Be respectful, an open letter

Dear Family members, 
Please take the time to be respectful of me and my views on social media.  I mean, really, we're family members.  We used to play together, and we recently mourned our grandfather's death together.  Yes, we disagree on everything, except that we actually do like each other.  So please, please, please don't call me stupid or ignorant or an f*ing liberal.  I don't call you any of those things.  I may want to, but I refrain from doing so.  I don't even call people I don't know those things, so I most certainly call someone I love those things.  Definitely not in a public forum.  If you don't like what I post, don't respond.  You'll notice that I rarely respond to anything political you post.  I think it makes for more friendly family gatherings if we stick to commenting on pictures of our children or posts about gardening.  So be kind and respectful.

Thanks,
M.

*I've finally gotten smart and started excluding some people from seeing certain posts.  Really, I don't need the stress.

Getting out of the . . .

Facebook game.  I'm seriously thinking of shutting down my account.  I can't take it anymore.  I realize I post a lot of things that are political in content and that I occasionally engage in debates.  I do, however, try really, really hard to be respectful of others and their opinions.  I never take something someone else has posted and re-post it out of context; I feel that's disrespectful and obnoxious.  I wish I could say that others are extending the same level of respect to me.  I also really, really tired of having people who claim to know and love me label me as a "progressive" or a "liberal."  Yes, I proudly use both of those labels to describe myself, but I don't like having them used as pejoratives.  Really, I'm just tired.  If we can't even communicate with friends and family members in respectful ways on social media platforms, how can we expect our leaders to do so?

A question for my readers

Have you ever hidden a family member's posts on Facebook?  If so, why?

What I have learned from Facebook this morning

I am the only person in my extended family who doesn't think a 1% tax increase should one choose to opt out of "Obamacare" is a horrific thing.  In fact, I think it is quite reasonable as that 1% will go to help pay to insure another family.  I have also learned that I am akin to the devil because I think this.

The oddities of Facebook

So after years of resisting, I joined Facebook this fall. I confess I did it mainly because I had lost the email address of one of my dearest, lifelong friends (this person was my maid of honor and we've been friends since we were 8), and I knew she was on FB. I expected to use FB to find her and that would be that. Well lo and behold, a lot of my friends from Southwest College Town are also on FB, and using FB has become a great way to keep in touch with them. I've also found it extremely useful to communicate with several of these friends who are also completing their dissertations from afar. We've become one another's support group so to speak.

I've also some how managed to reconnect with a bunch of people from high school. I have to admit that I find this odd. I did not enjoy high school. My reasons for not enjoying high school are complex and difficult to explain; suffice to say, they go beyond the typical reasons. I was fairly popular and had lots of friends; I was never ostracized or mistreated by those who were more popular, nor did I mistreat others in return. In a nutshell, I lost a lot of friends in my senior year, people who had claimed to be among my best friends, because I did not attend church, did not consider myself a Christian, and had a close relationship with a teacher who had us read things that challenged the beliefs of many of my peers (apparently most high schoolers don't read Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth or talk about the "Christian myth"). While I'm happy to reconnect with some people from high school, I find it utterly amazing that people whom I rarely spoke with in high school or the very individuals who cut me out of their lives because of the above described situation have now asked to be my FB friend. I have no idea how to respond to this. I am, I think, a very, very loyal friend, but I don't respond to betrayal of any kind well. I also really dislike hypocrisy and can hold a grudge. I truly don't understand why some of these individuals want to know what is going on in my life some 16 years after high school ended, especially when they wanted to have little or nothing to do with me while we were in high school. I just don't get it. I mostly ignore these requests, but then, for some crazy reason, I feel guilty. I honestly think these people are just trying to amass friends so they can feel popular again. So while I like FB for lots of reasons, in some ways, it reminds me of high school all over again. And I definitely don't like that.