andros, maybe next time just tell the person you’re a humanist Buddhist atheist and Biblical scholar.
They just defriended, not completely blocked.
Maybe I don’t like it when people do that to me because I don’t usually do it to people (at least, not people I’ve met in real life.)
I did once block someone who used to be a good friend, and then tried to not hurt his feelings as much as possible by saying something that strongly implied I’d not blocked him, but gone off Facebook altogether… but that’s a whole other story, and in my opinion, my blocking him was totally justified.
Oh, I do. But I’m interested in the conversation, and don’t want to shut it down instantly. It’s just that since she’s the one knocking on my door, I want her to come correct.
I understand. I’m the same way. I’ve only defriended 3 people and blocked one. The 3 were part of a group where one was being a jerk and the other 2 were egging him on.
The block was a result of a long thread where a classmate from high school was running for local office. Very much a Tea Party candidate and a pseudo-intellectual if I’ve ever met one. He would just copy and paste items from the Federalist papers without contributing any original thought or context, and he did it so much that it became a running joke for the rest of us. He failed the State Bar (in a very easy state, mind you) a few times, but still held himself out as a legal expert.
His candidacy was a joke (relying on local ties for votes), but he held himself out as a moral and virtuous person. Somewhere in a thread, he posted about how upstanding he is, and I then asked about previous comments he’d made (before he announced his candidacy) about getting drunk, hooking up with numerous women, etc. He denied it, and I provided links and references. He immediately starting going back and deleting the “evidence,” but I’d taken screenshots because I felt he’d do just that - not to humiliate him, but just to support my claim. It became a huge conversation (over 1,000 comments from various people) and he just kept digging himself into a huge hole. He started tossing out insults, threats, etc., and he was the “lone voice of reason” in a large group of people who were part of some elaborate conspiracy to sabotage his candidacy and promote family values. (Apparently, having a three-way and filming it while in vacation on Spring Break is a “family value”)
After his sister started messaging me and making empty threats and crazy claims, I figured it was best just to block him entirely. The whole thing was really comical. I really blocked him more because I knew it would drive him crazy when I would comment on mutual friends’ posts and he’d know that I’d said something because he would be able to see the response, but not my post. I almost wish I hadn’t because the thread had so much crazy in it that it was astounding. He started deleting comments he’d made in the thread, and then claim he’d never said certain things, but since people had replied to his now-gone comments, it was obvious that something was missing.
Here we go again.
Every year, the Christmas Eve party at my in-laws seems to boil down to a battle between merriment and cheer on one side, fighting for their lives against whatever happens to be the right-wing outrage du jour. But this year, barring something VERY eventful happening in the next couple days to change the subject, I think this one will be the worst ever, because–move over, Benghazi–I truly don’t remember outrage so fierce from them, and that’s saying a lot.
My in-laws, whose reading on the subject can exhaustively be catalogued as this, this, this, this, and this, are in the process of completely losing their shit over the fact that the president, the attorney general, and the mayor of NYC have all evidently incited murder against cops. Apparently the idea that police abuse exists and may affect certain races more than others is a fabrication of opportunistic liberal politicians and agitators, and anyway if it were true, for a politician to say so is irresponsible to the point of treason. Their conviction in this deranged version of events is so strong that last night, when I got a preview of things to come, they were trembling with rage and practically in tears just telling me about it.
Another family gathering that promises to leave me hollowed out and dead inside. God damn you, New York Post! God damn you to hell!
Does the SO have your back?
More or less. She tends to leave the room in disgust (more towards the off-putting display of barely-contained rage on her parents’ part than towards me). Which frankly is what I ought to find a way to do too. Part of me wants to rise to the challenge of trying to deprogram these people, but I fail every. single. time. There’s just too much thick underbrush of misguided assumptions and reactionary attitudes on a whole range of issues to unpack before progress is even imaginable. Plus I’m handicapped by wanting to avoid actually damaging our relationship.
Why would you even go?
Good lord, find friends who desperately want you to share a holiday with them for a change. Invent them if you have to.
Fuck Christmas. Fuck it in it’s ear. I hate it and I want no part of it. Leave me out of it. It wouldn’t be so bad if people would stop trying to pull me into it. FUCK OFF! I REFUSE!
