Monday 17 December 2012

IT'S ALL ABOUT ME!

There are few things in life more annoying than a flat phone battery or a lack of wifi - but one of them is when people 'personalize' everything in the belief that it's all about them.



Whatever you said, they imply, it was clearly aimed at them. Whatever you may have innocently done - well it was obviously a deliberate swipe. Because you evidently spend your entire life, every waking moment of it, considering how to make a veiled attack on this particular person. 'Course you do. Don't even try and deny it. You know they are the most important thing in the universe and that all conscious actions by you have a root cause in them.

Bollocks.

This kind of behaviour winds me up.

In the last week I have seen a couple of prize examples where the perpetrator, quite frankly, deserved a slap. Or at the very least to be told that despite their delusions, the world does not in fact rotate around them and to grow the fuck up.

Example number 1: person A is having a bit of a rough time, is majorly stressed, is juggling a number of things and worrying about whether it will get worse before it gets better. They make an innocuous comment about this on their own Facebook page (man, I hate Facebook, what a numpty fest) and within a few minutes they receive a comment on it which is the equivelent of someone squaring up in a pub and snarling "what the fuck you looking at!?".

Said comment is "That aimed at me??" by a member of extended family who is going through their own trials and tribulations (let's face it - who isn't?) but lacks the ability to realise that they are not the only person with issues right now. I mean, FFS.

This is why Facebook is, effectively, a microcosm of all that is wrong with society in my opinion. I keep my page on there because it's the only way to stay in touch with some people. But it makes me shake my head in despair at least once a day. I know I have written at length about the lack of filter people seem to have when posting things to facebook previously. I have so many people 'hidden' now that I forget they even exist (which is a good thing).

It's the level of unmitigated anger that people seem to want to share that baffles me the most. Some people literally seem to have a stream of consciousness which consists entirely of negative ranting about their workplace/children/health - shouty, monotonous drivel. If you hate your job that much then change it, FFS. Ever think about putting something nice, positive, happy on there? No? Oh, right, you're another one for me to hide then.

Anyway, I digress...

Example number 2 from the last few weeks is actually pretty hilarious. I don't think it's meant to be but I am struggling to mentally detatch what has happened from some kind of Carry On parody of playground proportions....

Person B has arranged a bit of a do via that bastion of formality that is a Facebook Event. Please note the irony here.

Person B clearly cannot invite people who do not have Facebook to said event (such people do actually exist, apparently) but fully intends to send email invites nearer the time to those who won't see the FB event. This includes most of the parents (obviously invited and important). But, in the meantime, a temper tantrum erupts from a member of extended family (are all families this batshit mental!?) who learns of the event and fully believes that this is a targetted, incredibly rude and deliberate insult aimed entirely at them.

Of course when Facebook was chosen as a method of setting up a basic event page the priority was to ensure targetted offense at one person. Rather than just to, say, get the ball rolling and save admin costs/effort. Somehow, the fact that the world revolves around this person was forgotten. Slapped wrists all round.

Honestly, life is too short. I do not understand for one minute why people are so determined to find and exacerbate conflict when there is enough strife in the normal, everyday life without adding to it. 

It's the season of goodwill people, why don't we all just try and apply a bit of rational thinking before we fly off the handle at each other? Just a thought.