Tag Archives: digs

communication, condescending twatbags, language, overly helpful people

“I’m callin’ you out like a sneaky snake…”

I remember back in the early aughts, while job hunting, I got hooked on Mad TV. There was a hilarious sketch featuring a paranoid middle management guy named Sean Gidcomb who was obsessed with the office supply closet. He would accuse his co-workers of being “sneaky snakes”, stealing the pencils, staplers, toilet paper, and computer paper. He was rigid about their work habits and absenteeism. And he held the prospect of being fired over their heads to keep them in line.

Don’t we all know controlling micromanagers like this character?
Sneaky snake!

The character of Sean Gidcomb is, of course, an exaggerated stereotype of a certain type of person we all know. If we didn’t know someone who acted like Sean in some way, this routine wouldn’t be funny because people couldn’t relate to it. However, I’m willing to bet that most Americans– and probably a lot of Europeans (especially Germans)– can relate to this type of busybody.

I don’t work with other people very much anymore, so it’s been a long time since I had to deal with someone like Sean in the workplace. However, I do often run into this type in my online endeavors. These are the hyper-anal types of people who appoint themselves the law and order keepers. I usually refer to them as “overly helpful people”, but they aren’t always coming from an apparent place of help. Sometimes, that behavior comes from a deep need to look superior to other people, or to subtly tear people down… in a “sneaky snake” kind of way. I think that kind of behavior is meant to make someone who feels insecure or “small” feel better about themselves by being subtly negative or corrective. They don’t want to be obvious about their negativity, because that would not be socially acceptable. So, instead of being outwardly rude or upfront, they’ll be sneakily passive aggressive and covertly controlling.

I happen to be very sensitive to this type of behavior. Much like people who snipe at others in underhanded ways because of childhood trauma, I am sensitive to that manipulative behavior due to my own baggage from childhood. I grew up around controlling, manipulative people who were always issuing corrections and criticisms. So, when someone acts that way toward me as an adult, I tend to notice immediately and issue a response.

Many times, my responses tend to be more obvious call outs, which put the other person on the spot. I don’t mind criticism or correction when it’s really warranted, but I truly don’t appreciate passive aggressive digs. And I almost always notice them, too. Then, when I respond, the other person tries to gaslight, saying that what I read or heard wasn’t really what I read or heard.

Here’s an example from 2014 or so… (just to keep this post somewhat safe from a shitshow).

There was a woman in my online life that I used to know from a messageboard I hung out on in the days before Facebook. I found her incredibly insufferable. It was like she went out of her way to be rude and condescending to me. Back in the days when we posted on the messageboard, this woman would seemingly make it a point to contradict or criticize. I tried to ignore her, but she just continued her behavior, either not realizing or not caring how obnoxious and overbearing she was. (for more on this, click here)

I tried to be assertive, but she got offended and sent me angry private messages, accusing me of “insulting” her. I wasn’t insulting– I was pointing out that I found her comments rude, belittling, and offensive. She insulted me first, which is why I responded in the direct way I did. But no, I never called her names, told her to “fuck off and die”, or anything like that. What I wrote was, “Whether or not you mean to come across that way, your comments to me are belittling and offensive.”

Finally, once the messageboard fell apart, we all moved to Facebook, and I unfriended her.

Unfriending the offender worked fine for a long time. But unfortunately, we had mutual friends, and I would still run into her on occasion. One day, I left a comment on a mutual friend’s post, and the overly helpful person decided to leave a little passive aggressive dig that I found very offensive.

Here’s an excerpt from my original post about this on the Blogspot version of OH:

I was fine with letting her be her and letting me be me… until a couple of nights ago, when a friend posted about marijuana.  She wanted to know if we thought it should be legalized.  I said it should; that way, I could smoke it next week while hanging around my family.

Ms. OH pipes up with a quip about how some laws were meant to be broken, insinuating that smoking pot is no big deal.  And maybe it’s not if you don’t have a job where drug testing is done.  I wrote that I don’t have a problem with recreational pot use, but Bill doesn’t like marijuana because he used to live with a couple of potheads in college.  He didn’t like that the pot seemed to make them less than ambitious.  He also doesn’t like smoke.

