Facebook Cull – To delete or not to delete?

I’ve been a Facebook junkie for a few years now and along the way have reconnected with old friends, found family members who have relocated overseas, caught up with my current group of friends and work colleagues.

I used to love catching up with everyone’s news. Seeing their photos, laughing at their funny statuses yet at the same time I have sort of been left feeling that I am snooping in their person lives. Why do we tend to tell the world so much? Why do we Facebook everything? I also feel that Facebook has become a page where everyone tends to brag about things that they have purchased? Its weird to me. I tend to have more friends write on my Facebook wall to say hi rather than ringing me up and saying HI. Is this what the world has come to? A life of no longer communicating using the telephone or meeting up with a friend face to face.

I’ve noticed lately that a lot of these “friends” tend to come across so negative and so bitter and it’s bringing me down severely. What have we come to where the only thing that we “report” on is something negative, bad and miserable?

Then there are the other friends who feel the need to comment on everything that you have to state and have to better you. For example I would say something like “So freezing and windy in Melbourne” and the said type of people have to bigger themselves and better you by replying with “Well not as cold as it is in Ballarat, you need to move to where I live to really say you are cold” I know its petty what I am describing but it gets so tiresome as it’s the same bullshit over and over again. Then I am made to feel like what I have to say is pointless to you.

Then there is the type of situation where one might say “Geez I feel so sick this cold is killing me” and the response is “Well I’m so sick I had to have a week off work” I want to scream “Did I ask you? This is about ME not about YOU! Facebook freaks have become so self absorbed and so narcissistic and I’m over it.

It also seems, well it’s blatantly obvious that I have a Facebook stalker. We shall call her Mary. Everything I say or do she has to comment, she has to compete and be better than me when I mention something and if I post a photo then within hours she too posts a similar photo.

A usual occurrence in The Dishevelled Happiness household is I will write something on Facebook and within minutes The Husband will look over at me and mention that my serial stalker pest Mary has replied to my post and focused it all on her. It infuriates The Husband so much that he gets very vocal about it and he sometimes goes onto my Facebook page and deletes her reply immediately. I always tell The Husband to just ignore her and it will hopefully go away but it actually never does!

I’m starting to feel that Mary is a tad obsessed with my life and me and she is harmless but it’s becoming very annoying and I want to cull her and a few other people but its finding the courage to do so I guess.

Once upon a time everyone was upbeat and happy on Facebook but now everyone just seems to be boring, negative, abusive and dull. Here I was thinking that I was the only one thinking like this and maybe I was over analysing things but funnily enough a few of my other friends, family and co-workers have all said the exact same thing.

I really want to pluck the courage and start culling these people but at the same time I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. I am usually very upfront and matter of fact about things yet I’m feeling gutless about actually doing this. So I guess I am being a hypocrite about the whole thing.

So I’m left pondering to delete or not to delete?

DH

xoxo

My happiness equals your misery!

I’ve mentioned The Husband in a few blog entries and I know you must all want to vomit as I go on and on and on about how much I love him, yeah its sickening I know but for me marrying my husband was the best thing and decision I have ever made in my 40 years of life!

Its funny though that me meeting him and marrying him so quickly and so soon into our relationship has caused so much havoc and chaos to my so called friends. I think about this a lot and I know that it subconsciously eats at me.

Let me explain without going into it too much but the lead up to my wedding day saw me losing a few friends along the way. At the time I kept telling myself that my friendships with these people was, like the saying goes: “For a reason, a season or a lifetime” But now 2 years after the fact I’m left scratching my head as to why my happiness made me lose my friends.

The Husband is a wonderful human being and all my family tell me how lucky I am to have nabbed such an amazing human being. The husband is no angel, and not perfect by all means. The reality is that no one, not one of us is perfect and angelic. No one! But he is what I classify as a “good guy”. The Husband makes me so happy, he makes me feel alive and there is no better feeling than marrying your best friend who knows absolutely everything about you. For the first time ever I am in a real relationship.

