Using the Unfriend Option

Migrated from LiveJournal

Oh, the relief! I just unfriended a facebook friend / real life acquaintance (who, fortunately, I’m unlikely to encounter again, as he doesn’t live near).  Sweet, funny guy in person, when we met; but on fb, oh what a chip on the shoulder!

Having a discussion or even a difference of opinion is one thing, but being argumentative for the sake of it — well, after five years of attempting to meet it with reason, humour and tolerance, I just got sick of it.

He didn't even argue intelligently. He leapt in to take issue so hastily that he quite often got the wrong end of the stick, arguing against things I wasn't even saying. Or he would argue FOR positions that were patently ludicrous. He would take on my friends too, in comments. He waxed quite insulting at times.

Why did I put up with him so long? I can recognise an inferiority complex when I see one, and felt compassion. I still do, but I also see that being nice to him and/or putting up with him didn't help. He just kept right on being an aggressive dickhead. If anything, he got worse over the years.

As the grown-ups used to say when I was a kid — good riddance to bad rubbish.


Comments left on LJ:

bttrflyscar

you were smart to do that. I dated a guy like that once. for way too long.

snakypoet 

As they say, better late than never. But we make allowances, don't we? We try to see the best, and do the right thing. Gut instinct would be a better guide!

Although this fb friendship lasted five years, there were often long gaps between his comments. It's just that when they happened they were ALWAYS as I describe above, and now I can't believe I put up with it so long.

Never mind, I'm sure we have both learned our lessons, even if it did take us a while.

metahara.

Ah the modern world. Yes, life is too short and wide to sit close to stinky rubbish.

A Wonderful, Beautiful Interview!

with Mary Oliver

I was enthralled.

Remixing

Oh dear, I'm having another of those 'everything I write lately is mediocre' times. Which is perhaps a good thing, as I did plan to focus on revision this year. And I've embraced some tools I've given little attention to in the past, so as to not merely revise but remix.

I've suddenly fallen in love with things like the erasure and the cento, using my own poetry as source material, and sometimes coming up with what I think are improvements to the originals. My readers say kind things about them, so I could be right.

I like the way it puts a bit of mystery back into my poetry. After years of trying to acquire limpid clarity through practising haiku and the 'small stones' mindful writings, I think I'm in danger of achieving banality!

I look at my best friend Helen's poetry, with its masterful use of metaphor, and remember that I too used metaphor once upon a time. I seem to have lost that art along the way, but perhaps my current revision tools will give me equally interesting effects.

Interesting to me, I probably mean. I guess we have to remain interested in our own art in order to keep creating it with joy and passion, and that's why artists in all genres go through different phases or 'periods', abandoning their successes to try new things.

Anyway I recognise that for me, the only person I can really speak for, the process has always been where much of the fascination lies.