Yesterday something happened that I'm not exactly proud of—but first, I think I need to provide a bit of context.
A few years ago, my best friend introduced me to an old friend of his from high school. She's lived an interesting life; while I don't think it's best for me to provide details, I can say with certainty that she is well-travelled, creative, insightful, and an interesting person. We hit it off pretty well, and though we were never close, we did become friends. She joined the community choir that my best friend and I sing with, and the three of us went out to dinner together from time to time. I was even part of a small writing group that she coordinated for a time before it fell apart, mostly due to scheduling issues. Along with our in-person association, we were Facebook friends and followed each other on Twitter (using my other account).
Then, rather suddenly, about two and a half months ago, she abruptly unfriended me on Facebook and blocked me on Twitter. I still don't know why, and at this point I'm not actually curious, but it baffled, confused, and hurt me for quite some time. Maybe it was because I made a comment about disliking "cancel culture" and the way that it tends to inadvertently cover up wrongdoings rather than actually hold people accountable for their actions. Maybe it was because I first "liked," and then subsequently unliked, a meme that she shared that listed a number of reminders for guests of people with pets that seem pretty reasonable at first reading, but at a closer look reveal a surprising amount of hostility and lack of respect for people's boundaries. I'm sure you've seen similar ones; they list things like "they love me, they're only friends with you" and "I will lick you, so if you don't like it you can leave" and "I live here, you are just a guest".
Anyway, those are the only possible reasons for friction that I can think of; as far as I knew, we had been on good terms before mid-March. She'd even recently invited me to go to dinner with her and another woman from the defunct writing group at some time to be determined in the near future. But whatever the reason, before I realized that I'd been unfriended and blocked, I tried to say hello to her at a choir rehearsal, and she just ignored me. At that point, I realized that something was probably up, and I soon discovered that she'd disappeared from my followers/following lists on Twitter—looking her up while I was logged in revealed that she had blocked me—and she'd also disappeared from my friends list on Facebook.
I was angry and hurt, which is reasonable, considering the circumstances. I didn't lash out at the time; I just avoided her at choir practice and let our mutual friend know that she had cut me out of her life, though she'd maintained her ties with him, and that I was fine with him maintaining the friendship between them if he wanted to. And I still am; after all, it's not my place to dictate who anybody should be friends with, regardless of our relationship. And it's not like the abrupt termination of my friendship with her has anything whatsoever to do with him. I don't really want to hear anything about her, but it's okay with me if he sees her (though as I said, I am well aware that it is not my place to dictate who he can and can't be friends with).
So. Fast-forward to yesterday morning, when I was running errands with M., a close friend of mine. Before we did anything else I had to stop to put gas in the car because it was getting a little closer to the 1/4 tank mark than I'm comfortable with. While I was refuelling the car, I saw her pull into the same gas station (her vehicle is somewhat distinctive). I shrugged it off; I didn't think I'd care if we ran into each other when I went in to pay. After all, I reasoned, she's the one who acted inappropriately.
M. tells me that after I went into the store to pay for the gas, my ex-friend looked over at the car for a moment and then followed me in. After I'd paid and I was on my way back out, she walked up to me and said my name in a tone of rather obviously fake surprise.
Things have happened in the past year that have made me somewhat less willing to tolerate bullshit than I used to be. The response was automatic; I was furious! I turned around and glared at her and said as coldly and calmly as I could manage, "You cut me out of your life without even bothering to tell me you were upset with me. I do NOT want to talk to you." Then I left. I don't know how she reacted to what I said; I just wanted to get the hell out of there. And I'm very glad that M. was with me; she already knew what had happened back in March, and it didn't take long to explain to her why I was so upset. She's always been good at making me laugh, and soon I had regained a certain amount of my mental equilibrium.
Was that the right course of action to take? I don't actually think so, especially given that the values that I try to live my life by are love, compassion, and forgiveness. I am also aware that my ex-friend has a history of depression, so perhaps I should have been gentler. Still, it was a very authentic reaction, and the outright hostility with which I reacted to her was a surprise even to me, but I suppose it shouldn't have been. Regardless of anything that I believe, I am still human and I fail to live up to my own ideals at times. And while I believe in the importance of forgiveness, I don't believe that "I forgive you" means "it's okay that you hurt me." Because it isn't okay.
So...I'm not actually proud of how I acted yesterday. It was petty and rude. I'm not sure that I would at this time be capable of saying or doing anything else, though, if that exact situation were to happen again. The hurt is just too recent.
Sunday, June 9, 2019
Monday, May 20, 2019
Reclaiming my voice
This post has been a long time coming, I know. It was never my intention to abandon this blog; but for a time, I believe I lost my voice.
Not my physical one, of course. But written? Absolutely. It was a gradual process, and one that I think I believed I deserved in some twisted way. Several years ago, I became involved with a feminist group on Facebook (I know, I know...) that was, at the time, a vibrant and active community, as supportive of all of its members as it could be, and one in which people new to various feminist concepts could learn and ask questions and make mistakes. It wasn't perfect, because the people involved weren't perfect, but it didn't need it to be.
