Facebook Experiment - Part 5 - GUEST POST - UNFRIENDING!

I asked my dear friend, whom I frequently nickname "Oh Wise One", and she agreed to do a post on Facebook Unfriending.  Now OWO has a knack for saying what she thinks and I absolutely love that about her.  However, because my blog is family-friendly . . . I am going to "censor" some words in her post (notated in red). . . BUT - if you want to see the post in all of its uncensored glory - you may view it on her blog - here.

The Dreaded Facebook Unfriending, by Dr. Yoda, Oh Wise One

Dealing with the DREADED FB UNFRIENDING is the sad connundrum we ourselves have placed upon us. Why is it SO terminal when we are minding our own business on Facebook...checking out what people are doing, and GASP! We realize in horror that we have been UNFRIENDED, or (EVEN WORSE) BLOCKED!!!!!

Is it the fact that this was SUCH a public display of a diss? Personally, I have been unfriended a few times, blocked a few times, and each time, I simply have to laugh. Sure, there is the initial "shock and awe" of HOW DARE THEY?!?!?!!?!? But really, this all boils down to the equivalent of a group of 5 year olds on the playground taunting each other. And it is - because Facebook is the adult playground.

This year in fact, I had an UNFRIENDING, which to this day, leaves me cackling....

I was sitting on my computer, with Facebook up, doing homework, and typing on Yahoo IM (multi-tasker!!!!). I was chatting on Yahoo IM with a male friend who was having some issues with me...and I was listening, rather, pretending to listen, as he ranted on and on. It ends up he gets SO pissed with me, he signs off IM abruptly. I think to myself, well, ok, he needs to cool off, ok fine.

So back to my homework I go...

Next thing I know, my phone starts buzzing continuously as this fellow is rapid-fire texting me...as I pick up my phone to look at it, I do believe I said aloud, "Are you kidding me!?!???" To be honest it was so long ago I forget the conversation exactly, but I do know that me replying just added fuel to his fire.

He said a few choice words and I thought - geez, no way I can do homework with this going on - I KNOW!!! I will play on Facebook! And so I procede to click on people and check out what they are doing. I happen to click on the very person I was talking to (yes - I actually wanted to see if they had changed their status to reflect the current happenings, lol) and HOLY HECK, I WAS NOT A FRIEND!!!!!

I started giggling at that point, and was cackling by the time I had texted "Did you just unfriend me on Facebook?" into my phone as a reply to him.

Silence. (because no sooner than 2 seconds after you did it, I caught you, you big dummy!!!)

So I send another text. "Real mature for a 30 something adult there pal"

Silence.

So I cackle to myself and NATURALLY go to Facebook to update my status 'I WAS UNFRIENDED ON FACEBOOK AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT'

About an hour later, I receive a friend request with an email following asking my forgiveness, how stupid and immature he was, he was just so mad, etc, etc, etc

We are still not FB "friends". And I still cackle about it.


Dealing with unfriending and being unfriended:


1. If you are unfriended, it is NOT a diss, nor is it a reflection on you as a person. If you are basing your ego on being unfriended, you seriously have more issues than that.

2. If you are unfriended, I would suggest a "benefit of the doubt" refriending, whereby you send a friend request to the culprit. If they accept, you know it was a casual mistake. Technology DOES fail. If they don't, do not begin to 'friend request stalk' - that just shows how pathetic you really are and will potentially cause them to block you (and then you can't even view their activity from your common friends walls!!!)


3. If you decide to unfriend someone, THIS is a big decision. You literally can be sending someone into a mental breakdown of sorts. Make sure you are FINAL in your unfriending.


4. Perhaps you actually might be really just sick of seeing all their dumbass posts, and getting all the status updates about how pathetic they are, or how they just took a big dump in Poop Row....in which case, consider "Hiding" before Unfriending. They won't know you have hidden them. And that will be one less serial murderer for me to worry about on Craigslist.

