Tag Archives: irrelevant comments

communication, complaints, condescending twatbags, rants

Just WTF does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

Well, it finally happened. I now have a topic to discuss today that isn’t about the Duggar family. Prepare for an epic rant.

Years ago, I was a big fan of Mad Magazine. Unfortunately, I was introduced to Mad by the neighborhood pervert, who had a son who was a few years older than me. I suspect the pervert’s son was the Mad Magazine fan. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. I’m just glad he gave me something to look at besides the men’s magazines he usually showed me back when I was a wee lass. Even though I can’t look at a copy of Mad without remembering the Home of the Whopper (as the neighborhood pervert occasionally referred to himself), the fact remains that it was a funny magazine, especially when I was an adolescent. And after all these years, I have managed to maintain my adolescent sense of humor.

Not that anyone really appreciates it…

Back in the early 1980s, Mad Magazine did a parody of public television telethons. I don’t remember exactly what the spoof was about, but I do remember that Big Bird was a participant. The clever cartoonist had drawn Big Bird as he would have been on Sesame Street, introducing the letter for the day. In that particular article, the letter for the day was “P”, and Big Bird introduced it by saying “P stands for ‘prance’ and ‘pad’ and ‘punch’ and ‘puss’ and ‘please’. As in, ‘I’m going to prance over to your pad and punch you in the puss if you don’t please give us money.'”

The eleven year old version of me thought that was just fucking hilarious. I remember laughing my ass off, mainly because I didn’t know that the word “puss” is not akin to the word “pussy”. I had a grand time picturing Big Bird prancing, let alone prancing over to someone’s “pad” and punching them. And of course, because I had never been exposed to the old fashioned word “puss”, and was picturing Big Bird punching someone in the pussy, I laughed even harder.

My laughter is distinctive, and some people find it irritating. My parents were among those who criticized me for the way I laugh. My dad especially hated it, and would tell me I sounded like a cackling witch.

Anyway, after I read that article in Mad, my mom asked me why I was laughing so hard, so I told her. Her response was to get annoyed with me and crankily inform me that the word “puss” refers to someone’s face– hence the expression “sour puss”. In fact, she had a distinctly sour puss as she edified me with that information. I still thought the mental image of Big Bird prancing to someone’s pad and punching someone in the pussy was hilarious, and continued to laugh like a banshee. Years later, I still think that mental image is funny, and I occasionally still laugh about it.

Of course, not everyone thinks the idea of Big Bird punching someone in the pussy is funny. I probably still annoy people, too, even when I’m doing something as innocent as laughing at a ridiculous mental image. For some reason, a lot of people seem to think I’m an asshole, even when I’m seriously not trying to be an asshole.

So what’s that story got to do with today’s title? Keep reading, and I think it will be clearer. Or maybe not. My mind works in strange, tangental ways.

My old friend, Jamie, posted a couple of pictures of himself yesterday. He currently has long hair. I’ve never known him to have long hair, because I haven’t seen him in person in many years. When I knew him offline, he had short, conservatively styled hair. But we have known each other since we were very young, having graduated from the same high school and worked at the same amusement park for a few summers. Naturally, neither of us still looks the way we did in the late 80s, early 90s.

Anyway, Jamie has long hair now, and he wanted to know if he should wear his hair up or down for the occasion of attending his son’s graduation. I’m assuming the young man has just finished college. I didn’t have an opinion on Jamie’s hair or how he should wear it, although I am impressed that he apparently still has so much of it at his age. Instead, I was struck by the rather dour expression on his face in his pictures. I didn’t remember him to be so somber looking when I knew him offline. So I posted, “You’re never fully dressed without a smile.” That’s a song from Annie, by the way, and it was intended as a lighthearted joke.

Some time later, a mutual friend of Jamie’s took me to task for making that comment. She might have been surprised to know that I actually hesitated before posting it, because as a woman, I don’t necessarily like it when someone suggests that I smile. But I figured Jamie and I have known each other for a long time and he wouldn’t be offended. It never crossed my mind that anyone other than him would raise an objection. I certainly never thought I was going to be confronted about COVID-19 when I posted it.