Ms. OH comes back with “He’s never lived with alcoholics? 😉 ;)” 

Looks like a simple comment, right? But because we used to hang out on a messageboard, I think she knew full well that alcoholism is a sore subject to me. Why would you add winkie smilies if you aren’t implying that you “know” Bill has had “experience” with drunks?  If it were an honest and serious question, there wouldn’t be any winking going on, right?

I continued:

I think if she’d left off the winkie smilies, I probably wouldn’t have gotten so aggravated.  Alcoholism is a very sore subject for me and I don’t think it’s funny.  Alcoholism has personally caused me a lot of pain.  People I love have also been hurt due to alcoholism.  I grew up with an alcoholic who abused me.  Moreover, some might even call me an alcoholic because I really do like my booze– though Bill says he doesn’t think I’m abusive or mean when I drink. 

But even if alcoholism weren’t a sore subject, I don’t like her and I don’t enjoy interacting with her.  This week has been stressful enough for me, dealing with people who are crazy makers.  I feel pretty certain I don’t want to interface with Ms. OH again.  So I decided to block her.

I told Bill that I thought I’d soon get an email from her.  Sure enough, I did.  She wrote that she didn’t understand and demanded to know what she’d said to offend me.  Seems to me that if someone blocks you on Facebook, it means they don’t want to talk to you.  But she can’t accept that and has to know why… and she seems to think I owe her an explanation, as if we were actual friends.

Years later, as I think about this, I realize that there are a lot of people out there who struggle with their own feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, and low self-esteem. They’re always looking for someone to pick on in some way. When they spot someone who seems like an easy target, they can’t seem to help themselves.

I know I have served as an “easy target” to a lot of people. Maybe it’s because I am the youngest of four by more than several years, and my family regularly discounted and belittled me when I was a child. So I still have that unsure side to me that comes out, attracting “overly helpful” people like blood to a shark. However, just as our dog, Noyzi, loves people naturally, but is automatically affected by prior abuses that make him skittish and scared, I am affected by that unfinished old business.

Naturally– I am not as unsure as I seem. Naturally, I am someone who is pretty assertive. But I was taught not to be that way by controlling, manipulative, critical people when I was not in a position to defend myself as well. It’s hard to lose that old way of surviving, even when it no longer works. So I still have people in my life who are comfortable being shitty to me.

Below is more from my 2014 post:

It is possible that [the sneaky snake overly helpful offender’s] comment about alcoholics was innocent, but I am guessing it wasn’t.  I’ve been around her enough to know that she’s one to be snarky.  She has a way of looking down on people.  I don’t think she was intending to be funny or even friendly.  Besides, I honestly think she’s an asshole; so this decision was years in the making.  To be clear, I didn’t block her because of one stupid comment; I blocked her because she has a very long history of irritating me and most interactions I have with her raise my blood pressure.  And when I have told her why she gets under my skin, she gets pissy. 

She just rubs me the wrong way and either can’t or won’t modify her behavior.  And I would be wrong to ask her to modify it.  She obviously has friends and loved ones who love her just the way she is.  I’m obviously the one with a problem, so I just decided to quietly walk away so I don’t have to read her shit anymore.

But she apparently doesn’t want us to part company… or she wants to engage me in some dialogue as to why I don’t like her.  I just want to say to her, “Don’t go away mad.  Just go away.”

Not everyone is going to like you.  Lots of people don’t like me for whatever reason.  Not even a mild mannered, even tempered guy like Bill is universally liked by everyone.  You’re not a bad person, Ms. OH.  You just get on my fucking nerves.  So please just leave me alone.  There are a lot of people out there who will happily be buddies with you.  I am not one of them. 