5. You may use the Unfriending as I do, as a punishment to big jerks who do you wrong. This is OK, as long as you are not just acting out of stupid anger. When I recently moved, a friend on FB sent me a message indicating they would totally be there to help me move. (I knew this person outside of FB, by the way) They said "You can count on me". And then moving day NO CALL NO SHOW. They left me hanging without an explanation. So - to showcase MY irritability with their actions, I unfriended them. That was my way of saying "scram" without actually haveing to exert the effort of typing them a message...just a simple CLICK, and they were gone. It was a cleansing feeling :)


All in all, I must say, I LOVE Facebook. I used to say it is my crack. I am better about it now as in I don't HAVE to be on it all the time, and I am not. I find it a good resource to network and laugh with people about stuff, and laugh at people about their stuff. Don't take the unfriending personally, laugh it off, you aren't 5 years old you know...

Happy Unfriending!


[Editors Note:  The post really does "read better" with the original "color" - I actually had to use synonym.com to find another way to say some of those words!  LOL]

The Glow of the Old Oil Lamp (GUEST POST)

My brother sent me a great essay he wrote about old oil lamps and he gave me permission to use it as a guest post on my blog. Enjoy!

Weather in Indiana, as any Hoosier will testify, is an unpredictable beast. In fact many Hoosiers have said that if you don’t like the weather here, wait a week! Sitting in my recently electricity deprived home, dealing with the ravages of an ice storm, I recollect previous inclement weather occasions basking in the glow of old oil lamps. Yes, oil lamps. Unlike power outages at my parents’ house which entailed hunting for candles and hopefully a flashlight that had un-corroded batteries, my grandmother used oil lamps. On the rare occasion that I might be at Grandma’s when the power was out, we went for the old oil lamps.


Grandma had one of her mother’s oil lamps as well as a couple belonging to grandpa’s family in the west room built in glass front cabinet. In this cabinet Grandma kept many treasures such as: Halloween decorations, her parents school slates, some of their old school books, an old crock with numerous odds and ends that were found about the house, cookbooks and all sorts of different items that intrigue a young boy with a curious mind. The lamps were kept on the top shelf with the chimneys waiting to be placed back on the brass burner for their next use. The top shelf wasn’t tall enough for the chimneys to be stored on the lamps, but they were always ready for use when the time would arise.

On such occasions when I helped clean the cabinet or actually got to help light the lamps during a power outage, Grandma would ask me to carefully hand her down a lamp and then the chimney. A box of Ohio Blue-tip matches kept in the kitchen cabinet would be brought to the table and she would place the lamp in the center of the kitchen table and light the lamp telling me the story of her tending the lamps as a child before her parents had electricity on the farm.

One of her daily chores at the home place was to tend to the oil lamps every morning by trimming the wicks and to keep the chimneys clean from coal oil soot that would collect from burning the lamps at night. Newspaper was often used after the chimneys were washed to rub the glass to create a spotless shine for the flame to illuminate a room. Her mother, Myrtle, was very particular about her housekeeping so everything had to be just right. After electricity came to the home place, the lamps were kept for keepsakes from a time gone by and in case of an emergency.

Times have changed and there seem to be fewer power outages. Grandma and Grandpa are both gone, along with the house where many special memories were formed. I still cling to the happiness of those times I spent in their home. Myrtle’s oil lamp holds a place of honor in my home on top of our kitchen cabinet, filled with oil, ready to light up a room just as it is doing right now.

Some of my family wonder why I have always loved oil lamps and why I display the few I have collected around my home. I don’t wonder . . . not as I sit staring at the flame that brightens the dark expanse in the parlor brought about by Indiana weather. That one lamp brings the warmest feeling to my soul and smile to my face. The excitement I still get as a 36-year-old carefully bringing that oil lamp down from the cabinet, cleaning the globe and lighting the lamp takes me back to Grandma’s house and the comforts and good times I experienced in their home.

As I began typing the last sentence, the power company prevails as power returns to our home. So, the oil lamps will be blown out and returned to their place of honor until the next use where I will once again remember my grandmother’s legacy by taking down an oil lamp.

Thank you, Grandma, for being a light in my darkness and sharing your life with us.

-Bobert, 2008