Sometimes when I go on fb and everyone is having fabulous days with fabulous people in their lives saying fabulous things about how fabulous their lives are and how fabulously happy it all is, I just feel so drained. I like my quiet, uneventful, domestic life but sometimes every one else's just makes me feel odd. Again. Is that strange?
You feel like you haven't accomplished enough or don't understand why these people are happy 'cause their idea of happiness feels so draining to you or...? Oh and by the way: I think it's not entirely unheard of for people to create a facsimile of happiness of their lives on FB by telling only half of the whole story. For example this happened to me on Saturday; let's pretend it's my status update: My boxing coach told me I was so good I could make it to the nationals!!! FABULOUS, right? Things I left out: -he said it to both, me and my sparring partner -he also said we could make it because the skill level is so low in the nationals, in other words, "girls, you suck," the piece of information which I just replaced with "I was so good" in my status update. See, I gave you the impression I'm somehow gifted, amazing, and fabulous, even though I'm actually totally ordinary and the only reason I can do something that appears like an accomplisment is that the bar is so low basically a trained monkey in a sports bra could do it. Fabulous!
I feel that I've accomplished a great deal, but not on the "high" scale, more low key. I think it's more the personal stuff that gets to me. Like the family who had certain members go thru some very hard, dark times but now they've all come around and are blissfully happy. Not that I begrudge them because that is wonderful and quite a blessing, but I feel that should be more personal - not on fb - but to each his own I guess. Maybe I'm just in a mood today.
Eloquently put. People often leave out crucial details for their own ends, or it's ruin the impact of the status update if they tell the full story. And now you've got me imagining monkeys in sports bras boxing each other. Thank you so much. Well, some people like to share that blissful happiness with the world, a sort of, "Hoorah! We got over a difficult hump, come celebrate with us!"
It isn't strange at all. Just remember that we live in a competitive society, which goes against our natural instincts as cooperative creatures. People will always tell you to stop comparing yourself to others, but being better than others is how you succeed in modern civilization. I'm not saying you're worse than others by the way. I'm currently operating under the idea that people like you are actually the healthy ones, because your brain hasn't deluded itself into conforming to our current lifestyle, which does go against everything that makes us human. Society evolved a lot faster than our bodies and brains have (which for the most part are no different than they were 50,000 years ago. Civilization is the sickness.
Thank you for saying that. I would like this more than once if I could. Thank you for this perspective.
Facebook is all about primping. Pictures of beaches and pools. You see only ten of the ten thousand taken. That's with the makeup and the perfect lighting. Maybe there's a cute hubby and a happy baby. Again, you're seeing only a select few of the ten thousand photos taken. Then there are the statuses, but if you go to facebook to read, well....Everyone wants to be envied. If you're wise like me, you just use FB to check out the girls and ignore the rest.
Facebook is very often about who we would like to be. My mom has a gal-pal (from her old job before she retired) for whom I made the mistake of accepting as a "friend". I had met her two or three times in the real world, but this was well over a decade ago. Her posts are affluently Floridian, poolside, Melbourne Beach (we lived in a well-to-do area), palm trees, nice cars, the usual "fabulous Facebook life". What her posts don't show is that she suffers from profound OCD (the real kind, not the ha-ha kind), her daughter is addicted to oxycontin (she "smokes" pills, it's a thing) and her husband committed suicide (that happened back when I knew her in real life). Even in the real world, there are people as we know them, and then there are people as they are. Digital life only serves to magnify this separation. Flip the dynamic around and the same holds true. Do you think most people who snark and seem to have "iconoclastic" (ha!) personalities on-line are the same in real life? Not without a few traumatically missing teeth, that's for sure.
The internet is a battlezone, you have to go inside, do what you need quick, and get the hell out of there. Answering this thread, or just surfing is also a distraction being lured into. You want to be happy? Go experience new things, that way you will feel alive. The internet won't help you with that.
You're not strange, I feel the same a lot of the time. I can be in an okay mood, not particularly happy or sad, just fine, and then get on facebook and feel... well. Drained. It's almost exhausting looking at the hundreds of pictures of peoples "perfect" lives, the insane public drama between couples, and everything else. In fact, if I'm on facebook too long, I usually get depressed.
At this point I only use Facebook as a means to say Happy Birthday to people. And post videos of myself and a friend jamming in the park like huge losers. I'm cool.