When Jamie’s other friend initially came at me, I figured it was because she’s apparently a woman, and like a lot of women, she doesn’t like to be ordered to smile. But no… somehow, she got the impression that I was making a statement about mask mandates and COVID-19. She left me a second comment about how she lives in New Mexico, where mask mandates have been reinstated, and is fully immunized and boosted and wears masks and yadda, yadda, yadda. I was initially confused by her laundry list of COVID-19 prevention tactics. Then I got a bit irritated.

I should add that it was late at night when I saw her comments. I was about to go to bed, having enjoyed dinner and libations. And I just didn’t get how she took my statement as being about the fucking pandemic, or why everything has to be about the goddamned pandemic. I never mentioned COVID, vaccines, masks, or anything. I just made a simple comment about Jamie’s joyless expression. It never even crossed my mind that his smile would eventually be covered by a face mask, although I’m certain it probably was. But somehow, this lady seemed to think I was making a statement about the pandemic when I was just reacting to pictures posted by an old friend.

So I responded to her that I live in Germany, am fully vaccinated, have an appointment to get a booster, and mask mandates never went away here. I also have a master’s degree in public health and another in social work. And I’ve known Jamie since I was about 17 years old, and was just kidding.

I didn’t add this, but I could have also told her that my comment had absolutely NOTHING whatsoever to do with COVID-19. And I don’t know how she conflated a comment about smiling to being about masks, especially since prior to my peevish response to her comment, she didn’t know a fucking thing about me. I also didn’t add that, given my background, of course I understand how serious the pandemic is. Of course, we’ve never met, so she wouldn’t have known before I told her. But my initial comment wasn’t even about the pandemic. She read a lot more into it than was really necessary.

She came back with “Good to know.”

WTF? I’m not the one who was being rude. She chose to engage me, by chiming in with an inappropriate and nonsensical comment. Why can’t I add a simple response on an old friend’s Facebook status without some stranger assuming the worst about me and putting words in my fingers? I don’t even know this person from Adam, and she doesn’t know me! She might as well have come up to me on the street and started talking about thermonuclear physics, or something equally as irrelevant.

This isn’t so much a rant about the clueless woman in New Mexico with a Ph.D. who works for the Army, as it is that trying to communicate on social media just sucks. People have lost the ability to be civilized. We all sit behind computer screens and deliver the snark first and ask questions later. I’m as guilty of it as anyone is, I guess. We all seem to read more into things than we should, or we make erroneous assumptions that someone is being rude. Or we put words in people’s fingers– make assumptions about points they never even made. We don’t simply take things at face value. I see it in comment sections all the time, which is why I try hard not to respond in them. Too often, making comments ends up being involved in a pissing match with a complete stranger. No thanks.

Communicating with someone online can sometimes be downright weird, especially when you compare it to talking to someone in person. Imagine having an in person chat with someone you know, and suddenly your friend’s mutual friend, a total stranger to you, suddenly butts in to your exchange with a completely irrelevant comment about socks or something. That’s what it’s sometimes like to communicate with an old friend online. But, of course, communicating online, especially on a public forum, is NOT like having an in person conversation, precisely because total strangers and outsiders to the conversation can butt in with something off topic.

Maybe I am perturbed right now because I really miss offline communications, and actually getting to know people. It annoys me that I wind up interacting with complete strangers just so I can exchange a few words with a legitimate old friend from back in the days before the Internet.

I suppose I could have simply ignored her. Maybe next time, I’ll just do that. Ignoring her doesn’t solve the issue that has so irritated me this morning, though. On the other hand, maybe if we have occasion to interact again, she might have a better understanding of who I am before she pops off with something completely useless and irrelevant. Or maybe not. My guess is that she’s already forgotten about me and our unpleasant exchange.

Adding to my moan this morning are a couple of other things. First off, I somehow managed to break the business end of the Type C thunderbolt cable for my iPad. I don’t know what happened, but the end managed to come loose and now it no longer works. So I had to order a new cable, and that cost me some euros. I ordered early in the morning and Amazon.de said the replacement would get to me today. But, I see that it will probably get here tomorrow, which sucks because Saturday is the one day of the week I might hope to get out of the house and do something fun. Sundays in Germany are often pretty dead… at least if one wants to do any shopping or anything. Delivery people here don’t always leave packages like they do in the States.

And then, another person– someone I don’t know offline, but “met” through Epinions– decided to add a rude comment to a discussion my friends and I had a couple of days ago about Josh Duggar. This dude felt the need to post “YAWWWNNN…” on that topic.

