I recently finished up a giant origami wreath to donate to the Akron Holiday Tree festival and posted a photo on Facebook. This is something I\u2019ve done for a few years now – I usually get some help from a committee at work and the donated wreath is auctioned off to benefit Children\u2019s Hospital. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My friends and family liked the photo and had really nice comments to say – and I feel like I contributed in a positive way to the conversation online. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time, though, I also got a direct message that was… less pleasant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Jim and I started dating, we would occasionally hang out with one of his friends from when he was younger and with her boyfriend. We didn\u2019t have a lot in common with this couple, but tried our best to find some middle ground. When we got invited to Hilton Head for a week by one of my former co-workers, the trip coincided with this couple\u2019s wedding, which we went to. And on a later trip, we shared a condo with them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead of getting closer to them, though, the gap began to widen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We rarely saw them during the beach trip – they stayed away from the beach and indoors most of the day. Dinners were strained from lack of common topics. And, as a game night was wrapping up, Jim\u2019s friend turned out to be super-duper racist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Later on, it turned out that her husband had a sort of “inapropiate relationship” with someone he\u2019d interacted with on Second Life, but never met in person. \u00a0 I\u2019m not sure which is odder – the interaction or the fact they\u2019d met on Second Life. \u00a0 I mean, really? Second Life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From there, it was full-on Trump – and Jim and I casually backed away from them both with regret but a sense of relief. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, in the middle of enjoying sharing some fun artwork, I got a direct message from this couple. They share a facebook account – and an ideology – so it was impossible to tell who it was from. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The message suggested that Jim and I should be regretting voting for President Biden and that if we were still \u201criding with biden\u201d we are responsible for the increase in gas prices since the president was planning on shutting down a pipeline from the north. The rest was Pro-Trump and something about being \u201cwoke\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hadn\u2019t posted anything political in eons and nothing about gas prices. I\u2019m not friends with them on facebook and we don\u2019t have any friends in common. And we\u2019d never had a conversation by messenger – this was the first connection in literally years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I read it a couple of times and didn\u2019t respond. I didn\u2019t want a conversation with them – though I was a little curious as to why. Why any of it, really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I told Jim about it and he suggested I block them. I didn\u2019t – because that could also be communication and I thought the best response was none at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was just this unpleasant and slightly toxic – completely random – message from people that I had nothing in common with and hadn\u2019t spoken to in years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I suppose they intended to ruin my day – that was the tone of the message – but I had no idea why. Nor did their opinion of me matter enough to bother me. It was just mean, and pointless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is so much bad and negative in the world and the thought of making it worse for anyone just strikes me as so very sad and exhausting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, the message sits in the app. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read, but unacknowledged.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I recently finished up a giant origami wreath to donate to the Akron Holiday Tree festival and posted a photo on Facebook. This is something I\u2019ve done for a few years now – I usually get some help from a committee at work and the donated wreath is auctioned off to benefit Children\u2019s Hospital. My […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2630"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2633,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2630\/revisions\/2633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}