The path of my life is strewn with cowpats from the devil's own satanic herd.

EssexHebridean

Interesting comments here regarding people's reactions to things written online. Makes me think of a bit of a tale - now bear with me on this, I;ve not written this down before, come to think of it, I've hardly talked about it since then either......

At the tail end of 2008 a whole group of us were talking on Facebook a lot about some events we all used to attend some years back. This lead to a "show us yer photos" type moment and lots of pics got posted up featuring the whole group of us. I should mention that my, at the time, best friend had not long joined FB, and was not particularly active on there but she had invited me as a friend, which I was perfectly happy about obviously. She had all the "standard" info up there - full name, full DoB, schools attended, a couple of photos of her etc. I am slightly more reticent bear in mind - my name on there is not my full name, I don't have my full DoB up, and will not under any circumstances mention places of work or where I went to school. I, along with others, posted up pics. I was quite careful about it - they were all group shots, no individual ones. I loathe having my photo taken and go out of my way to avoid it so for me to put up shots of myself was a pretty big thing. A couple of days later, I, and another friend got a message via FB from my best friend (I'll call her K to make life simpler) asking us to take the individual shots down as she didn't like them. It was worded abruptly at best, TBH you could have called it rude, and I was quite upset by the tone of it. I responded calmly enough saying that I'd not realised I'd put any solo ones up, but I'd check and take them down, I also apologised. By a little later that evening it was all forgotten when the trouble in Bombay broke out - my parents in Law were in India at the time and, we were pretty certain were due in Bombay a few days previously. The following day I got a positively venomous email from K - claiming that by posting up those photos I had put her personal security at risk, and that if I was happy to post up photos of "her looking terrible" then I clearly wasn't a true friend. This was sent to my work email address. To say I was stunned would be to put it mildly. As I said, I had only put up group pics and I saw them as shots of a group of friends having a good time - there were a couple of howlers of me in there but frankly I knew everyone would enjoy a good laugh at them so I gritted my teeth and posted. I was literally in tears at my desk. I waited a while to gather my thoughts, and then managed (lord knows how) to write a fairly reasonable response, stating pretty calmly that that had not been my intention to upset or offend, that I didn't feel I had affected anyone's personal security in any way - indeed, I'm possibly more conscious of security issues than most people - and that I was extremely hurt by her accusations. The email I got back on that was, if anything, even more vitriolic. She said she "Should have known I would over-react" (in that case, why not word things differently in the first place?) and brought up various other issues. She ended by grudgingly saying that as she;d now made her feelings clear, it could be brushed under the carpet and forgotten........! I felt differently, and pointed out that, hang on a minute, her comments had been hurtful in the extreme, and that I was afraid we really needed to talk it through not just "forget about it". Well, the emails went back and forth for a few days - the short end to the story is that we haven't spoken since. I have long since come to the conclusion that she was clearly looking for a chance to end the friendship - which is disappointing. I haven't a clue why. With the benefit of hindsight I can now see slightly more clearly that it was always a slightly one sided friendship - it was mainly about her, what she wanted, what she felt, and that a lot of the time my problems, feelings and frankly, my life were largely unimportant. It doesn't change the fact that I miss the friendship like mad, but it has helped me to come to terms with it I guess.

Not sure if that will help anyone else - what I'm trying to say is that people do have very strange and apparently irrational reactions to things posted online - I'm careful to make sure that environments online in which I am identifiable cannot be tracked easily back to here although I appreciate that anyone wanting to can fairly easily identify me by a bit of detective work from here. I am also careful to never identify family or friends on here, and I can honestly say that pretty much al of your are exactly the same.

pepe2008

Thats why I avoid Facebook like the plague!

EssexHebridean

I like FB Pepe - it has allowed me to keep in touch with, and get back in touch with people and that's really useful. In fairness, I suspect the situation I refer to above was more to do with the individual involved and less to do with FB!

ZTD

pepe2008 wrote: »

Thats why I avoid Facebook like the plague!

EssexHebridean wrote: »

I like FB Pepe - it has allowed me to keep in touch with, and get back in touch with people and that's really useful. In fairness, I suspect the situation I refer to above was more to do with the individual involved and less to do with FB!

You can't live your life trying to avoid weirdos.

There's too many of them.

I avoid Facebook for other reasons...

boredofbeingathome

Some interesting reactions really.

That story is similar to something which happened to me a little while back-EH as i am not good with photos at all. I don't like them as i am usually trying to avoid them like the plague. I will pose for the family ones- One of my friends on FB takes delight in posting any she finds-usually of me abseiling or some other thing-related to guiding, so it is my Bridget Jones moments.She doesn't see it as offensive, and sees it as part of the fun. I did have a gripe as it wouldn't be me if i didn't and i approached her with humour I don't want to offend her,so i just remove the tag now. So i will have revenge next time as i will be the one behind the camera. I don't take a good photo anyway and my rear end blotting out the sun is not good at the best of times. Besides why is it that stomach's always stick out??? What is all that about- hmm says me passing the buck for not dieting..*cough*

Other than that i use facebook for keeping in touch with friends all over the world, and i also rather like the Scrabble.

taxi73

Glad to see stuff is sorted with DD...
Don't envy you the amount of birthdays etc the next couple of months.
Good luck with the £100 meal plan challenge..
Sorry to hear that Mr Bs op hasn't worked yet...I hope it does soon.

Facebook...I have never fancied it at all....ever

pepe2008

ZTD wrote: »

You can't live your life trying to avoid weirdos.

There's too many of them.

I avoid Facebook for other reasons...

I like wierdos.....thats why I talk to you lot:D


...but I like to CHOOSE my wierdos

pepe2008

boredofbeingathome wrote: »

Some interesting reactions really.

That story is similar to something which happened to me a little while back-EH as i am not good with photos at all. I don't like them as i am usually trying to avoid them like the plague. I will pose for the family ones- One of my friends on FB takes delight in posting any she finds-usually of me abseiling or some other thing-related to guiding, so it is my Bridget Jones moments.She doesn't see it as offensive, and sees it as part of the fun. I did have a gripe as it wouldn't be me if i didn't and i approached her with humour I don't want to offend her,so i just remove the tag now. So i will have revenge next time as i will be the one behind the camera. I don't take a good photo anyway and my rear end blotting out the sun is not good at the best of times. Besides why is it that stomach's always stick out??? What is all that about- hmm says me passing the buck for not dieting..*cough*

Other than that i use facebook for keeping in touch with friends all over the world, and i also rather like the Scrabble.

Cameras! They always distort!
We have a full-length mirror in our kitchen and I'm sure its warped because it makes me look 'cuddly':rotfl:

In_Search_Of_Me

Funny how people think its ok to put piccies on without asking - I never post anyone without permission as it can, and does, cause huge problems...photos of big bums etc says more about the person posting if you ask me...
Hope you have a good day! Lol pepe re choosing your weirdos! Totally agree!

GeorgeUK

Hi Bob

Glad things with DD are okay.
Just thought i'd say hi.

Hi