My response to him was to “keep scrolling.” I mean, if you have nothing of substance to add to a discussion on someone else’s Facebook page, and you think what they’ve posted is boring, why not just move on? There’s no need to leave a rude comment that does nothing more than irritate people. Again with the uncivilized behavior, right?

That guy has a tendency to be a grouch sometimes, but he’s not the worst offender. In fact, he rarely chimes in on things on my page. He probably has better things to do than hang out on social media. Given that, he doesn’t need to leave a random comment that he thinks my discussion is boring. But at least he’s not like …tom… Some of my regulars know all about …tom…

…tom… could not resist leaving insulting comments to any and all topics. He was another person I “met” on Epinions. I never liked him much, but decided to try to give him the benefit of the doubt. After awhile, when he would leave those kinds of rude and useless comments, I would respond with profanity. Usually, I would tell him to “fuck off” or “go play in traffic” or something like that. I will admit that’s not very civilized behavior, either. I mainly did it because he was such an insufferable jackass, and it was sometimes fun for me to be unabashedly profane when he asked for it. Remember, I wasn’t on his page; he was on mine.

One day, I finally got tired of the bullshit and kicked …tom… off my friends list. That was kind of sad for me, because he gave me a lot to blog about– or at least vent. On the other hand, trying to have a meaningful conversation with him was a complete waste of time. He would chime in on things, often without having the slightest notion of what the discussion was about. He would leave rude, critical, condescending comments. He had no respect for me, so trying to be friendly with him was not productive. And while cursing is something I do as if it’s my job, I don’t feel good about swearing at people. Not unless I know they enjoy it. I don’t know how …tom… felt about being asked to “fuck off”, but he once told me he wasn’t “unfriending”, even though he seemed to find my page so worthy of criticism. So I decided to take matters into my own hands.

Maybe that’s the solution. I should just tell people who annoy me to “fuck off” and use my block button. Not caring about how other people perceive me might even be the key to happiness. Another key to happiness is to stop trying to engage with strangers, especially those who make assumptions before they know any facts. And maybe someday, I’ll log off of social media altogether and simply read books, like I did in the days before I joined Facebook. It doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

People need to learn to come at people where they live… or simply shut the fuck up.

And just to bring this topic back around to where it started before I seemed to go wildly off on a tangent, I’d like to announce the letters for today. Big Bird says, the letters for today are “F” and “U”. As in, “feeling fed up”… and of course you know what else. 😉

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complaints

Thanks tips…

I remember when I was studying for my MSW, I had a professor who was a real stickler about people who state the obvious. He taught the Capstone course, which was basically about tying together all of the skills and methods we learned during our program to solve problems. The class required writing a lot of papers rather than passing tests. Not surprisingly, I excelled, because I like writing more than taking tests. I got an A in the class, while a few of my friends struggled to pass it. I remember the professor was very harsh about grading the papers and would mercilessly take off points for those who “stated the obvious”.

Years later, I’m sitting here thinking about that class I took seventeen years ago and how this professor, whom I recall was not popular with my colleagues, would talk about how we should avoid stating the obvious. Why was it such a big deal to him? Probably because time is a precious commodity and stating the obvious is a waste of time. There’s no need to say or write something as a point if people already know and understand it to be a given. This professor had been both a licensed professional counselor and a social worker– he had master’s degrees in both disciplines, as well as a Ph.D. in social work. He was also an Army veteran. I can imagine that he was very busy. Reading master’s level papers full of poorly written drivel, particularly when the analyses contained mostly obvious points that everybody already knows, was probably extremely irritating for him. And so, to teach his students what not to do, he graded very harshly and took off massive points for “stating the obvious”. Hopefully, a lot of his students quickly learned a valuable lesson.

By the way, although my colleagues didn’t like Dr. W., I enjoyed his class very much. I even liked the weekly papers. I found them challenging and even kind of fun. Basically, he would give us narratives of a client we might be working with and we had to come up with a plan for them. I seem to recall that we’d also trade our papers and have our colleagues read our plans and offer comments on whether or not the plans were viable.

