Kate & the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very-Bad Week

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

I'm having a bad week. Like, really, it's just not a good one. My recent tweets are testament to this:

 

and 


 Oh, & this one, which I particularly like:


Yes, I seem to be suffering from an ongoing case of the Mondays that began on Saturday. And while I recognize that this is not the kind of thing people want to read about in their social networks, I think it's pretty forgivable, on the whole. And pretty human. No one can be sunshine & unicorns all the time; hell, I'm not sunshine & unicorns half the time. But it's not like I'm a perma-moper, either. No, seriously, I'm not a perma-moper.

Wait, am I?! Oh, God, I might be a perma-moper.

Today, I was really caught off guard when a friend (I'm using that term loosely, as Socialmedialand is a fickle, fickle place) implied that she is no longer interested in associating with me because she wants to surround herself with positivity - and apparently, I no longer fit the bill.

I confess to being particularly prickly about friends changing their minds about me. More than once, I've found myself looking around with eyes wide & mouth open in confusion, wondering when the people I liked stopped liking me back. For a long, long time, I was convinced that my friends did not actually like me - & more than once, I was proven correct. I've yet to shake this insecurity, that the people who claim to care about me will soon change their minds & run screaming in the other direction without ever telling me why.

In this realm, blogging has done weird things for me. I've made friends, absolutely. I text with some of them, I meet them for dinner or coffee when we're in the same cities, & I have their home addresses when I want to send them Christmas cards or "Congrats on your engagement!" cards. They're quick to hone in on both the bad & the good, to offer sympathy or support or sarcasm, whichever is most situationally appropriate. But I see other bloggers becoming real-life besties with the people they've met through blogging, & I'm just baffled. I value my online community very, very much, but for the most part, they're just that - an online community. My online friendships have not translated into much more than online friendships.

But online or off, that's not why I started this blog. I started it because I love to write, love to talk, love to tell stories & turn the mundane into the magical. I began this blog as a fun creative outlet, not as a personal journal or a networking tool. I did not start blogging because I needed or wanted more friends. But still, I find myself a little bit jealous of the cohorts of blogger BFFs I see emerging from the depths of Socialmedialand, while I reside on some outer island, relevant but not requisite.

Am I doing something wrong? Am I defective? Am I too negative, too mopey? Does it matter? I have plenty of friends, both online & off, & a blog I love, regardless of whether it results in friendships. Shouldn't that be enough? And when the hell will this week be over?

Now I'm just whining. That, too, is specifically not the point of this blog. Damn it.

Back to your regularly scheduled program soon. I hope.

15 comments:

  1. I just passed by a New Hampshire license plate yesterday and thought of you. The state motto, as you know, is, "Live Free or Die." So, wallow a little, at a little ice cream, and then climb right out. You can do it.

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  2. I laugh at 99% of your posts or tweets because I've been there. And anyone who has been there can understand that sometimes we need snarky and sometimes we ride through the down points, because again - we all have them and we've all been there. But the point of having friends is that they ride through it with us, they give us our outlet and then we move on. I like to know I'm not the only one out there with problems or who has a bad day! I'd like to see how many 'I'm positive 100% of the time and I've never had a bad day' friends this friend of yours can find. Because frankly those folks would be annoying. Wish I had got to know you when you still lived around here!

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  3. EWWWW!!!! That person is not a good friend in the least. I love you because you are human! Because you have good days, and because you have bad ones. I'm sorry people are crappy. I hope you start having less bad days, but if you want to be mopey... the be mopey!
    p.s. lets hang out soon :)

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  4. okay, I never comment, and reading what that "friend" said miffed me.

    first- as someone who recently cut a VERY close friend out of their life because she's SO downright negative, and whose current VERY BEST friend (since diapers) is the snarkiest person on the planet, I KNOW there is a difference.

    There's a difference between someone who CANNOT be happy for someone else, is constantly putting others down, just a miserable human being to be around... and someone who's going through a period where nothing seems to be going right and you're just flat out bummed out/stressed out/freaked out.

    You RUN from person #1 like they have the plague, you REALIZE person #2 (you!) is just having a hard go at it. either they're just an ignorant asshat who only wants to be surrounded by sunshine and unicorns and rainbows (what world do THEY live in?) OR they don't appreciate quality snark when they see it.

    Knowing your history, (I saw your post on the Love Story Project a while back and began following through that), I personally find it remarkable that you ARE as happy, positive as you are.

    F* them, snark on.

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  5. I've seen a lot of people complain about negativaty on social media, and while I understand that it's not fun to read negative things all the time, we all live real lives that are sometimes hard and we sometimes even get depressed for no reason. We're human! I'd much rather associate with people who are going to be real, and show the good AND bad.

    I have a tendency to do both, and while I don't consider myself to be overly negative, when I'm upset or frustrated I want to let it out. Recently my dad threatened to unfollow me on Twitter if I wrote anything else bad. It came after a two-week period where I was sick and had no energy and I didn't feel like myself. He was just too worried about me, but I tried for awhile to only write positive things and I just felt fake.

