2015 288

i have a friend who rants about a variety of things and often spins the rants in a way that implies that the people he is ranting against are not as intelligent as he is. but at least 30% of the time he uses then when he wants a than. the irony is delicious, but it's also frustrating that he rails on about these things and is oblivious to the fact that he is often the embodiment of what he is hacked off about. sigh. 


I woke up this morning to the above post by the 'friend' I referenced in my thoughts this past Monday. Ouch.


I think the thing that  bugs my most...well two things. One is the gravity of the passive/aggressiveness inherent in the words but also the possibility that I could be as big an ass as I feel he implies. Time for some self inspection.


Something else came to mind this morning. Last fall in conversation with another 'liberal' friend when I commented that I did not feel that marriage had anything to do with love or romance anymore he informed me he was insulted by my condescending tone. This makes me wonder if a liberal tact that I am not personally familiar with is to accuse those more conservative with said condescension when offer an opposing viewpoint.


ok, so i succumbed to the temptation to say a snarky thing about someone who means a great deal to me and it backfired. in an effort to smooth this over, i want to publicly apologize to Ed Moore. Ed is the first real friend i made when i started college and he looked after me during my formative undergraduate years, when i didn't know anything about anything. he did nothing to deserve being treated so shabbily and i want him to know that i am sorry. also, since i clearly have no idea about how to comport myself on the internet, i'm banishing myself from FB for the next few days until i can learn how to behave like a respectful human being.

Ron you and I are fortunate enough to have grown a friendship that can withstand most anything. I also should apologize for having posted things that lead you to feel towards me any way that made you feel uncomfortable towards me. In light of the past several days Teri Moore has brought some things to my attention that force me to evaluate how and it seems most importantly when I choose social media as a sounding board. You have brought more than a tear to my eye my friend and I want to cherish your friendship and not see it fall away as so many others have. We are still good and want to work to keep things that way.

if anyone is an ass it's me. i wrote what i wrote as a caricature of a variety of people, including you. it was snarky and stupid and unfair. the snarky and stupid part is clear, but let me explain what i mean by unfair. as you no doubt have noticed, millions of people post things on the internet every day. you are among those people, as am i. but unlike every one of those millions of other people, you are the only one that is a person that i spent a big chunk of my college years looking up to. and so without consciously trying, i guess i have held you to a different standard from everyone else. i know this is wrong. but it hurts my head when i see you writing stuff with bad grammar because i know that you're smarter than that and i want better for you than that. and it hurts my heart when i see you ranting about things in a way that makes it seem like you're really angry at the world, because i want better for you than that. it's a stupid way to look at the world, but i guess that when someone means as much to a person as you do to me, then our hearts get bigger than our brains and we do stupid things. and i really want you to know that you do mean a great deal to me Ed. you were my first real friend in college and the vast majority of the good memories i have from my first four years at Concord feature your own good self. and i know that this will probably mean very little, but i have spent the past 15 hours kicking myself for how shabbily i treated you. and, for what it's worth, i deleted the post. i can only apologize and hope that you'll forgive me, but i completely understand if you choose to defriend me and never want to talk to me again. i'm going to banish myself from FB for a week and if you're still on my list when i get back, then i guess i'll know that i haven't done something irreparable. in the meantime, i hope all is well with you in WV. i really mean that.

Thank you for your words Ron. All is well between us as far as I feel. In talking to my wife and through experience I seem to be succumbing to some blacker periods psychologically and emotionally and perhaps those times I should censure my thoughts that much more lest I say things I truly do not mean. I truly am sorry that I have made you feel these things and had no idea. Just for the record I may be frustrated quite often but I don't harbor I'll will towards the entire world just some aspects of it that perhaps I don't explain as well as I could or should. Be assured during you 'time off ' I will be wondering what my black belted, mathematically inclined follow frater has been up to.