Another cold and rainy day……it matches my mood. I just want to get into bed and stay there. My two youngest dogs will cuddle up with me, mostly for warmth over companionship but it is better than nothing, right?
I have my final check up with my orthopedic surgeon this afternoon….but after the week I just had, I felt justified to take the entire day off work. That means I will not work one single, full week for the entire month of November. I would generally feel guilty about it. But I am exhausted, stressed, and just burnt out so I have run out of fucks to give at this point. I still have enough sick days to take off about 6 weeks of work and I purposely scheduled my gallbladder surgery during Christmas Break so it would not have a major impact on my students for me to be gone 1-2 weeks for recovery. Now, I am thinking it would have been nice to miss a few weeks. Nah, I am just kidding….the anxiety of missing so much time at once would have eaten me alive and I would be so stressed about my classes falling behind and not getting any work done that I wouldn’t be able to rest at all.
I saw lots of updates and postings from my old classmates and people in my hometown who went to the visitation for the beloved teacher and coach yesterday afternoon. Even having it at the high school, parking was an issue and people had to wait in line sometimes upwards of 2 hours to pay their respects for a good man–but they did it anyway and without complaining……..because he was worthy of their time and respect in the memories and legacy he left behind in a grieving small town.
In my Fortnite adventures yesterday, I won another solo game–making 4 wins last week–which is a big deal for me. I played some Team Rumble and Squads with a new friend I met just a few days ago, along with his stepson and another friend and then played some Squads with “my group” later in the evening–including my “friend” that doesn’t know that I know what he said about me the other night. I still don’t know if I want to address it or leave it alone. Obviously, he is entitled to have his opinion about me and how I perform in the game…..no contest there. But I am hurt that he feels the need to say it to other people when I’m not around. I don’t know why it needed to be said at all, even if he believes that I’m a bad player. It’s still just a game. If he thinks I’m a bad player and holding him and the rest of our group back, fine……don’t play with me; go find other players who are worthy of your time and skill if you only care about winning and not about the teamwork involved.
I think that is why I have some good games with my other “new friend”…….he is young and arrogant and will say that he carries our duo. In some ways, he is right. He is definitely a much better shot and a very good builder/editor which are great skills to be successful in the game. But I do my best to contribute in my own ways, like a sidekick. I’m not the front-runner, but I am good with supportive roles and sometimes have a kickass moment that surprises us all.
My new friend needs a nickname because I (stupidly) shared yesterday’s post with him so he would maybe understand me a little better and have insight into why I might say or do things, his response was less than supportive. Instead, he decided to yell at me and make threats to block me and end our friendship if I didn’t delete the paragraphs about him because he felt it was invasive to his privacy.
If you saw yesterday’s post, you may or may not understand why he was upset. You see, I use this as a cathartic outlet to deal with my stuff. It is really a glamorized online journal that random people can read. I don’t share it with friends or family or people in my real life so that I can be completely open and honest and not feel like I have to hide anything. But, I also keep a lot of info purposely vague and somewhat “anonymous”, but I don’t lie or make up fake information…..what’s the point? I’m telling MY STORY, not writing fiction.
Anyway…in my original post, I used my friend’s first name only (as I always do), and also mentioned the (very large and populous) city where he lived, as well as his age and mine to give the exact difference between the two. He felt strongly that this was too much personal information to be published online and told me to delete my post.
Here’s the thing…….I don’t worry about a lot of that stuff…..first names are pretty vague unless it is a very unusual name; giving a state as a location, or even a very large city or region doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. And an age? Still not a big deal to me. That is not the same thing as, giving a screenname or email, listing a small town, a place of employment or even career field, last names, birthdates, or posting pictures of people……that is clearly giving too much information about people and I agree wholeheartedly that it would be wrong to do THAT.
However, I didn’t feel like I had crossed any lines with the info I had posted and I was surprised by his messages…..#1.) I didn’t think that the information was very specific or revealing, but more importantly #2.) I didn’t like that he felt it was necessary to make threats and TELL ME to stop what I was doing and take it down immediately.
I would like to think that I am a good friend most of the time and a reasonable person, so if a friend comes to me and says, “It makes me uncomfortable to have some of my details posted online, even though you meant it in a harmless way. Could you do me a favor and take out my name, age, and city because I feel like that is a lot of personal information that could be a problem if some random crazy person got ahold of it?”
Again, to me, I don’t personally feel that that information is exceptionally personal or identifying, but I can try to relate to where someone is coming from and respect their feelings on an issue if it isn’t a big deal to me.
That is NOT how the conversation went last night, though…..my phone blew up with a lot of “are you fucking kidding me?” and “I swear I’m going to block you if you don’t delete those paragraphs right now” kinds of messages instead. More messages came through as I was trying to finish what I was already doing around the house and then respond to the messages……then more messages asking why it wasn’t done IMMEDIATELY with more threats to include contacting WordPress to complain about my criminal invasion of privacy.
When it was all said and done, I DID respect the wishes of my “friend” to be more anonymous and not have his name or age posted as I had agreed early in the conversation. He feels his actions and messages are completely justified because he was angry at what I had done. You learn a lot about a person when you see them angry or stressed out, don’t you? I know I do.
He was supposed to be my friend, but my validation of his feelings and agreeing to edit my post for him wasn’t enough…….he had to go on to make nonstop threats and demands until the moment that information was changed. He called me stupid and other things throughout the process and showed an aggressive, maybe even a little scary, controlling side. Wow……some friend, huh?
I am pretty blunt and direct about a lot of things and some people don’t like that while others appreciate the whole “I’m going to tell you the truth, even if it’s hard” transparency that I have grown into over the years. But I will also snap at people when I get super stressed. I know that about me. I have seen me do it. When I get like that, I don’t latch on and send hateful message after hateful message with lots of threats of “do this or I will do that”…….I don’t do that because it is not effective with me. If someone makes threats and ultimatums with me, that is a great chance for me to dig my heels in and let my stubborn shine. Don’t try to back me into a corner, asshole. I will fight my way out of it, not cower and give you what you want just because you told me to.
But I know me well enough at this point to know when I am at the brink and most likely to pop off and be mean to someone who may not deserve it–or might deserve a little, but not the full wrath of what will come when I am in one of those moods. So……..when I am like that and I know it is dangerous for everyone, I take the safest road possible and I separate myself from people as best I can. I minimize my interactions with people and put as much distance and space between myself and them as possible so I don’t do off on an “innocent victim” and do irrevocable damage that I will regret later. That is my “Hulk” and it is mean and ugly and vicious–while verbal and not physical, it is just as hurtful when I am I not careful.
I think my new friend “Gameboy” is still a little young and has a lot to learn about himself and how he interacts with people. I told him he was an ass and he agreed that he needed to work on his communication, but I think it bothers me most that he keeps saying it was warranted….he tries to justify what he did and said to me because he was angry and felt like I had wronged him first. I hope he learns how to get that controlling temper under control as he matures.
This day is barely half over and I can’t even be excited about some good games I had this morning because I keep fixating on everything that sucks. Plus, I only slept 5 hours and I am tired. A nap sounds good right about now until I get my knee looked at this afternoon.
Another Diary of a Fat Girl Trying to Lose Weight. 