And then, as progressive communities so often do these days, it went toxic. I'm not going to go into the details here, but suffice it to say that the group's creator and a number of the moderators left, a new crowd took over, and suddenly things weren't so good anymore.
The group's death throes were painful to witness, particularly when I saw people who I knew to be kind and gentle being called out as toxic trash because they'd accidentally misused words that were new to them or had simply stepped on the wrong nerve at the wrong time. People who had every right to be mad were summarily kicked out of the group for pointing out that more than one marginalized group of people in the group had been hurt. Apologies were blasted as "making somebody else's pain all about you" and those who made them were also heavily encouraged to leave. If someone in the "in crowd" called out someone who wasn't as educated/informed about the group's new focus as they were, and that person responded with confusion and expressions of hurt, that person would be told to sit down and shut up and listen while the real marginalized people had their say.
I learned, gradually, that voices like mine were not wanted or needed, even in attempts to encourage people and especially in attempts to learn anything at all. (It always came down to "shut up, too many people like you are talking already and marginalized people are not your educational opportunity.") I learned that because of certain demographics that I fall into, I need to just sit down and shut up and let the important people do the talking. Doing otherwise meant that I was being a hateful oppressor and I was allowing my voice to drown out the ones that really needed to be heard.
Eventually, as these things do, application of that lesson gradually ceased to be exclusive to that Facebook group. It bled through to this blog and my (friend-locked and under another name) LiveJournal as well. I stopped writing fan fiction. I stopped writing original fiction. I stopped writing poetry. I stopped writing, period.
And so I lost my voice.
Reclaiming it isn't going to be easy. I still halfway believe that I don't deserve to be heard. That the colour of my skin means that I need to sit down and shut up because the world is already too full of white women with opinions. I've been complicit in my own silencing for so long that it feels as comforting as it is restrictive. But there are things that I need to say, and this is my own space; who am I oppressing if I speak here? I don't get many pageviews anymore, it's been years since I regularly updated, and anyway, I'm not exactly forcing anybody to read what I'm writing here.
So here I am. I'm still alive, still bisexual (though that is still a serious oversimplification of terms), still Christo-Pagan, still a little bit silly, still perhaps more than a little bit smart, and still perpetually surprised by life and all the wonderful, horrible, and downright bizarre things that it has to offer. And as I go through the process of reclaiming and refining my voice, I hope that I can offer anyone who reads this something to think about, even if you don't necessarily agree with me.
Not my physical one, of course. But written? Absolutely. It was a gradual process, and one that I think I believed I deserved in some twisted way. Several years ago, I became involved with a feminist group on Facebook (I know, I know...) that was, at the time, a vibrant and active community, as supportive of all of its members as it could be, and one in which people new to various feminist concepts could learn and ask questions and make mistakes. It wasn't perfect, because the people involved weren't perfect, but it didn't need it to be.
And then, as progressive communities so often do these days, it went toxic. I'm not going to go into the details here, but suffice it to say that the group's creator and a number of the moderators left, a new crowd took over, and suddenly things weren't so good anymore.
The group's death throes were painful to witness, particularly when I saw people who I knew to be kind and gentle being called out as toxic trash because they'd accidentally misused words that were new to them or had simply stepped on the wrong nerve at the wrong time. People who had every right to be mad were summarily kicked out of the group for pointing out that more than one marginalized group of people in the group had been hurt. Apologies were blasted as "making somebody else's pain all about you" and those who made them were also heavily encouraged to leave. If someone in the "in crowd" called out someone who wasn't as educated/informed about the group's new focus as they were, and that person responded with confusion and expressions of hurt, that person would be told to sit down and shut up and listen while the real marginalized people had their say.
I learned, gradually, that voices like mine were not wanted or needed, even in attempts to encourage people and especially in attempts to learn anything at all. (It always came down to "shut up, too many people like you are talking already and marginalized people are not your educational opportunity.") I learned that because of certain demographics that I fall into, I need to just sit down and shut up and let the important people do the talking. Doing otherwise meant that I was being a hateful oppressor and I was allowing my voice to drown out the ones that really needed to be heard.
Eventually, as these things do, application of that lesson gradually ceased to be exclusive to that Facebook group. It bled through to this blog and my (friend-locked and under another name) LiveJournal as well. I stopped writing fan fiction. I stopped writing original fiction. I stopped writing poetry. I stopped writing, period.
And so I lost my voice.
Reclaiming it isn't going to be easy. I still halfway believe that I don't deserve to be heard. That the colour of my skin means that I need to sit down and shut up because the world is already too full of white women with opinions. I've been complicit in my own silencing for so long that it feels as comforting as it is restrictive. But there are things that I need to say, and this is my own space; who am I oppressing if I speak here? I don't get many pageviews anymore, it's been years since I regularly updated, and anyway, I'm not exactly forcing anybody to read what I'm writing here.
So here I am. I'm still alive, still bisexual (though that is still a serious oversimplification of terms), still Christo-Pagan, still a little bit silly, still perhaps more than a little bit smart, and still perpetually surprised by life and all the wonderful, horrible, and downright bizarre things that it has to offer. And as I go through the process of reclaiming and refining my voice, I hope that I can offer anyone who reads this something to think about, even if you don't necessarily agree with me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)