Gory, Gory, Social Media

Well, people, it had to happen some day. I made it through 13 years of public school, followed by four years of higher education, and 10 plus years working in the public sector as an unremarkable individual of simple tastes, less than heroic acts, and a majorly anal retentive personality only to be blasted to public acclaim as a 'know it all' with a God complex.

Going about my normal daily activities, engaging in email, facebook, and twitter I posted an incidental and humorous note regarding a co-worker who asked me "WWLD? :-)" the other day. While she was dead serious in her posed question, and while I was well aware of the meaning of the reference, I just smiled back to myself and provided her with a detailed, well thought out solution to her dilemma for which she was sincerely appreciative. I did not contrary to popular belief pound my chest, emit a gutteral 'Aargh!', or experience any delusions of grandeur over her annotation.

I did not for one moment feel like God, desire to be God, or counter myself to Him as anyone's saviour. Yet my 128 character (153, including spaces) bubble somehow conveyed the following message (which I must tell you has been preserved in its original state for your entertainment):

That's is offensive in so many ways , for starters the comparison using that silly acronym of the LORD to you , is almost sacrilegious. Second your acceptance of the "compliment" because of your knowledge and expertise, however you worded it , is a testament to your superior attitude to the rest of us. Believe it or not that was not a compliment , it appears you where made a joke of as portraying a know it all !

I have to admit there was some shock value at first that anyone who purported to be a "friend" in polite society would have the guts to post something like that on my page. My disgruntlement quickly faded to sympathy for the poster, because in their attempt to make me look bad or define for me how I come across to them (and based on their comment they assume to everyone else I know), they only managed to sell the lackluster image of their own abject persona to the entire universe via the Internet.

I opted not to levy a personal attack right there amidst our social circle, initially because I did not want to dignify the remarks with any kind of response. I later decided, however, it would be at best poor sportsmanship on my part to beat them down further after the bang-up job they had already done of debasing themselves. I feel ashamed for that individual to have exposed their character, their lack of refinement, and ultimately their failure to command good grammar, punctuation, and spelling skills. This mostly saddens me because we're not talking about random teens here in a LEET-speak environment. This is a group of educated, professional, 30- to 40-somethings who generally care about how they present themselves.

The bottom line is that this person made a whole to-do about nothing anyway and made themselves look far worse in comparison to any picture they could have painted of me. They completely mistook and misrepresented a social media sound bite, designed for entertainment purposes only, and tried to build it into something way greater... no pun intended... than it ever was. And for what? So people who know me can be swayed by something that reads like it was written by a child trying to use vocabulary they do not comprehend?

As 'honest' Abe once opined: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." And in case you are wondering, Abe didn't have a God complex; he was just a smart guy.

Say It Isn't So... No Really

One of my hobbies, unsurprisingly, is the observance of human behavior and interaction. Admittedly for me, it is like a train wreck you just cannot look away from. Meaning I don't TRY to analyze people - their words, actions, interactions - it just so happens I can't help myself.

Do you have ANY idea how difficult that makes it for me to forge and maintain relationships?

One of the first things I make a point to do when I meet someone I can hold a conversation with for more than five minutes without losing interest is to explain to them in the most non-threatening way I possibly can that I will break down everything they say and do... after all I don't want them coming into a friendship unarmed.

Maybe that seems harsh, but it's just reality. People in my life learn really quickly that they may not like what I have to say but that they never have to wonder what I'm thinking. Well, in rare cases I wait to be asked what I am thinking - and even those times are in what I refer to as the 'courting' stage of the friendship.

How do you know I like you - I mean really know that there is enough substance there to entertain me for more than a few minutes at any sitting and that you've become important to me? It's when I stop hesitating to tell you how I feel about something that is highly charged emotionally, politically, or socially. It's by then I feel completely safe.

But I'm not going to kid you or myself on this - there is really very little I won't speak my mind on with someone (even at my job, to my own detriment at times). But in that tender getting to know all about you phase, I decided a better approach was to lay it all out on the table in my online - we'll call it 'dating' playing along with the theme here though that's a misnomer to a degree - profile.

I figure if my new friend is a) desperate enough to be looking at say yahoo! personals and b) can make it through my profile comments without deciding I'm an outright bitch (I can curse, right?) and they still want to contact me... well, I'm about as free to be me as two testicles floating around in a pair of boxers.

Sorry - I don't have a pair to grab when I feel like it so I tend to talk about 'the boys' a lot. Note: This is absolutely no reflection on where my mind generally is, by the way. I'm a very passionate person in all that I do - how I care for my family, how I approach my job, and how I love my partners. Don't get me wrong - sex is amazing... when you do it right. (Don't worry I'm not about to name names - good or bad.)

But I digress.

In building this two-dimensional version of myself, hoping to run off weirdos and sex fiends, and to clearly communicate I am in this for the long haul I include things like... well:

[I decided not to include the explicit verbiage I initially planned - but can it suffice to say I am 110% c-l-e-a-r in my expectations? I know women will trust me when I say this but there are likely men who would want to argue the point.]

Now, maybe you are one of those people who can't read between the lines - I get that - you are the reason I have to write things like this to get my message across! Heck maybe I suck at communicating. But I just don't think anyone can say that I beat around the bush about what I want and don't want. 

So it always comes back then to this nightmare of sociological hell to which I subject myself.

I ask were you just hoping I made all that sh!t up? Maybe you thought you could convince me to change my mind?

Or was it that you thought I was stupid enough to get in bed with you and then you could break the news?!

My life would be so much easier I imagine (I can only guess really) if I lowered... maybe lessened is a better choice of word... my expectations. But you know what - I don't have to! Because I am worth everything I ask for from a relationship.

I just wish people would listen to me when I talk, hear what I SAY and not what they want to hear, and if you're not willing to live up to those expectations, just f**king say so.

There are plenty more options out there. I know I'm only going to find quality in quantity - and you're just one no closer to a yes, babe.