My trip to the dark side started with a picture that a friend posted of another lady breast-feeding. In her post, she called people who didn't share her opinion that public breastfeeding was OK hypocrites, stating that people shouldn't be OK with seeing low-cut shirts if they weren't OK seeing a woman openly breastfeeding. Soon, this picture popped up on several of my other friend's pages. I shared my opinion on this and soon found myself sucked into a heated conversation about whether or not women should breastfeed in public without covering themselves.
While I'm sure most of my friends who are mothers were simply trying to share their points of view, I felt attacked by many of them and decided that take it upon myself to share my opinion some more and find even more people who agreed with me. This is how I found myself commenting on everything any of these people posted about breastfeeding, shoving my opinions down people's throats and getting a sick sort of high every time someone would click "like" on my comments.
After getting sick of educating everyone on what I view as being proper public breastfeeding etiquette, I turned my attention elsewhere. I got sucked into more posts about whether a parent or society is responsible for sensoring what a child sees and hears. I was called a "judgmental bitch," which just fueled the fire. I refused to stop posting until this person I got into a Facebook war with could see how I was right and she was wrong.
Somewhere around the five-millionth post (OK... five million might be a tiny exaggeration), it hit me that I honestly didn't even care about the subject I was fighting over with this stranger. I was fighting and being negative simply for the conflict, and I had no idea why.
Face-to-face, I very rarely fight with people, and I certainly never fight with people I don't know. I avoid conflict at all costs, trying to resolve issues before they even start. On Facebook, though, not being able to see how I was affecting other people gave me the freedom to say whatever I wanted without being worried about having to come face-to-face with the people I was upsetting.
I never called people names during my Facebook battles. I never even cursed at people on there. But, I did knock other people's opinions down simply to prove my own point, which is sometimes even worse than calling names.
I'm not a nasty and mean person, but I let Facebook turn me into an online bully. Thank goodness I had a break-through, and now I can end that nasty cycle! I'm leaving my negativity in my head and focusing on the happy part of Facebook. I am very happy to say that I'm back from the dark side, and my online future looks pretty bright.
While I'm sure most of my friends who are mothers were simply trying to share their points of view, I felt attacked by many of them and decided that take it upon myself to share my opinion some more and find even more people who agreed with me. This is how I found myself commenting on everything any of these people posted about breastfeeding, shoving my opinions down people's throats and getting a sick sort of high every time someone would click "like" on my comments.
After getting sick of educating everyone on what I view as being proper public breastfeeding etiquette, I turned my attention elsewhere. I got sucked into more posts about whether a parent or society is responsible for sensoring what a child sees and hears. I was called a "judgmental bitch," which just fueled the fire. I refused to stop posting until this person I got into a Facebook war with could see how I was right and she was wrong.
Somewhere around the five-millionth post (OK... five million might be a tiny exaggeration), it hit me that I honestly didn't even care about the subject I was fighting over with this stranger. I was fighting and being negative simply for the conflict, and I had no idea why.
Face-to-face, I very rarely fight with people, and I certainly never fight with people I don't know. I avoid conflict at all costs, trying to resolve issues before they even start. On Facebook, though, not being able to see how I was affecting other people gave me the freedom to say whatever I wanted without being worried about having to come face-to-face with the people I was upsetting.
I never called people names during my Facebook battles. I never even cursed at people on there. But, I did knock other people's opinions down simply to prove my own point, which is sometimes even worse than calling names.
I'm not a nasty and mean person, but I let Facebook turn me into an online bully. Thank goodness I had a break-through, and now I can end that nasty cycle! I'm leaving my negativity in my head and focusing on the happy part of Facebook. I am very happy to say that I'm back from the dark side, and my online future looks pretty bright.
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