"It is in our nature as human beings, to be somewhat egocentric, and because of this natural inclination, we often make things about us, when in truth, they really have little or nothing to do with us at all. It's so hard to get a broad perspective when the center of our Universe is our own self."
This is something I posted on my Facebook wall the other day after a handful of people inexplicably unfriended me and/or blocked me on the social networking site. The three or four of you reading this are undoubtedly thinking at this point "why do you even care, it's just Facebook?" That's a great question. So let me try to answer as best I can. First, my job requires me to be actively engaged on the internet a lot of the time, and much of that time on Facebook. I think Mark Zuckerberg decided to call it that because he hoped it would be right there in my face, and it is. And sometimes, when it's in my face, my face happens to look like this, which is I suppose, how my face looked when my Social Fixer settings alerted me to the fact I had been-- duhn duhn duhn!-- unfriended by so-and-so. And so-and-so. And so-and-so, too. All are so-and-sos I know in real life: someone I went to high school with; someone I know well through theatre; the person who gave me my first driving lesson at age 14 with Axel F blaring from the car stereo speakers on a cold, Salt Lake City winter's night. So yeah, it bothered me I guess. And it's been happening quite a lot lately. I guess that's bothering me too. I think it's bothering me because I also think I know the reason why it's happening, and I think the reason sucks eggs. Big, stinky, pissed on and buried in the ground for a hundred years, rotten eggs.
When people I hardly know, or don't know at all, seem to have those rotten-egg-sucking reasons for distancing themselves from me on the social network, I more readily adopt the "meh, whatever" attitude and move on. It's when the I know you and you know me people do it that I lose perspective and my very human nature kicks in. The thing is, life has taught me some fundamental lessons, or truths, if you will-- socks will go missing in the dryer, no matter what brilliant scheme you devise for stopping the senseless disappearing act...if you don't like you, nobody else is going to either...pot roast is always better when it's slow cooked in a crock pot...there is a certain age at which you should stop wearing frosty blue eyeshadow-- and if I could just flip that human nature switch to the "off" position, I might be able to benefit from said lessons, quite a great deal more. Thankfully, my human nature seems to have taken a nap and I've been able to back off from the I-am-the-center-of-the-universe perspective for awhile. I realize that even if I am right and what I think is probably the impetus for the rash of unfriendings on Facebook turns out to be true, the choice to unfriend me over it by these people is really not about me at all. It's about them. Completely. And hence, that quote from my wall at the top of this post.
This realization has come in handy quite a lot over the last few days as the unfriendings continue, and also as I do my job on the Facebook pages and groups I admin. One of the groups I admin is called "You know you're from Tooele when..." It's a group I started a year ago as a sort of cathartic exercise. You see, my years in Tooele were not always pleasant or kind, in fact, some of them were nothing short of misery and torment. And yet, there are still some good memories in that little town nestled on the west side of the Oquirrh Mountains, and that's what I was looking for. A collective memory of the good, the bad, and even the ugly. I've gotten that and more. Much, much more. Most of the time, it's the good. Rarely, the bad. And only once or twice, the ugly. A very emotionally charged, and slightly difficult to decipher, message was posted to the wall of the group last night. It was of the ugly variety. After reading and re-reading a few times, I realized that this person was very hurt over a perceived wrong that occurred when some members of the group who were in the same graduating class of Tooele High, met for lunch recently. I also realized that this lunch was occurring while a classmate who planned to attend lay on his death bed. So in addition to the normal emotional baggage carried into these sorts of post high-school social gatherings, there would be an added bag of grief.
The poster felt she overheard something rude being said at the luncheon, and that she perceived the treatment she received from at least one person in attendance, to be cold and unkind. She was angry and hurt by it. She is normally a very positive person and it was obvious she was having a moment. I decided to leave it alone and let the group respond when and if they felt it was appropriate. And respond they did. The posts in the thread make it clear that based solely on individual perceptions, the original poster and those responding attended different luncheons. My intuition tells me that the hurt stems from unresolved conflicts in the past or old hurts from high school that have still not been let go of, even if they do not directly involve those called out in the post. I could be wrong, but that's my sense.
I am quite a bit younger than these folks, they don't know me. But, in thinking about perceptions and communication, and how both of those things significantly impact the world around us, how we view ourselves and others, and what becomes our "truth," I find myself thinking about my own experiences, particularly those in my younger years, as they have inevitably contributed to the adult I have become. I think about my own nature as an imperfect human being, my ego and id the compass and map by which I navigate the world I live in.
Not many people realize that I am hearing impaired. As a young person, I learned to down play this fact, because whenever I would ask someone to speak up or repeat themselves, they would make fun of me. Sometimes they would ask if I was stupid or slow. It was in middle school that I started trying to adapt and stop the teasing. Whether it was consciously decided upon or not, one piece of the adaptation strategy, was to not actively participate in conversations with my peers in group settings. This included classroom conversations. Often I would hang on the periphery of the group to be near my peers, and to sort of feel like a part of the group. But of course, I would not actively engage. This had unintended consequences. Because I was not actively engaged in those conversations, I obviously couldn't hear clearly what was actually being said. This led to my mind filling in the conversational gaps. Often, it filled the gaps in with what sounded an awful lot like gossip and mean comments about me. I became somewhat paranoid and withdrawn. As an adult I realized the sad truth, that much of the garbage I THOUGHT I overheard really was never said. It doesn't change my experience, or my very skewed perception from that time, but it does give me the opportunity to learn from it and to let some of that old hurt go.
Because I am hearing impaired, I often don't realize people are speaking to me and therefore, I might not answer them. This, I have come to learn through re-connecting with old class mates(thank you Facebook), happened quite a lot in high school, apparently. Most people back then never bothered to confront me and ask me why I didn't answer people, they just assumed I was intentionally ignoring them. I was perceived as an offish, stuck up girl who thought she was too good to talk to her classmates and didn't have any problem outright ignoring people. Not a nice picture. This sometimes still happens today, but not often. If you (yes, you) have ever felt intentionally ignored or dismissed by me, please accept my sincere apologies. I hope that any hurt I've caused anyone, whether because of silly misunderstandings or other reasons, can be let go of.
So where I'm going with this is that maybe, probably, what we perceive to be truth, simply isn't. Often what we think we hear, regardless of the soundness of our hearing capabilities or lack thereof, is not what was actually said. People who seem to be trying to hurt us, really aren't. They aren't even thinking about us at all. We aren't even a blip on their emotional or cognitive radars. Their behavior is fueled by their own experience and their current reality. This place is expensive, I hope I have enough money in my checking account to cover my bill...If these people knew how much medication I am on just to be able to function and not fall apart at this thing they wouldn't want to have anything to do with me. God, I hate being like this...I hope my husband found a job today, I can't deal with another collector...I hope we don't lose the house...I'm so worried about my daughter, she's so miserable and depressed. Please God, help her want to keep on fighting, to keep on living. I don't think I could take it if she killed herself. It almost never has anything to do with us and we really are not the center of the Universe. How liberating. Thank [insert deity/higher power of your choice here]!