We have our ups and we have our downs but we communicate about everything! And when I say everything I mean everything! We understand one another and we are on the same life path. We are headed on the same direction and want the same things out of life.

Lately though I have been thinking about my dear friend Adelaide. Adelaide and I had been friends for 20 years. We had run muck together, we had partied hard together, we had done so many crazy and fun things together and I remember being so excited going out for coffee with her to tell her that I had finally met my soul mate. We were sitting outdoors at a local cafeteria sipping our coffee and deep down she knew I had something to tell her and I think she knew that I had massive news to tell her and it was about meeting a man.

I remember leaning over to touch her arm to tell her that I was madly and utterly and totally in love with a man and I distinctly remember her jolting at my touch and sort of pulling herself back from me. Let me add that yes I am one of those touchy feely people who tend to touch people, not inappropriately, but I tend to touch people to show my affection towards them. I am not a sexual pervert and I do not inappropriately touch people, but I have always touched people on their arm when I am speaking, or to show comfort, or to show affection. I have tried to not do it but I honestly think it’s my genetic makeup as I have always done it and it’s hard to stop myself. I am the type of person who wears their heart on their sleeve and shows the world how I am feeling. I think also that by touching someone when talking is me showing him or her that I care about them and I sympathise and care for them.

Back to what I was talking about, I have always touched Adelaide, as I said I had known her for 20 odd years and for the first time in 20 years she flinched when I touched her arm. I was startled at her reaction and felt my face flush out of sheer embarrassment as her actions made me feel like I had overstepped the mark or done something awful and invasive! I realised though that it was her defence mechanism taking over, as she didn’t like what I had just told her and boy I wasn’t wrong!

So off I opened my mouth and told her what had happened and that The Husband was going to be moving in with me. Her response was: “umm well I guess I’m happy for you” Yes that’s precisely what she said to me. That was it! No how did you meet him, how old he is all the normal questions two best friends ask one another. Nothing!

I sat there just staring at her and blinking my eyes in utter disbelief! I am not a quiet little mouse usually I usually roar like a lion and say what I think but I just knew then and there that this was probably going to be one of the last times I would ever see or speak to Adelaide. Our coffee outing was soon dissolved as Adelaide said that she had to run. I stood up and hugged her goodbye and she flinched and stiffened up yet again (and we ALWAYS hugged and kissed one another hello and goodbye for 20 years) and watched my best friend walk away. She didn’t even turn around. She held her back straight, shoulders back and almost ran down the street.

Once The Husband had moved in and settled I wanted her to meet him. I knew our friendship was over but I thought I just had to give it one more try. You can’t just let a friendship die in the arse like that and do nothing about it. It took me a good 5 months to finally coax her into coming over for dinner. Countless emails, phone calls, text messages and even going into her workplace to invite her over. I felt like I was stalking her but I didn’t want a man whom she had never met ruin our friendship. I will give her credit she did come over stayed for dinner only and again almost ran out of my home. I think she thought that if she didn’t come over I would continue to stalk her!

I remember that I closed the door and said to The Husband: ‘That is it! I have tried and tried and tried with her and she only stays for an hour and then runs out of here?” The Husband tried everything and he constantly encouraged me to get in touch with her and I listened to him but sadly she dodged me.

I sent her a wedding invite and she was one of the last people to RSVP. She finally accepted only to have us pay a shitload of money for her to attend and then she had the audacity to not even show up. I remember looking for her during our church service and half way through being married I realised that Adelaide and I no longer had a friendship and this man standing in front of me sharing the altar was my only true friend.

I’ve bumped into her a few times in the local shopping mall and down the street and she will only speak to me if I approach her or greet her first and she holds a sheer look of dread on her face when she sees me. Our eyes have met across a crowded supermarket and I know she has seen me yet she turns her face away!

I’m over trying with her and I’m over being the instigator of trying to have a friendship. I don’t know what I have done wrong that has her avoiding me but my attitude is that if I have done something and you don’t tell me what I have done wrong then how am I to know what you are cross about.

