Bottom line.

I’ve been on a self-imposed hiatus from forums and groups for a couple of weeks now. I was surprised to find out how much stress lifted off me when I wasn’t immersed in the dynamics of the online world so much.

Really, the internet is an odd place. People take things so very seriously and personally, most of the time from people they don’t even know. I guess I do that, too, but lately, I’m rethinking my internet involvement.

Frankly, it’s been my experience that for every one person I really, really enjoy and consider a friend, there are at least three other people I encounter whom I’m mostly indifferent to, one or two who may annoy me mildly, but I tolerate for various reasons, and then the odd person I truly cannot stand. I’m sure I’m in various spots on other people’s personal rankings in a similar way. The thing is, in real life, we rarely unleash our full fury on even the person we can’t stand. Social constraints generally keep us from real knock-down drag-outs, or at least, that’s how it works in theory. I suppose angry parents at kids’ sporting events have circumvented this guideline. However, I do not tell the irritating guy in IT that he’s a pompous, butt-kissing windbag, for example. Even if he is.

But the internet removes so many of the rules of engagement. It throws people who normally would avoid one another entirely into the same arenas of discussion. At the same time, it allows them a degree of relative anonymity in their statements that can be too heady to resist at times, even for the most reserved. Finally, it removes the face-to-face interactions, subtleties of tone, and body language that help us poor humans gauge another’s intent before we decide how to respond. The results can be informative and enriching. But at least as often, they can be bloody and bitter.

I’ve watched people rip each other to shreds over parenting tips. I’ve personally been told that I am a child abuser/mutilator because my son is circumcised. Which would have made me laugh, but I already felt guilty enough about the entire procedure that I cried a little over that one.

The truth is, who the hell cares if five women on a birth club board think I’m a crappy mother? Does it mean I am? No. Do I abuse my son? No. Would continuing any kind of discourse on the matter with those women be likely to gain me anything or change their opinion of me? No.

So why do we do it so often online? Why do we read things we know will upset us, why do we get in the same arguments over and over with the same five people, why do we care what Everybody Else on Forum X is Doing?

Yes. It’s important to put our stories out here, to support each other when we can, to speak up when we see misinformation or injustice. But seriously, there has to be a limit. I mean, after about 3 instances of me saying open adoption does not confuse my daughter, if I’m still hearing from someone else that they’re sure I’m wrong and that she’s obviously confused, I have to draw the conclusion that this other party is not really interested in anything I have to say. They just want to tell me how wrong I am. Further debate is pointless. It’s self-abuse to sit and listen to that over and over, and who needs that? 

Furthermore, it doesn’t help anyone when well-meaning folks read various boards where obvious hot topics are bubbling and then report back to their “home” boards that “so-and-so is talking about our board/our members/my dog!”  It’s a monumental waste of time and energy to try and police the world. I’m sorry to sound cold, but this is the bottom line: when you put your thoughts on the internet, you are exposing yourself to the public domain. You have to expect that someone, somewhere, is not going to like what you have to say and they are going to talk about it to someone else who doesn’t like it either. And why seek out places where you know you are likely to be upset? If I stroll into a strip club because I think they’re serving milkshakes, then I am sort of entitled to be shocked when 30 pairs of naked boobs are staring me in the face and there isn’t any ice cream to be had. BUT, if I go back the next day, I can’t start screeching that all this nudity is offensive and that this place ought to be serving up wholesome milkshakes, darn it! 

To be quite honest, I don’t mind if people disagree with me and what I write. I am fine with rational disagreement and I’ll often even respond to it. But if what they want to do is call me a stupid b*tch, in my personal estimation it is entirely better for me to have them to do it where I don’t have to read it, if I don’t actively seek it out. ‘Cause I’m not going to let anyone call me a stupid b*tch on my own blog, but if they feel the need to devote pages and pages of vitriol to that effect on a group discussion I don’t frequent, hey, have at it.

It still doesn’t mean I AM a stupid b*tch. An important distinction that seems to get lost in online translation. I wish more of us could recognize that.   

It’s just like anything else. It can be a boon or a burden to be online. Lately it had been feeling like a burden, but I kinda like hanging out on my blog, checking in with a friend or two, and just letting everything else slide by me.

Everyone needs a break now and again, I think. I’ve been using mine to play with my son, console and support my husband, try to learn how to make peach preserves, bake, read, catch up with my mom, start Christmas shopping (yes, I am that anal woman who is done in October), and try to get the downstairs bathroom painted. All things I’ve been “meaning” to do, but which kept getting waylaid by the latest online crisis. It has been so incredibly nice to not have that responsibility, though I tried hard not to let it get to me as an albatross around my neck, I see now that it had been, that I need more time away from it, and I don’t know if I will have the heart or the desire to return to trying to referee this wild world.

I just don’t know.