OMG I’m gonna come across as such a jerk when I write this blog. But I have this thing against people commenting and liking every single thing I write on Facebook. Some people I’m okay with doing this, if we have some kind of friendship like that, or my cousins obviously, but sometimes people aren’t very close to me but they think they are. AND IT GETS WEIRD!
I’m pretty much okay with it if they don’t have a lot invested in it, like if they aren’t demanding a lot of attention. But recently someone got SO INVOLVED with my FB page and was saying some things that made me uncomfortable and I had wanted to unfriend and block for a while, especially because they said some inappropriate things about my health. And on this particular night they were making up easily 50% of my notifications (and I have a number of friends so this is really overwhelming) and I guess I finally had enough because I unfriended and blocked them. I read a Wikihow about Facebook Stalkers (I think harassers is maybe the more specific term) and I think it was written by a teenager because the solutions they were presenting were kind of ridiculous.
It’s funny though, because I felt SO weird about actually chopping them out of my Facebook life. Like, this is someone I have no interactions with outside of Facebook. And they aren’t in a position of power over me. But I still felt SO WEIRD about being the ass who just blocks someone for being annoying and harassing me even if they do think it’s positive attention.
The really funny thing though is I am sure I have been that annoying person in the past, at least when I was manic. Although when I was manic the last time was the first time Facebook became a public thing. BUT I can see why people do it. It’s just a terrible warning to me to avoid being That Person.
God forbid I be annoying! OH MAN! And also, I can totally see being into crushes way too much and being an ass. It’s terrible! I do not want to annoy people. And then that makes me feel reluctant to approach cuties because I don’t want to be ruining their social media feed by asking all kinds of questions all the time and bothering them.
Although I am generally not that kind of person anyway.
Anyway, yes, I know what it’s like to be harassed so much on social media and still feel like it would be rude to set a boundary and unfriend. But at the same time, Facebook is really my private space. It’s not really my public space, this rotten blog is my public space and you all hear private shit anyway. Twitter is public. Instagram is public although I am thinking of changing that. I have an artist page on FB, that’s public. But my personal Facebook is really just like hanging out in my living room listening to me talk shit to my friends. My tumblr is public too but has barely any original content. And I have to keep remembering that, and know that it’s okay to get people out of my FB sphere if they are making me feel unhappy and unsafe.
So I hope I am a good fb friend to my friends. I hope I don’t bother them, or if I do I bother them in the way they like. I am definitely going to try and be mindful of not being a pest.