No caroling, no gifts, NO CHRISTMAS CARDS!!! Is there anything as worthless as a Christmas card??? Cripes, how many tress do we lose each year so you can say ‘Merry Christmas to you and yours from the gang here at whothefuckcares?’
No more of the same hack writing ‘it’s a wonderful life’ or ‘a christmas carol’ knockoff schlock on every damn sitcom. they are even worse than than the ‘we have to save christmas for that one special kid and or family’ episode on the dramas.
And the worst? The holiday sales jingles on radio v commercials. Adding lyrics to ‘God rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ asking listeners to come on down to Ace Hardware. What level of fresh hell is this for someone who had aspirations of actually being a writer?
And GODDAMMIT! You do not sell gifts! You can only sell items that others can give as gifts! And the next cashier who asks me if I’m ready for Christmas is gonna get yelled at!
Aaaarrrrgggghhhhhh!!!
So I suspect that you don’t send out a Christmas letter, then?
That’s like throwing raw meat to a lion.
Merry Christmas.
No hack writing here, just Christmas Carol knockoffs at their finest.
(Except post 144. Please ignore that one and save us all some embarrassment)
Whee! Shoulder surgery for Tony on the 30th. (Fourth in one year, for those keeping score. Eleventh surgery since the wreck two years ago.) So much for birthday plans for my daughter (again,) and a planned New Year’s Day get-together with friends. And then, it’s time to try two more things before a discussion of whether back surgery will be necessary. Double whee! (At least the good doctor made it fun by starting an “Airplane!” quote war in the exam room.)
And Oh. My. Dog. Went to the mall in hopes of buying two quick gifts at Barnes & Noble. Walked inside, found the store, looked inside, and said “nope!” If you know me at all, a crowd crazy enough to keep me out of a bookstore? Yeah… that’s a crowd. I hightailed it out of there and went to another, less crowded retail outlet. When I got to the cash stand, the very lovely and personable cashier asked whether I was ready to check out. My reply: “Honey, you have no idea!”
And now, we’re going to my idiot father-in-law’s on Christmas day. And I need to fix an appetizer and a dessert. He’s really pushing for us to spend the night and stay for his idiot brother’s barbecue on Friday. Happily, I have a built-in excuse: we’re hosting a giant Christmas to-do at our house on Saturday. I haven’t finished decorating. I need to cook for about fifty people. I still have a half-page list of projects that I have to finish eventually (fix toilet in girls’ bathroom, that type of thing.) I have to buy groceries tomorrow. I’m so screwed.
My xmas present from the house: The garbage disposal mutated into a colander.
Good thing I will be without adult supervision after tomorrow afternoon.
FuckingBBC news making people out to be cowards
At 10 seconds in to the video linked above they say “Christmas shoppers had to run for safety yesterday” but the clip they’re talking over shows people running TOWARDS the scene to help. That’s what we do in Glasgow - when the helicopter hit the Clutha last year people ran TO the pub to form a human chain and get everyone out. People ran to the hurt yesterday to do first aid and CPR, in the full clip of the aftermath you can hear locals on their phones calling for ambulances, passers by running up to kids on the street to make sure they’re okay.
Don’t make my people out to be cowards, BBC.
Well, of course I know I could have just ordered one off Amazon, but by the time I was looking I didn’t want to be dependent on a shipping company.
Anyway, I gave up and just bought a rack with a pan at Sears for $15.
And while I’m at it, what the fuck is up with the dehumanizing trend of referring to women as “females”?
Police Scotland referred to the people killed as “The deceased includes one male and five females” which is very clinical and formal, but at least treats men and women equally.
One of the local tabloids takes that press release and translates it so the man gets humanity but the ladies killed don’t - “One man and five females”
Seriously? You can go to the effort of changing male to man, but not alter females to women or god forbid, ladies?
Fucking patriarchy.
Sorry if it looks like I may be looking to make excuses for a tabloid, but do you know if all five of the female victims were women (that is, no little girls)? If they can minimize the number of words they can make the typeface in the headline bigger.
No, and I suspect they don’t either - only four names out so far, all adults, so potentially two could be young girls rather than grown women I suppose.
But why spoil a good rant 
ETA - Just checked, and the six have all been named now, all adults, so at least the rumours of the baby killed in its pram are untrue. But yeah, the papers didn’t have that information when they did the headline that pissed me off.