I had a woman on Facebook tell me how I should be feeding my cat (“use a plate, not a bowl”). It was a comment on a picture of my cat—A FUNNY picture, mind you. I like to share pictures of my cat because he’s fun. When I called her out on it, she called me a bitch and then unfriended and blocked me. So be it. She’s clearly not someone I want to associate with anyway.
However, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Because it really burns my butt.
Since when did Facebook become the place to tell complete and total strangers how to take care of their pets, live their lives, etc? I guess I don’t understand that type of mentality because I’d never do that to someone else. Especially someone I didn’t know personally. Is it a self-importance thing? Do they think they should police all of social media and push their own agendas on people? It hacks me off. And then I wondered why I was friends with this person anyway. She wasn’t a writer. She was an attorney.
I don’t go to FB to have people tell me how to live my life or feed my cat. I don’t care about your political or religious associations. I have my beliefs. I don’t expect them to align with everyone on the planet. I keep them to myself, like any sane, normal person would. I live by what I was taught: if you don’t have something nice to say, shut your pie hole. Why is this such a hard concept in life? Or have we become a society that lives in a fishbowl for all the world to critique?
At any rate…I think I have social media fatigue. Dealing with people has become a chore. It’s bad enough we have to deal with them in person, but now in the virtual world? It’s exhausting and I’m not sure I have the stamina.
I am totally with you. There is a woman in my life (she was my late sister’s best friend) who adamantly believes that ADHD is the result of bad parenting and that vaccines MIGHT not cause autism but they are given way to early. She is NOT a doctor (work in an optometrist’s office) but she insists that my son (16 with ADHD and anxiety) might actually have a food allergy instead. She lives 2100 miles away, mind you, and knows almost nothing about how we’ve had him looked at and tested by half a dozen doctors, but if I mention anything about his behavior issues, she’ll suggest I have him checked for a food allergy. Or my sister-in-law who teaches kindergarten who won’t believe me when I tell her my son is NOT autistic. She’ll say, “Well, I’ve seen kids with autism and Noah has the same symptoms.” Uh-huh, because autism and ADHD share some symptoms but they are not the same condition. I even had a doctor look me in the eye and say NO he is not autistic but people on Facebook know more than doctors, I guess.
Oh my gosh Nancy. What is with people? I guess I will never understand why people are that way on FB or even in real life. It’s annoying. Sending hugs