Why It’s Best Sometimes To Kiss And Make Up
Being called out online isn’t exactly new to me.
In fact, in the past eight months of blogging I’m pretty sure I’ve developed a skin of similar thickness to Babar. I think if you are going to put yourself, your thoughts and your opinions out there you should probably be able to suck it up and deal most of the time when people say things. Granted, I have absolutely no tolerance for blatantly disrespectful and unfounded criticisms, but most everything else I will at least entertain.
That is why it was a little out of character for me to get so caught up in a blog post a friend wrote recently, that poked a little fun at an inside joke of sorts. He poked the fun anonymously (made no references to who I was specifically) and the writing was his usual witty and sarcastic tone. Like any good story that gets retold, there were shreds of truth amidst the fable. In my most sane and logical of minds I knew that he was just teasing, in essence pulling my school girl braids.
I read the post aloud to my sister, because contrary to popular belief I am (in fact) a girl and that is what girls do – we get communal opinions to confirm whether we are crazy or not. In the meantime I was frantically emailing my friend to confirm WITH HIM whether I was the person he was referencing. I was vindicated in my opinion on both counts. The next question he asked me, however, really hit at the heart of the matter. “I didn’t hurt your feelings in the post did I?“
I crafted about a dozen responses to this most simple of questions. See, I have created a very safe and comfortable life for myself not letting people in on my feelings. Actually, by not letting them know that I really have feelings, I rarely get them hurt. And here I was, slammed on both counts. My feelings weren’t hurt in the “I’m so sad, I’m going to go eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and cry myself to sleep” way. Instead I felt anger, annoyance, slighting, humiliation and, yes, probably a little hurt.
I was left with two options. A.) Write a response that is pithy and brilliant and fires grenades over the huge wall I surround myself with or B.) Admit to him that yes, I was irked and angry and feeling misled. In general, yes, I had lots of feelings and they were all hurt. I expect guys I’m interested in to hurt me, not guys I am friends with. I drafted about four more response in the style of Option A, keeping myself guarded and jaded.
Or I could try to be a grown up and let him know. Much better than my plan of severe punishment earlier in the evening. Oh yeah, I was going to un-follow him on Twitter.
I don’t know what compelled me at that specific moment in time, but I typed out what I felt. And then I waited for him to reply.
And waited.
And waited.
And slowly I began to pick up the little pieces of the rock wall around my being and re-build, knowing that I should have expected it. This was nothing against him, he’s actually a pretty great guy*** But he is a person, a vulnerability in a human relationship that I should have been more cautious about, knowing at one point he’d have the power to expose me. And I am not at all ok with that.
And then I got his response. His sincere apology and acknowledgment that some of his phrasing choices didn’t necessarily send the same teasing sentiment with which he had written the post. It was laden with the usual humor and teasing of all of our correspondence, and I laughed heartily out loud. I had risked exposing myself and for the first time in what feels like a long time, it didn’t backfire on me.
Why is it that we are sometimes so scared to admit when people have hurt us? What do we have to lose? In this case, the only thing I lost was a small piece of wall that got chipped away when I allowed someone the chance to show they care.
*** To this end, if you are a rocket scientist and figured out who my friend is, I implore you not to send him hate mail or anything like that. We’ve virtually hugged it out, and all is better now. I guess you could say that we’ve kissed and made up.
Elisa, we teach people how to treat us, so by being honest you taught your friend to be sensative, considerate and open. Well done =)
PS his OCD thing with pictures is just plain silly
Hey Rachael – Hrmm, I was worried this would happen. My friend already is those things (he has done nothing but apologize, this post didn't help…) The biggest problem was how *I* received and reacted to the situation.
It's a funny sort of thing, that we allow ourselves to be so guarded and jaded and we miss out on so many great friends/things/etc because of it.
Each year I grow older I recognize that life's too short to hold grudges. It really is. My motto is, "Cut the bullshit," I can't help but be honest but I do so with tact and then I allow myself to move on, forgive the person and "kiss and make up." I'm glad you could tell this story
It takes a big person to admit that something hurt them and a bigger person to acknowledge and apologize for it. Kudos to both of you!
Wow! Great post! Second what Erin said.
Now, Im goung to send hate mail to the person who made you feel that way…..just kiddin'
Grace – I love it! Any motto that gets right to the heart of the matter is a good motto by me.
Erin – Both very true statements. And one of the biggest things is that if someone doesn't open them up to the first, often people aren't able to get to the second.
First, ouch on the public twitter call-out! What was that for? I can't imagine you doing anything deserving that treatment, but alas, I digress.
Second, you are absolutely right that blogging requires a thick skin. I encountered this earlier this week, and had to call another blogger for a sanity check. For some confirmation that I wasn't crazy for feeling bad about hearing people's hurtful comments about me – personal comments based on a public blog post – that I just really didn't need to hear.
Third – kudos to you for letting your friend know how the post impacted you, even though it was in jest. Happy to hear that you've since "hugged it out"
Hugs!
Jenny, your biggest cupcake-loving fan (okay hopefully that doesn't literally become true, given that big + cupcakes could easly be correlated).
RdGarnet – Haha, yeah, I figured some people could draw the parallels. Kinda called myself out in regards to the anonymity of his post though, huh?
Jenny – You are like the West Coast me, I love it! The call out was bc I sent someone a DM asking how they came to follow me before following back, not thinking about the fact that he couldn't DM me if I didn't follow him.
Isn't it nice to get the communal opinion on crazy? It's especially good when you have someone who will be totally honest and open and like "Yep, you are nuts!"
"Hug it out" is probably one of my top 5 most uttered phrase. I feel there is a lot to be learned about life from Entourage and other HBO programming.
I just want to go on record saying that Entourage did NOT coin the term "hug it out" or "hug it out bitch" as I like to call it.
Dudes have been saying that for a long time now…or least my friends and I have, before the cast of Entourage got credit for it. I think they just helped mainstream the phrase – that's all. Those bitches.