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  6. I personally think your tweets are hilarious, mopey or not. I mean, the first one? I remember reading it and laughing.

    While I don't want to read a twitter feed from someone who is OMGTHEWORLDHATESME all the time, I think it shows you're human when you get blue occasionally. No one is perfect, no one's life is perfect and while I can appreciate a feel-good story just as much as a Negative Nancy rant, I think life (and blogging or tweeting) is all about balance.

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  7. I find you amusing! Even this post, which is only semi-mopey, made me smile with your turn of phrase.

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  8. You're definitely not doing anything wrong. I really thoroughly enjoy your blog and I don't you're mopey at all. Snarky, maybe, but not mopey.

    I know where you're coming from though. Even though I met incredible people online, none of these relationships have really translated into RL BFF friendships.... I sometimes feel very much excluded from the "blog party" that everyone else seems to be a part of.
    But you know what, it's really not about how many RL friends you make through your blog... if it happens, it's great, if not, but you still enjoy your blog and the connections you've made, then that's perfectly fine as well.

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  9. That is not a friend.

    Also, you are not that negative. I don't think you are, anyway. I am MUCH more negative than you are and sometimes I worry about that. I worry people are unfollowing me because I'm going thru something shitty and I bring them down.

    But you know what? This is life. Sometimes we feel emotions and sometimes those emotions are sad ones. And that's okay. It's okay to be angry and to express it from time to time.

    So I'm gonna eat my ice cream and whine about lost love and one day I will wake up and wanna run a half-marathon instead. Life has an ebb and flow. Go with it. That's totally okay Kate.

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  10. Honestly, I think your Twitter stream is REAL. I don't see it at negativity at all. This friend obviously doesn't know you or what you're going through to unfollow you for this.

    Often, I feel the same way. I've only made one "sort of" blogger BFF which has translated into daily e-mails but that's about it. I definitely feel like I'm just standing on the outside of all these bloggers who are Skypeing and texting and meeting in real life. I want to, but how do you even start that relationship? I guess since I also deal with problems developing real-life close friendships, it is even harder for me to develop online ones. And I just feel awkward, most of the time, so I don't even attempt.

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  11. No, you're not being too mopey. Anyone that wants to be surrounded by positivity all the time is not living in reality...I mean, things happen, and they are not always good. This person is not a real friend. And love your blog btw!

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  12. I love Kelly's comment about there being a difference in people. One is a negative person by nature...run from them. No matter how much light you have yourself, they will only drown you, and it's wasted energy.

    But then there's the other kind. The human kind. The kind where you just have drag-out, smackdown horrible days...The kind where you don't understand the world or anything going on in it, maybe even the kind where you don't understand or maybe even like yourself.

    Here's what I think, simply because this is how I live: this social media space has been my outlet from the get-go -- creatively and, more important, personally. I'll talk about the hard topics because that is what's affecting me know; I'll blog about grief and loss and I'll tweet about my insecurities because that's what I'm feeling in the moment. I share because sharing is what helps me stay grounded, so I don't get so lost in my own mind. Sharing is what keeps me connected to the world and the people in it. And sharing is what helps me figure out that what I'm feeling?

    It's only a moment in a short space of time. And as soon as that blog is posted or that tweet is sent, 9 times out of 10, I'm already feeling better for speaking the words outloud, where otherwise it may have bottled up and exploded further down the line. In my emotional "negativity," I find positivity; in my sharing, I find hope for myself, and I hope that I'm able to pass that onto others. In my own words, I'm able to learn lessons -- hell, I wasn't able to even admit that I struggle with depression, nevermind use that specific word in this social media space until recently.

    The thing is, people don't like to hear what even they themselves are dealing with because it makes them look inwards -- and people generally don't like to notice their own flaws. So they trump that they want to cut out the negative people when, really, they just want to keep wearing that mask.

    This is what makes you human -- all of the emotions, the good AND the bad. It's truly what connects us, and that connecting is what helps us.

    Keep being you, Kate. If you have to bemoan a horrible day, then by goodness, scream it to the world! The people who matter will be there right beside you, offering support; just like when you're having a good day, they'll be there rooting you on.

    It may not seem like you're making those connections, but online or off, I promise you, you are.

    <3

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  13. Mopey, shmopey. You're stuck with me for life :-)

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  14. Some days are good, some aren't. I've never stopped reading a blog because it was too mopey or too emotional, but I have stopped reading bloggers who never seem to have any problems ever and who appear to lead perfect, hunky dory lives. It's not that I'm not happy for them, it's just it doesn't look real to me and I can't relate to a life totally free of issues. Maybe that makes me an asshole, but my life includes good and bad, so I expect the same from others I guess. So mopey? Whatever. Shit happens.

    As for the friendships that seem to appear online and quickly turn into these amazingly solid bff-extravaganzas? Yeah...I've got a few people that live locally that I've met through the blog and who I count as good friends, but that didn't happen overnight. It came from meeting all the time and lots of wine and talks and shenanigans. I'm in awe of the bloggers who have whole GROUPS of blogger friends because my life just doesn't look like that.

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