This topic comes up this morning, which has gotten off to a somewhat rocky start. I had trouble sleeping last night, so I was up earlier than usual. I did my normal Tuesday morning chore of cleaning the bathrooms. Then I read some comments left for me on Facebook that stated the obvious.

It’s probably a good thing I didn’t ever work as a “ground zero” social worker with individual clients. I don’t have a lot of patience for some things. A few days ago, I posted a picture of a glass of non alcoholic beer I had at a sushi restaurant. A friend of mine, who knows of my love for beer, wrote, “Don’t they send people to prison for that sort of thing in Germany?”

I responded that this was the only kind of beer they had available at the restaurant. It was actually not bad at all. I could barely tell it wasn’t the usual leaded version of beer. I probably ought to drink more of it.

But then… days later, I got this comment from someone else who wrote: “Near-beer or table beer, with minimal alcohol, is widely available in Europe, mainly but not exclusively, for children.”

I don’t know why, but this comment irritated me. First of all, I’m not sure what it had to do with the subject at hand. We weren’t discussing the availability of non-alcoholic beer in Europe. The first comment came from a friend who follows my travels and knows I really enjoy beer and wine. He was making a joke about my choice to drink non-alcoholic beer. What the hell does the availability of “near beer” in Europe have to do with anything?

Secondly, the comment was posted days later, after the discussion had already died. I wondered what prompted the guy to chime in, especially since his comment didn’t seem to have much to do with anything except to inform us of something kind of obvious. I mean, I’ve been living in Europe for several years this time, and I lived here a few times before this latest stint. I know there’s near beer here– just like I know there’s a telephone. So, I guess, I’m just sitting here scratching my head.

I probably should have ignored the comment, but I chose not to. Instead, I wrote “Thanks for the tip.” Remember, I have kind of a low threshold for annoyance.

That led me to wonder if someone had posted “Thanks for the tip” on Urban Dictionary. I find that a lot of times, when I’m being snarky or sarcastic and I leave a comment to that effect, someone has already posted a hilarious definition of my comment in Urban Dictionary. Surprisingly enough, this time no one posted “Thanks for the tip.” However, someone did post “Thanks tips”. I hadn’t heard of it before this morning, but now I’m informed, and I’m sharing my new knowledge with all of you.

Maybe what happened wasn’t really someone stating the obvious, per se. Maybe it was more akin to “chiming”. I wrote a post about that phenomenon on my old blog. It’s basically when someone butts into a conversation on social media, particularly when they haven’t read other comments. The end result is that their comment is non-sensical, has already been stated (and usually more than once), or is completely irrelevant.

Although social media is different than talking to someone face to face, I tend to see unrelated comments in a Facebook thread the way I might see someone butting into a private conversation. For instance, say you’re having a discussion with a friend. You’re in public, but the chat is just between you and the other person. Suddenly, another person comes up and offers an opinion or a comment that has little to do with your conversation. He or she kind of smiles at you and acts as if you should appreciate their input, even if it’s irrelevant, inappropriate, and/or pointless and stupid.

I will admit, I probably notice these things a lot more than other people do. And I will admit that most of it probably shouldn’t faze me as much as it does. I probably should call myself the “oversensitive” housewife, because I am sensitive about a lot of things that probably shouldn’t annoy me as much as they do. But everybody has their quirks. I have a couple of friends who suffer from misophonia, which is a condition that causes people to become annoyed or even enraged by certain sounds. A lot of people with misophonia can’t stand the sound of people eating, or babies crying. Actually, now that I think about it, I probably have a touch of that myself. I can’t deal with really off key singing, although I don’t get annoyed when people chew loudly. People who don’t have that condition might not be able to understand it or empathize with people who have it because it’s beyond their comprehension. However, just because you don’t have it, doesn’t mean it’s not a real thing.

Anyway… just thought I’d share this today. If anyone’s wondering, yes, I do feel sort of bad when I get irritated about these things and write about them. I know from experience that sometimes people’s feelings are hurt when I vent like this. If it helps anyone to know this, I’m sure I’d be upset if I read anyone’s thoughts about the many things I do that are irritating. But, because I know I’d be upset, I make a point of not searching out other people’s thoughts about me. They’re none of my business, and reading them is not likely to lead to anything good. On the other hand, I’m sure people can relate to today’s gripe. At the very least, they’re the kind of people who would post snarky definitions on Urban Dictionary.

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