This week wasn’t the first time I have run into trouble on Facebook. Back when I was the library manager of a small rural branch, the director insisted we all acquire FB accounts to increase communication between the branches. Then she posted an egregiously political musing about how our state should go after “illegals” who were committing voter fraud. I didn’t rant back at her; simply posted the results of an also-rural state who had spent hundreds of thousands on rooting out voter fraud, finally uncovering two—as in, one, two—cases. In response, she snarked back that it wasn’t a good idea to contradict the boss. So I happily let Facebook idle away, and never visited either the work or personal accounts I had established.
But having recently retired and completed a novel based on climate change and new technologies (invented, unfortunately, only in my head) to mitigate it, I was told by an agent that I must increase my online presence, that agents and editors “cyber-stalked”possible clients to suss out their potential. So I returned to my personal account, caught up with old friends and a niece I’d long neglected.
Yesterday I had a brilliant thought: I’d see what my friend H was up to. She’d been a library volunteer at my branch for almost a decade, a sweet older lady with a soft voice, twinkling eyes, a wicked sense of humor, and a generous tolerance with after-schoolers and other difficult library patrons. I hadn’t talked to her since summer of 2015, and missed her presence in my life. We’d seen each other through rough times, the protracted illness and death of her husband, the years that, out of necessity, my young granddaughter came to live with me…it would be good to get in touch with her again.
SoI entered her name in “Find Friends,” and what popped up was shocking, was horrible. She’d re-posted diatribes about “libtards,” and a long rant about the “martyred” Bill O’Reilly; she herself had posted things that I found—well, insane. The last one I saw before clicking out was her fervent post: “I trust Trump.”
Now, I’ve had my days of despair since November, and since January they’ve gotten worse. But that this wonderful, intelligent, classy lady that I had known and loved for a decade had such hatred in her heart? Was so blinded and warped?
I can’t seem to stop pondering this. I’ve avoided talking politics with my right-wing brother, or my FOX-addicted neighbor, and we get along okay. But something about H’s revelations--the kind of personal revelations that Facebook makes so easy, so seductive: it was like grabbing for a cream puff and, just before biting into it, seeing maggots squirming around in the soft sweet dough.
Call me naïve, but makes me think I was right to retreat from Facebook. I certainly haven’t been overtly political or in any way unpleasant in my postings or responses, but if this is the stuff that is out there among all those people who aren’t my friends—and, apparently, among some who are—maybe this social media thing is just too much for me. Reaping the whirlwind, and all that.
And it makes me feel so old, and tired, and discouraged all over again. Which of course is how They want us to feel.
So I shall persist. Another town hall, another march, another letter to a representative. I shall be respectful and strong.
One day at a time. But please, God, no more shocks like this one. I need my Friends to be friends.