Let me start off by saying that I am hardly one to say that I don't say mean things when I am impassioned or angry. I spout off at the hip when I feel like it... but that is wrong. I know it is wrong while I am doing it. My dad has always said "if it feels good, don't do it." Unfortunately, I am the type that I would rather do something and pay for it later than withhold and be blessed later. That is sad, isn't it? But, I am human and I enjoy instant gratification.
What I DO have a problem with is how people can sit behind their computers and say the most disrespectful and hurtful things without regard to how their words might be interpreted. It is my understanding that Facebook - and similar networking sites - are supposed to be used to "reconnect" with old and new friends alike. But what I am finding to be more and more common is that people use their new-found familiarity with people as a license to say what they want.
Last night, I was bombarded with some of the most hateful things a person (a so-called friend) could say to me. She knew that I am in a dark place right now with my husband about to leave for so long to go fight in this awful war, yet she still felt it appropriate to publicly chastise me for not agreeing with the president. Thus, she told me to "get a grip... life's not all about me" and that even though my husband's leaving for so long, I had no place to have a "pity party."
It took me a nanosecond to realize that she hadn't put herself into my shoes for anytime at all... If the threat that her husband were to leave her and her child for that long ever presented itself, then I think she might have thought twice about saying the things that she did. She continued to mock me for getting my feelings hurt by her words and she called me a hypocrite and a liar.... all in a very public forum. And ALL because I didn't see eye to eye with her on my interpretation of Mr. Obama's address to Congress. She literally mocked my and my husband's service and sacrifice publicly, and to what end? She deleted me (like a coward) as a "friend" as soon as she wrote her words. Needless to say, there were about 45 comments in retaliation from many of my friends in my defense... I didn't need to say anything at all.
I tell you all of this to say that just because there are great networking tools available for all to use in this day and age, please realize that it doesn't give one the right to cowardly sit behind their computer and spew hurtful words. This absolutely wasn't the first time - nor was I the first of our "friends" to get this sort of treatment from her - that this has happened. She's notorious for saying the most horrible things from the safety of her own home. But I mean it to be the last that this happens to me.
It makes me question putting my feelings, my information and my writings into this vast cyberworld because someone with hurtful intentions can feel the "right" to say what they want to say. And words hurt. They do. Written or said to your face, words hurt. And I encourage you all to be extremely careful with your written and verbalized emotions. I intend to do the same.