If you ever read this Adelaide and you work out that I am talking about you all I have to say to you is that I am sorry that we are no longer friends but at the end of the day if you think back to our friendship I was always the one that invited you out, I was always the one who invited you into my home you never ever, ever reciprocated and I hope that one day you remember me and remember that I was a good friend to you!

What’s really sad is that some of our mutual friends have all told me that she will die an old and lonely woman and as much as I agree with that statement I also cringe as deep down she was once upon a time my dearest of dearest friends.

I have more so-called friends like Adelaide who have dumped me all because I got married and I guess the same thing applies to them. My happiness equals your misery!

DH

xoxo

Growing up me...

Growing up I was always considered a bit "rough" around the edges and in a sense I was a tomboy who loved girlie things. Ironic huh? I loved nothing more than climbing trees with my older brother, playing cricket, throwing the Frisbee and then playing in my room full of dolls. I remember my favourite doll Drowsy whom I refused to be separate from. My uncle Gee had bought her back from the States as a gift. I climbed trees with Drowsy wrapped in my baby sling made out of my jumper. (Who would have thought 30 years later that baby slings would be the fashion statement for the yummy mummies and I could have made millions if I had made the prototype!)

I digress..I was raised to have an opinion and to say what I wanted to say but manners were the most important thing. To compress or zip my 40 years of existence into one blog entry I can safely say that I was and still am an opinionated, foul mouthed, loud but polite woman!

My entire teens and twenties I was unsure of myself, I felt like a loner and secluded myself from the world as I realised that by being on my own no one could harm me. being like this hardened me up and I had massive imaginary brick walls surrounding me. I kept people and by people I mean everyone at arms length and subconsciously had the "Don't fuck with me" attitude plastered all over my face. I felt different as I didn't like the "boy-bands" that my friends liked to listen to I liked faster, harder, louder, angry music. I liked to read whilst my friends liked to go to the mall and try to pick up boys. I liked to watch European movies whilst my friends wanted to go clubbing. I was (and still am) obsessed with drinking copious amounts of coffee whilst my friends drank themselves stupid on Midori and Lemonade.

I found it extremely difficult to make friends with like minded people, which in turn left me secluding myself from my friends and kind of shutting myself off from them as I had NOTHING in common with them! There was not ONE single thing that could make my friends bond with me. Don't get me wrong, these friends at the time were lovely, truly lovely people but we, or I, was on another planet far removed from them. I was "different" from them and no matter what I did I couldn't fit in no matter how much I wanted to. Which in turn left me feeling odd. I was the freak. Which then made me angry. Angry at my friends, angry with my family, angry with the world.

Looking back now that i have hit 40 it has made me realise that just because my "oddness" or "quirkiness" wasn't relate able to my family and friends that was why I was so angry. Such a wasted energy being angry all the time but alas my anger is what has bought me to where I am at now I guess. I always ask myself if I had the power to go back in time, knowing what I know now, would I really and truly change a thing? I really think I wouldn't. The mistakes I have made, the lonely days I spent, the angry days I had have made me who I am and for the first time in 40 years I finally feel comfortable in my skin. I am happy with who I am, who I have become and I feel liberated. I feel alive.

I believe a lot of being finally comfortable and happy within has got to do with finally meeting the love of my life and marrying my husband. For once someone other than my sibling and parents loves me for me and there is no more empowering feeling than being loved unconditionally, totally and wholly. My husband whom I will refer to as "The Husband" from hereon in stimulated my mind, broke down my barriers and stripped me raw emotionally and for that I feel so blessed and happy that he found me and chose me.

I'm 40 and finally an adult, I best rephrase that, I was an adult when I hit 18 but now at 40 I truly feel like an adult with a voice and with a voice that matters, but you know even now at this age I miss my baby doll Drowsy. I hope that I can find another Drowsy when and if I ever have a baby girl so she can have as much fun and adventure as I did with her. Its funny how something so silly like a Drowsy doll encompassed my childhood and to this day still takes me back to happy childhood, carefree times.

DH

xoxo