Years later, I unblocked Ms. OH because, at the time, I was a lot more conservative about people I blocked on social media. Nowadays, when I block someone, they tend to stay that way. In any case, when I popped up on her radar again, Ms. OH sent me a private message apologizing for whatever it was she did to upset me. I appreciated that and accepted her apology, and life has gone on without her particular brand of passive aggressive microaggressions. However, more of her ilk have popped up– giving me a chance to practice being assertive.

Yesterday, I was watching cop videos on YouTube, and there was a cop who incorrectly used the non-word “irregardless”. A lot of the cops I watch on YouTube annoy me anyway, because quite a few of them are high on power trips. I know they have difficult jobs that are very stressful. Some of them have other issues that exacerbate, like bad marriages or substance abuse issues (lots of drunk cop videos on YouTube, too). I probably shouldn’t watch those videos, since they seem to trigger my authority issues.

Those who know me, know that I tend to be a stickler when it comes to words. “Irregardless” is not a word that well educated people should use, because it’s a double negative. The word “regardless” means without regard. When you add the unnecessary prefix “ir” to it, you get “without without regard.”

I posted that the word “irregardless” is not a word. And it’s not. I even double checked before I made that claim. Some might say I was being critical when I posted my comment, and in fairness, I was. But the actual offenders weren’t going to read it. It would be different if I posted that to a friend. It was posted to no one in particular, as the person who said it is some cop on YouTube in Wisconsin.

Just as some people abuse reflexive pronouns, and overuse fifty cent words like “utilize”, when they could just as easily use “use”, in an attempt to sound smarter, others think they should say or write “irregardless” instead of “regardless”. It’s a pet peeve of mine, but easy enough to ignore when I complain about it, especially when I put the complaints on my own page.

You’d think my comment wouldn’t attract controversy. And yet it did. Someone asked me what my “criteria” was for a real word.

That struck me as a pot stirring dig, because I don’t think the person who asked it was being serious. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be a dig, but that’s how the question came across to me. I’ve known this person for years and I’m pretty sure she knows that “irregardless” isn’t a real word. She just wanted to call me out, like a sneaky snake… maybe knock me down a peg. Maybe that’s an appropriate thing to do sometimes, but I didn’t think that particular post warranted a challenge. So, instead of answering the question, I asked one myself.

“Why do you ask?”

The response was telling, as the person wrote that they were “just curious” and “had no agenda”. The “no agenda” part kind of confirmed my initial suspicions that the question about my “criteria” was a dig. I was reminded of when our toilet clogged in our last rental house and the landlady immediately said, “We’ve never had this problem before!”, when I had never accused her of anything. When people add extra unsolicited information when something goes awry, it’s usually because they do have an agenda of sorts… and are maybe trying to establish an alibi or cast blame.

Former tenant did the same thing when she volunteered that she and her husband were moving mid tour because they needed to be closer to their babysitter. We never asked them why they were moving, and simply telling us they needed to be closer to the sitter sounded disingenuous. If they’d just said they needed to be closer to work, that would have been a lot more believable. The bit about the sitter rendered their excuse to bullshit, kind of like a person telling me they have “no agenda” is likely bullshit, too.

I know some people might think that my reaction to this is ridiculous and over-the-top. And to those people, I’d basically say that people discounting my reactions is one reason why they are so extreme. Because I have a right to feel any way I do, and I have a right to express myself. You might think it’s crazy and an overreaction, but I have these reactions for a reason… just like people issue those little passive aggressive digs for a reason.

I’m sure the people who do this kind of shit don’t actually mean to be irritating. I know I irritate people. I generally don’t mean to do so. A lot has to do with old baggage I need to unload. I think most people who issue passive aggressive digs are looking for control, or a way to even the playing field somehow. And my over-the-top responses to them have a lot to do with my own authority issues… which come from having a lot of controlling and criticizing people in my life when I was growing up. I don’t respond to control freaks very well anymore. I tend to rebel, sometimes, by getting pissed and writing blog posts. Maybe that’s passive aggressive, too… but I don’t want to get in a fight. I just want to be heard.

People can always choose whether or not to read the blog, right?

