I did attempt college. I gave it the ol' college try (pun intended). I majored in Political Science and took night classes in a nursing school. Neither of those things made me qualified to do what I began doing this spring; Start a social experiment.
My husband's best friend Isaac calls Facebook the devil. I always imagine him saying it while dressed as Dana Carvey's famous SNL character "church lady" whenever things go sour on that popular website. Facebook can be a good thing. You can share photos with distant relatives, catch up with old friends or learn about new blogs. I think it becomes evil when you forget that all the junk you vent on your computer actually gets sent into cyber space for all your "friends" to read. I of course am famous for this. Not long ago I posted about not going on Facebook when you're in a bad mood because you just might get deleted by your cousin Juanita. I should've learned a lesson, but instead I decided to take it one step further to prove a point. The really crappy part is that I proved myself correct.
Earlier this year someone attempted to compliment me by saying that they loved how "real" I was. This isn't the first time someone has mentioned my penchant for blunt conversation and blatant honesty. My husband and mother do not usually think of these personality traits as compliments but we'll see why later. Anyhow, I began to think that no one actually loves the "real" or "honest" folks they only say they do. I looked at Facebook as the perfect example of this. People were candid to a point regarding minor issues, but the layer of fiction was always covering the honesty. People would attempt to be genuine all the while strapping their Facebook Safety Condom on (also known as the "LOL" or "HEEHEE") to be sure that they could say they were joking if anyone took offense. Now I've used plenty of LOL's to assure that family and friends would still send me Christmas cards and I was beginning to become disgusted in myself. I've always been straight-forward and a right fighter. These two things are listed in both my strengths and weaknesses columns and I have always been well aware of that fact. So that day I decided to see if people really did appreciate honest people. I'd discover if this was truly a strength or a weakness.
I decided to have a couple of things I was going to consider honest:
1. I would always bring to attention when someone said something hypocritical or two-faced.
2. I'd always say exactly what came into my borderline warped mind.
3. I'd call out political issues that were far fetched or incorrect (explains my disdain for the Tea Party)
4. I'd also welcome and appreciate all respectfully made differences of opinions but would sever relationships if I felt they were not positive instead of blocking their posts to avoid hurt feelings. After all blocking posts isn't being honest. Right?
When I started most of my friends probably didn't notice a difference in me. My mom would occasionally tell me I was being rude and I'd justify it by reminding her that this is who I was and people could either appreciate it or delete me. During the first couple months no big drama happened. I had disagreements with people over my issues with the presidential candidates and gay marriage. Here and there I'd delete people that I felt acted hatefully or bigoted, but all in all it remained pretty authentic Sarah. I even watched beautiful debates regarding abortion and homosexual marriage on my wall where people treated each other well even though they disagreed. I felt I had finally created an awesome forum where people could be
undisguised on my statuses and some people heard points of views that even swayed their beliefs. Only recently things began to unravel on me. I started acting in a manner that was hateful. When statuses were posted that generalized people or made me angry I'd announce to the world that I was deleting the person without giving them a chance to defend themselves. I was becoming obsessed with finding peoples faults without looking at my own. It doesn't help that I was watching a ton of Newsroom at the time (fans of this wonderful program with understand). I on occasion would admit when I was wrong...but that was rare. Family wasn't even safe. My complete irritation with one aunt caused an uproar and my relationship with a cousin that I was close with came to an end. Afterward I deleted 2 other cousins for similar reasons. All together I've de-friended around 15 people (most of which related to me) over the past few months.
In the past week I began behaving very similar to 1997 Sarah. The problem with that is I was 16 that year and I am now currently 31; this behavior wasn't mature at all. The other day I became infuriated with a comment posted on my status. The comment was stupid and from a person I couldn't care less about but I let in boil inside me. I declared that only I could act like an idiot on my page and swiftly deleted that person...and the 2 people that liked his comment. I had completely changed. It didn't matter to me that the people I deleted were related to one of my best friends because in my head I was sticking to my guns and not tolerating things I determined disrespectful. I was justified in my actions and could not be told otherwise.
Today my experiment came to an end. I was ripped a new one by someone that did care about the people I deleted and did want me to realize that I had become what I disliked the most, a hypocrite. I read this post (that was made public which I did actually appreciate) after enduring a night of God showing me what I'd become and a church service completely focused on loving others in the way Christ loves us. Now, I don't believe in coincidences. I believe if you ignore God long enough he'll drown you in His message. It is because I believe that way that I wrote an apology and explanation on my page, personally apologized to the appropriate people, allowed myself to feel completely shamed and low all day and it's why I'm now writing this.
Everyday these occurances happen on Facebook. I know I'm not the first or the last to go on a tirade. Facebook makes everyone feel important. You type away your opinion and than bask in it when your friends agree with it and you get hurt when they don't. I don't agree with Isaac. Facebook isn't the devil, but I do compare it with a disease. If you don't watch yourself closely the disease can take over your life and the biggest side effect is narcissism. My little experiment turned me into a narcissist and if that had been my goal I would've succeeded with flying colors.
In my months of blatant honesty I discovered 2 things. First, people DO NOT WANT YOU TO BE HONEST. Sure friends want you to nicely mention that their outfit shows their muffin top and you obviously want your husband to be honest about what he does, but leave it to the big things only. Telling someone they're a jackass for believing Obama wasn't born here doesn't make you honest, it makes you the jackass. The second thing I learned is that you can not make rules for others to follow without telling them or asking them if it's okay. If someone wants to live in a world of sunshine and lullabies than that is their choice. You can think it's dishonest but keep it to yourself. Believe me.
There is something way more important that honesty in this world and its humility. If the only thing I got from this is the ability to call myself out than I consider this experiment a success. Maybe it wasn't others that needed to be shown their true selves; maybe it was me. Lucky for me God has enough grace to go around because I'm going to need a lot of it.
Type Safely.
