After the week I have had I now see how social media can work to the detriment of a person-I being that person. When you find someone online for a reason (I hunt for writers for a website) you pick someone with great writing skills. That doesn't mean your personalities will ever be enough for a real friendship. Most of the writers I have found are truly gifted artists who have talent that abounds. Some are tortured, some are happy and some just write for joy. Some capture you and you think in your mind, I could be friends with this person in real life. Of course that is not always the case as I have learned this week. The budding friendships can come back to haunt you and turn out so wrong that it upsets your life balance. Then the analysis starts after the argument grows so big it takes on a life of itself. You end up blocking people and defriending and slinging the shit around. All because of the failure of both parties to try and make friendships where they don't exist. I am as guilty as the next person. Liking on facebook or other medias is not really liking the person necessarily but rather their quote or their news feed or their stories. Real friendship demands interplay in the real world and putting aside different personalities and talking honestly and recognizing when a budding acquaintance can become a friend. I tend to see only good and when I find myself in a situation where there is negativity and long held anger for every reason under the son I always try and remain in a good mood. Sometimes however, you must look at your own real truth and realize you judged wrongly and let someone in your life that is not suppose to be there. They teach you that they are there for some reason but it is not always a permanent one. This has been eye opening to me as I have so many friends that are so long term and I have never engaged in petty junior high bullying or fights in my entire 62 years. I am not a fighter but I now see a side of myself that I am actually proud of. I can defend myself and I can let go and let people dislike me. It hurts when it is happening but after the initial shock you start to feel better and know that your life is what you want it to be and realize that you have lived without fighting your whole life and it is better that way. Taking sides and getting involved in other people's business I can see rarely works out. I look at a person and if they pluses far outweigh their negatives I let the pluses win out and disregard the negative. I guess if it ever became such that the person was more negative than not I would talk to them to try and resolve rather than make an across the board decision to delete them from my life. But they have to have that ability and desire as well. People process differently and while they are processing I am moving ahead without them.
A life lesson really learned. Just goes to show one is never too old to understand life and friendships.