Anyway… that’s today’s deep thought. Now, time to get dressed. We need to go to the hardware store and get a new sun umbrella. Our old one (of two years) broke yesterday. So, sayonara, until tomorrow (probably).

  

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social media

You can go now…

We had a pretty dull long weekend. Bill had Friday off because of the Fourth of July, but we didn’t end up doing anything special, despite Bill’s best efforts to get me out of the house. However, I did have a good guitar day yesterday, which I wrote about on my travel blog. My travel blog, by the way, is going to wake up again soon, because I have booked a short trip that starts in eleven days. We will spend three nights in the Eifel region of the Mosel Valley, which is about a two hour drive from where we live. There’s a lot of stuff to do outdoors, so I think we’ll be busy, especially if the weather is good. Bill has been a good sport about my stubborn refusal to venture out, although I think he’s feeling kind of tense.

I’ve mostly been trying to stay out of trouble on social media, although I’m still thinking that it may be time to move on from it. Last night, Red Peters, a hilarious comedian who writes and sings funny songs and promotes the songs done by other people, got really pissed off by one of Facebook’s recent censorship policies. He says he’s going to get off of Facebook by September 1st. I can’t blame him, as I was also recently wrist slapped by Facebook over something really stupid. Maybe I’ll follow suit… or maybe not. But one thing is for certain. Facebook may be a way to keep in touch with friends and family, but it’s also the source of a whole lot of annoyances.

Take, for instance, a recent trend I’ve noticed. Sometimes my “friends” send me private messages. The messages are almost never about anything important. They’re often videos or memes that, for whatever reason, they don’t want to post on their own page, and sometimes they send them without comment. Or they put them on their page, but they also send them via PM to their friends. Personally, I don’t like this practice. I understand that some people do it because it’s something obnoxious or controversial and they only want to share it with people who will appreciate it and not start a shit storm. I get that, and I do have a couple of friends who are very civilized, but have a good sense of humor and they know I’ll think something’s funny and even share it for them.

But– I also sometimes get these PMs from people I don’t know that well and/or engage with often. Sometimes, they’re the annoying “pass it on” posts– you know, like the ones that tell you to post what color your bra is (I rarely wear them anymore unless I’m going out). It’s supposed to be for breast cancer awareness, but it’s really just a stupid timewaster that doesn’t really do anything more than irritate people. Below is an excerpt about the bra campaign from a book entitled Online Activism: Social Change Through Social Media:

Yes, I got these messages. No, I did not participate.

Sometimes they’re just memes or videos sent without comment. If the sender is someone I know well and/or have engaged with more than a couple of times, I may have an inkling as to why they sent the message. Maybe I’ll even care enough to ask them. I still think it’s an irritating practice to PM these things, mainly because I think private messages should be reserved for items that really should be kept private and are actually important. Memes and videos don’t generally fall into those categories. Still, I’m more willing to cut more slack to people I know than people I don’t.

Last night, someone sent me this meme without comment:

How should I take this?

The person who sent this is a nurse. We “met” on a site for second wives and stepmothers, and there was a time when we interacted frequently. She lives far away from me, even when I’m stateside, so we have never met offline. Lately, we haven’t been chatting much at all. So last night, when I got a PM from her out of the blue, and it turned out to be the above image, I wasn’t sure how to take it. I’ve repeatedly stated that I’m not on the mask bandwagon. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t comply with the rules, nor does it mean that I don’t take the pandemic seriously. I SIMPLY STAY AT HOME. While I go many days between mask wearings, I also don’t go to places where I encounter people who could be adversely affected by my germs. On the rare occasions when I do go out, I follow the rules. I just don’t like or agree with them. Fair enough?

Lots of people disagree with me about the masks, and that’s fine. I figure that if I’m mostly staying at home, I’m probably doing more than they are to flatten the curve, anyway. The world doesn’t need me to preach about face masks. Plenty of people are already doing that repeatedly and annoyingly. I don’t need to add my voice to the cacophony. I don’t need to cheerlead about the masks, even if they do help slow the spread of the virus. They still suck. Nothing about wearing a mask is fun, and most people have the right and ability to make up their own minds about them. They don’t need my help any more than I need theirs.

