ookface

©2022 Michael Raven

faces found cringeworthy --
i wonder how i once
called these friends

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With a few exceptions (very few, mind), I’m finding my online interactions with people I’ve known or currently know in real life and called friends at one time or another to be “cringy” lately (many of my online associates that I have never met, on the other hand, don’t fall into this category of cringe).

I needed to vent a bit more about my bad diagnosis, so I made an offhand comment about it on social media. I got a few responses from those people who I don’t include in the cringy bucket expressing concern, so I explained further why I was all snarky. Tame, non-ranting explanation so that I didn’t get the same questions over and over again in private messages. “I was misdiagnosed as having RA, but have no markers for RA in recent bloodwork, so I am mad that I wasted so much time and money on treating something that was a misdiagnosis.”

One “friend” goes on to rave about his own rheumatologist, giving a glowing review, and then recommends that I visit his doctor for my rheumatoid arthritis… It’s about as tone deaf as you can get, based on what I had actually posted. “John,” I responded. “I apparently don’t need a rheumatologist for my non-existent RA”. “Great news!” was his reply. And then he was off to throw glitter or shit on someone else’s post.

It was obvious he was utterly oblivious to what I had actually written, so why bother commenting if you can’t be bothered to read what was going on.

Another response: “Sorry. What’s a good Chromebook to buy, computer king? Top notch without the top notch pricing.” The empathy was truly awe-inspiring.

These are paraphrased a bit, more to cut to the chase than to skew the conversation. But, yes, these are basically several responses I got.

And I realized, 95% people from my past were very much basically like this, 100% of the time — and there was little wonder why I don’t bother to go to social sites anymore. Rage about what is popular to be raging about, with little real empathy for your “friend’s” problems. Everyone seems to want the spotlight on them.

I need to quit visiting that site entirely. It just annoys me.