Each of us changes the language we speak throughout every day. We use one type of language in speaking to our spouses and a slightly different language to speak to our children. Each of those languages evolves over time along with those relationships, but there are subtle differences in the way we speak to different people in our lives.
Another perfect example is the difference between how I would speak to my boss, a judge, versus how I speak to his clerk, my co-worker. And then there is a difference between how I speak to her and how I speak to close friends I’ve known for over ten years. I have a language for how I speak to the clerk at the store; with a subtle difference between said clerk and her co-worker, with whom I’ve exchanged pleasantries and light conversation for several years.
My bishop hears a different language than what I use when speaking with my husband. Intimacy has a lot to do with how we choose to speak. I trust my husband with the gnarly parts of my personality and my actual being, and I can be far less formal and far more personal with him than with anyone in my life. Still, because I value our relationship, I try to choose a language of love and humor rather than a language of bitterness and accusation, even when I’m feeling out of sorts with him. On the other hand, if I’ve just about had it up to here with the “customer service” person on the phone, I’m less likely to be concerned about his/her feelings (though, knowing myself as well as I do, I still try to temper those conversations).
None of this is to suggest that I feel that we lie to everyone, just picking and choosing which lies we’ll tell, depending on the person. Instead, I believe that we choose with each person and under which circumstances what parts of ourselves we will share. For instance, if you had a conversation with the grocery clerk, would you feel comfortable discussing what you like in the bedroom? Probably not. When speaking with your spouse, do you hold back on the details? Hopefully not.
I have known some of my friends for over 16 years. I met them on line but have had the opportunity since to also meet some of them in person. AOL was a strange new creature when we met in 1996. I was in the process of a messy divorce, and hardly anyone knew anything about the Internet. We all tended to be leery of sharing personal information and instead chose silly screen names to be our on-line personas. AOL limited us to, I believe, ten characters, so that led to some interesting abbreviations. But through chat rooms and message boards, I met people with whom I had things in common. Mostly LDS folks and court reporters. Many of those friends are still on-line friends. I married one :D
We didn’t share many personal details outside of what we held in common, so we knew each other, like in real life, based on the reason for our acquaintance. To be honest, I had no idea of the political or ideological thinking of any of these friends because we were discussing things in a more narrow focus, and that was fine. I grew close to some of them and still maintain a mostly on-line friendship which I value.
Enter social media. It seemed to be an easy and fun way to reconnect with friends and family. Sharing pictures and the events of one’s life was never so simple. But life as we knew it will never be the same.
As a court reporter, I have seen more than one case where social media had an effect on a marriage or a business relationship. It’s become sort of like the road rage phenomenon: It’s frighteningly easy to say things to people we would never say in person. And we end up using the same language when speaking to everyone who sees our posts. My former bishop is my Facebook friend, so he sees the things I post, as do my husband and some of my children. Others are colleagues I will likely never meet in person. Some are LDS, most are not. And I try to be careful about what I post, knowing that not everyone who reads what I post knows me as intimately as others.
But now I’m learning things about people that I don’t need to know as part of our relationship, but about which they obviously feel very strongly. Politics is one of the biggest offenders. We don’t all feel the exact same way, politically, even in our real-life relationships, and we know that. We just don’t talk about it because it usually doesn’t matter in the context of how we interact. That is, except through social media. If I want to express my love for my family in a status update, everyone who is my friend and who has not hidden me on his/her news feed will get the opportunity to see how I feel. If I want to express frustration about ANYthing, same thing.
Now I know things about people I don’t want to know. People who feel so strongly about whatever their political persuasion or thoughts on religion that they are not inclined to mince words. And I find myself feeling bad. A lot. Hurt. Unhappy because people are trampling all over things that mean a lot to me. Not just ANY people, but my friends. Some of them are friends I’ve known for years and with whom I’ve shared enough personal experience to feel like I really care for them deeply. And now these feelings of hurt and anger and bitterness are creating a wedge (in my mind, anyway) between me and those people.
I don’t like it. I want very much to maintain a relationship with some of these people, but I don’t want to be a reluctant host when they pontificate (haha, you see what I did there?) on things with which I absolutely disagree. I am holding in a lot of feelings that I didn’t ask to have in the first place, but it’s not my nature to call everyone out when I don’t agree with something they’ve said. It’s easy to be polite and privately roll my eyes when someone says something like that in conversation, but to have the place where I like to go for ENTERTAINMENT purposes be taken over by opinions that don’t build me or any of these relationships seems like such a violation of my personal space.
One time I commented that I was pleased that my son had expressed a preference for young women who choose to dress modestly. Innocent enough. But then I was shredded by a “friend” who felt I needed to teach my son to be less judgmental. Wait, what?
I briefly, oh, so briefly, deactivated my Facebook account to mull this. I am going to put it up for a very short time so I can post this blog, but I expect that I’ll deactivate it again soon. I don’t like how negatively I view our world right now, not because of current events but because of everyone’s current pastime.