Because there was no comment with my friend’s “meme”, and I have no idea if this person has been paying attention to my social media, I wondered if she thought I would like the meme, or if it was a dig. I suppose I could have responded to her. Maybe that would have been the right thing to do. Ultimately, I decided that the face mask meme wasn’t something I care that much about, so I didn’t comment. But since this is a common practice– for people to send unimportant stuff via PM without comment– I decided to ask my Facebook friends why people do it. I don’t PM people unless I have something important to tell them privately, but people PM me all the time. I try to be tolerant, but I must admit I get annoyed, and I just wanted to understand the rationale behind the PM blitzing. Some of my “regular” friends were having a nice discussion with me, with a few people agreeing with me that this is an annoying practice.

And then, I got a message from someone else I “met” on the same site for second wives and stepmothers. This person, who is now no longer a friend, probably interacted with me more often than the person who sent the meme, but we still didn’t talk much. When we did regularly used to communicate some years ago, we often disagreed.

For instance, she didn’t like that I was vocal about my disdain for Mormonism. She said it was “disrespectful”, although she isn’t herself LDS. I disagreed, since the LDS church was successfully used as a weapon against Bill’s relationship with his children, and that’s a problem that affects many people. She felt that I shouldn’t say out loud that I don’t like Mormonism, out of respect to a Mormon woman who was also in our group. The Mormon woman, by the way, was more than capable of sticking up for herself and her religion, and she did so vehemently and consistently. Besides, I felt that the purpose of the group was to discuss these issues and how they affect “steplife”. Like it or not, a highly controlling lifestyle religion like Mormonism does affect things, particularly when not everyone involved is LDS. But this now former friend felt I was out of line to bring it up, or she felt the way I brought it up was unkind. She had no trouble telling me so, even though it didn’t really change my opinion or behavior. She didn’t seem too interested in seeing my perspective, either.

Anyway, beyond that squabbling, which we hadn’t been doing in recent years, we rarely had much to say to each other, especially currently. Neither of us has a lot of steplife drama anymore. But she still felt the need to add her two cents to last night’s discussion.

She posted: Man, I never wanted to PM unexplained memes so badly in my life….

Again…. not really sure how to take this. So I posted that I would like to turn off the PM function entirely, or make it for certain people, to which she responded with a “laughing” reaction. At that point, I assumed that she was making a passive aggressive dig and trying to stir up shit. I figured that if she has something to say to me, but can’t be bothered to just say it, we probably aren’t really friends. Since I didn’t know how to take her comments, we were never close, and I don’t remember ever being particularly close to her even when we did used to frequently communicate, I decided to delete her.

I felt badly about it for a minute, because I grew up at a time when friends were people you knew face to face, and “unfriending” someone was a serious thing. But back then, being friends with someone was also a more serious thing; that’s why we mostly tended to have fewer of them then than we do now, in the age of social media.

As I recently wrote in a post, I’m getting to a point in my life at which I value quality over quantity. A lot of people don’t like me. Many people decide they don’t like me having never taken the time to get to know me. That’s up to them, of course, and I’ve gotten used to it. I still have some great people in my life who do love me for who I am and don’t mind that I speak my mind. We treat each other with basic respect and give each other the right to be heard. We don’t try to stir up drama on each other’s social media accounts or offline. And when we have something to say, we say it. We don’t do immature passive aggressive digs or make fun of each other. Those aren’t things a real friend does.

I’ve spent most of my life being discounted, belittled, berated, ignored and crapped on by people who don’t have any respect for me, some of whom were supposedly “loved ones”. Right now, things are stressful enough as it is. I figure at this point in my life, I don’t have to tolerate it anymore, especially from people I barely know. And, like I said, I’m getting pretty tired of Facebook, anyway. Maybe after we get our next dog, I’ll ditch it once and for all. Dogs are better and more genuine friends than most people are, anyway.

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