to go outside, taking the dogs with me, and work in my garden.  I will paint my porches. And I will focus on what his here in front of me that is peaceful, beautiful and good in my life.  I will plant a perennial flowering plant in memory of Corey today.  And I will try to heal some of my broken parts just a tiny bit.

Peace.  ~MB

 

 

 

 

Facebook Friends…or not…

I kind of lost a friend today over my inability to live up to her expectations of me as a friend.  I don’t quite understand exactly what happened, but she un-friended me after instant messaging me about my lack of paying attention to her; my lack of phone calls and texts and my lack of her feeling that I did not “care” enough.  I don’t quite get it.  I didn’t really even know this person outside of Facebook, not even a little bit.  She had requested FB friendship a while back and said we had common likes and thought we would make good friends, and she wanted to eventually move to the northeast and wanted info about the area.  Never had we actually met, never Skyped or converse on Yahoo messenger and never did we exchange intimate conversations on life.  And most of all never did we shake on it that we would be buddies until the end. 

I knew I might be onto a wacko when she said to me one time “no one ever sticks around, they are friends with me then they stop talking to me like I don’t exist…” or something to that idea.  That statement she made stuck with me in all of my contacts with her.  What was it about her that drove people away?  I think I figured it out today. It’s her demand that you have to pay attention to her in some way on a very regular basis.  Well, I am not the right person to deal with anyone who is needy…it’s just not part of my nature.  Personally I view overly needy people as a pain in my ass.  Now if someone close to me that I love dearly is in “need” that’s not the same as being “needy” in my opinion.  I am happy to help close friends and relatives and even the occasional general acquaintance out with words of kindness or wisdom, maybe a favor sometimes, but act “needy” and you become a pain in my ass. 

I understand that sometimes people reach out to others for comfort or support and I try to be those things as best that I can. But unless you are related to me or in my close inner circle of friends don’t be bringing me problems all the time that I cannot do a fucking thing to help you solve.  If you are unhappy in your relationship, your housing situation, your location, etc. then YOU have to find the solutions to those problems yourself.  Sure I am up to discuss them maybe once and give you my advice, but let’s not have the same conversation every time we talk or text. 

I friend people on FB out of commonalities, and who I think would be good people to follow, or who would be interesting to know about.  People are amazing creatures.  I value each one individually, and I see each one individually – even when part of one of the groups that I am a member of online. I’m not trying to build up a friends list of thousands, just a few handfuls of really good people; people who can with their life stories perhaps enrich my life experience.  I’d be happy if I managed to meet and have a couple of really good friends, but I am not about putting any expectations or limitations on anyone. 

This particular person who un-friended me would message me or call me once in a while and complain that I never called or texted just to see how her day was.  Honestly?  If I were that interested in furthering our long distance friendship I WOULD have done those things.  I was contented just to keep her on my “casual acquaintance” list and have sporadic interesting conversation with her.  But she wanted more (let me interject that this person is a fellow Butch and not anyone I would be romantically inclined towards)…and how was I supposed to KNOW that in advance of her sending me todays scathing messages and then abruptly jumping off my friend list without even waiting for my reply.  NO, I do NOT sit in front of my computer screen waiting for you to message me….I am busy, life is going on, I go on FB, do my thing and get up and walk away to do something else around my surroundings.  AND right now I am on fucking vacation and not interested in much more than my immediate friends and surroundings!  JEEEEZUS! 

Yes, I may leave FB on my computer screen, running in the background usually, but that doesn’t mean that I am actually ON there.  People…get a life.  Facebook is not the end-all of social interaction – although to some I guess it IS.  To me it is NOT a main feature of my social life.  I enjoy staying in touch with family, friends, YouTubers, fellow group members in various groups, but that in no way mean that I actually TALK, TEXT OR MESSAGE any of them daily….I just follow them and when I am intrigued or the feeling hits me I may initiate conversation or an interaction of some kind. 

In other words, I can be a Facebook “friend” but not your best buddy.  Being a best buddy to me takes time and some common ground.  It takes a person who I truly feel is equal to my own thought processes, who gets me and is as non-demanding as I am.  Who I can reach out to when needed like if I have a question that I think they may have some experience with and could answer for me, and yet who I can leave alone without them feeling that I am somehow abandoning them through non-contact. 

A best buddy knows he/she is a best buddy without even trying or asking to be, but knowing that they just ARE.  I have few “best” buddies, although I do have a good handful of those I would call my buds very easily.  They are those with whom conversation flows easily, who laugh at my bad jokes, who tell me theirs, and who share some common bonds or threads of life.  I like the ease with which I can have these people in my life without making demands on them, without them making demands on me, but with both of us having mutual respect and understanding that life for all of us is sometimes fast, sometimes, slow and many times just happening as we go along.  Sometimes we connect, and sometimes we don’t…but always we managed to catch up somewhere along the way and stay connected to each other’s lives through time and space. 

If you are one who friends me on Facebook or elsewhere online be aware that I am not someone who is going to become a great friend and confidant in any kind of quick fashion.  I am very wary of people, and with good reason (see crazy shit above).  I’ve encountered some real nut jobs online and even met a couple of them in real life and they were even more insane than I could have imagined.  (Another story altogether).   I am careful and if I sense someone is becoming a stalker or has some deranged story of woe and who is going to try to drag me into it or down with them, I am quicker than a rattlesnake to strike that “un-friend” button, change my number and be part of history.

 I’m not one to put up with bullshit, I don’t want to read post after post of your hating on your ex, your blaming your ex for everything, or how horrible your life is since your ex fucked you over (or just fucked you period).  Maybe you think I am being mean, but I’m not, I’m being truthful, and honest. People who tend to do this constantly I first will just “hide” their posts, then upon my periodic “review” of my friends list I will check their page and if they are still up to the cynical postings I will then just remove them from my friends list, especially if it’s just someone I friended along the way over mutual friends or mutual likes, but it never panned out to be much more than a sort  of anonymous FB friendship with no real communication or sharing of ideas, experiences or likes.   I tell it like it is for me and I don’t try to pull any punches, or put anything out there to lead anyone to think anything different.  Not every one of my own posts will be happy go lucky, nor interesting to everyone on my friends list.  But I do avoid going into long (and boring…the longer it is the more boring it is on FB!) monologues of my misfortunes and woes with my ex’s….something I think is just stupid to be posting about.  I want to shake the poster and say “get with it, no one wants to hear or know about your shit…TMI!!! TMI!!! “  If you are thinking tons of negative thoughts search for something positive and post it…THAT is more interesting than hearing about your failed relationship and how you’ll never make it without her – or worse how you think she’s a piece of shit whore who used you…THAT’S crap. 

So everyone who is reading this has some of these kinds of people on their Facebook friend lists.  It’s just the way it is when we all start to intermingle and we let people we don’t really know into these little windows of our lives via Facebook (or other social apps).  I am sure you can see various friends from your own lists flash before your eyes as you were reading my descriptions of issues I have personally had with this platform above.  Do yourself a favor, don’t put up with less than you are worth….pick and choose and it’s your prerogative to be as picky as you want!  It’s your page! Own it!