Snuffle and burn

[smokingboot]

Tired, and oh my bones so bloody cold-ridden! Exhaustion and all that. Friend round Thursday night, friends round during the weekend, all so much fun, and me felled by this lurgy. Oh I feel ill, and only whisky can help. Eeeugh.

Well, the election. Pox on it. There is much upset.

I have unfriended two people today. One I hardly knew and the other was a closer friend. She is the spouse of the crazy guy who took it upon himself to find me yesterday/the day before. I recall her as kind, but still, without saying anything, thoroughly right wing, and a little out there; she had been totally convinced the end of civilisation was nigh in 2012. Her husband was mortified when it didn't happen, but maybe she has rethought it as the beginning of the end days rather than the precise year. Who knows, we may yet have anarchy and small parishes running themselves, wise women gathering herbs while men patrol the boundaries, tin openers hanging from their belts. Today she put up some daft quote from Paul Joseph Watson no less, rejoicing about the death of identity politics and socialism; as though she hadn't been nurtured by socialist aspects of Brit society like the NHS! I didn't even really think it through. I was weary and ill and just thought enough, and defriended her.

It's only FB but it feels like more. Despite her views she always stayed friendly, and I should have just snoozed her. But sometimes you want to close a door for a while, and slam it by accident.

Nope, this is no damn good. I must go to bed.

Comments

[magpiehaunt]

Last night I was telling a friend that I'd quit out of Facebook (either temporarily or permanently) because it had become a danger zone of so much anguish and fear and toxic disagreement that all it was doing was compounding my own feelings of being crushed, and he said that he knew quite a few other people who had done the same or similar. Setting and maintaining boundaries at a time like this is damn important – I mean sure, this a time to help and support and educate each other, but only if we have the bandwidth to do so. If we don't, for whatever reason, then building personal defences and concentrating on dragging ourselves through is the priority. If your gut reaction was to put this person outside your walls then in all likelihood it was the good call.

Hope your plague passes as quickly as possible x

[smokingboot]

Thanks for your thoughts, they reassure me somewhat.

Maybe I should listen to my gut more.

And thank you for your kind wishes for de-lurgification! :-)

[magpiehaunt]

I'm having to operate on my gut a lot more at the moment. Tempered with self-analysis and sanity checks, of course. But the gut is a good place to start from.

[mallorys_camera]

I find that Facebook bothers me the most when it's substituting for a social life—which happens from time to time because as a writer, I spend a larger chunk of my time than most in relative isolation.

I don't know whether that's the same for you, but I pass the thought on in case it rings a few bells.

I also unfriend and block people very frequently because life is too short to agonize over imaginary people who for all intents and purposes live in one's computer. 😃

I am so sorry about the lurgy! (But what a great word.) Sending you all good thoughts for rapid healing. xxoo

[smokingboot]

FB seldom bothers me as much as it has done after this election. Only the referendum was on a par with it. I agree that the social aspect can be quite fun, after working in solitude.

What it has become for me is a way to keep up with people I know but haven't seen in years,or can't reach with ease. It is a very strange thing when I find that I have almost nothing in common with some of these old friends, that maybe I misjudged them even when we were all regularly seeing each other. Doesn't happen much, but when it does the feeling's most peculiar.