Manners Much?

It has been a seriously long time since I have been jumped on with both feet by an anonymous person via the internet. It happens, but it's more rare now--probably because I blog on less controversial topics than I used to and because my readership (all 12 of you) fell off when I went into blogger's hiatus.

It's even MORE rare to have someone jump you on Facebook because you aren't quite anonymous. And, you have a list of friends with whom you interact and, if a far removed friend shows his/her rear, a simple click and they are gone.

Last night, I experienced a rather odd interaction with someone who shares one friend with me on Facebook. Our mutual friend commented on a link I'd posted, this person must have seen that in her newsfeed and she, believing she was posting on our mutual friend's page, also commented on the link.

And that's where decorum left the building and batshit crazy entered. I'm mostly surprised by my own reaction to it because the old me would have lost sleep over it last night. The newer "I have looked real crazy in the face, so your brand of manufactured nuts scares me not" self is just incredulous at the interaction itself.

I was called everything from a cackling hen to a condescending twerp to a stuck up bitch. By a person I don't even know. Who doesn't know me. Who wandered into a comment thread and once she was made aware that it was the comment thread belonging to a total stranger, she continued commenting, growing more inflammatory by the minute.

I don't know what possesses people. It's quite a conundrum for me. People who with one breath can say everyone can express an opinion and in the next chastise me and call me names for having one make me scratch my head. People who feel justified in namecalling and going from stranger to crazy bitch (and yes, although that is a name, I think if I provided any reasonable person with the comments posted, they would agree) in zero to sixty also make me wonder.

Granted. I don't know her. Haven't walked in her shoes. Have absolutely no idea why my opinion that a misinformed, very young military wife writing a blog post in which she rails against National Guard Soldiers being deemed soldiers and National Guard Spouses calling themselves Army wives who bases her opinion on absolute untruths made her flame so violently.

The old me wouldn't have cared. The new me doesn't care either, but after trying to engage in a civil discourse, simply blocked the person so that she can no longer trouble my page or have access to my information. I have never blocked someone on Facebook before. Ever.

I just don't have the time or inclination to engage in ludicrous arguments lodged by individuals who have absolutely no shame. Who apparently believe that they have the right and the need to have their say because, for some reason, they think the world needs to recognize.

Oh, trust me. I recognize.

I recognize someone who had absolutely no qualms about presenting herself to a group of strangers with her arse hanging out. Showing your arse is a long standing taboo where I was raised, but that's just Midwestern rural America for you. This is also someone who marched all over her friend's access to my wall to show her arse. Truly ridiculous.

The general lack of civility anymore astounds.

I'm so glad that I've grown to the point that my chances of presenting myself in that manner is greatly reduced. I would much rather set that example for my children than the railing banshee into the wind that I witnessed last night.

My final thought on the entire matter is simple: Bitch, please.

Comments

[Wife of a Sailor]

I love your final comment. And as someone who is also from the Midwest, I totally understand what you are saying about your arse hanging out!