I, hypocrite

I found myself disagreeing with someone on Facebook this week, to the point where I was worried about offending them. It worked out.

It felt like a really important point to me, and a matter of empathy, which is why I kept going with it. Then I realized that I had gotten a lot of likes on a status of my own that was similarly flawed from an empathy point of view.

The one post was questioning the use of "adulting" and seemed to be a little annoyed, like do you want credit for doing the things you are supposed to do?

I get that, and I don't use the word myself. One frequent source of annoyance for me is when people try and add some flair to what they are saying. Often, this leads to the use of a similar word that sounds fancier but has a different meaning. I don't like that. It is still better than when it pulls up an expression with a racist history, which happens a lot.

In this case, I think people are trying to be cute because they are doing mundane, not-fun things, but that is what is going on in their life so if they are going to share something, that's it. 

I have a lot of sympathy for not having much going on in your life except for responsibility. 

Social media is for connecting, right? Some people do brag a lot, and some people overshare and regret it later, and some people have their primary mode of engagement as rude responses, sometimes followed with "LOL". 

"Adulting" is pretty harmless, I think.

But then I was mean about a complainer.

I am not friends with this person, so it seemed safe to comment. We know a lot of the same people.

She called her face mask a "torture device". 

That is so over the top, coming from someone who has clearly never been tortured, that I might have said something about it for that alone. However, also, she is frequently negative about the most innocuous things, and it was just like, "Come on!"

And I got 24 likes, including one from her sister.

Another way of interacting on social media is to complain a lot. I mean, you can't post cat pictures if you don't have a cat.

It occurred to me that while I do not like her because she is a miserable person, that she is a miserable person. Some of that is a sense of superiority that doesn't pay off, but probably some of it is brain chemistry and things that are not her fault. 

Also life is hard, and the pandemic has been hard, even if wearing a face mask -- especially for someone who works from home -- is not the hardest part of it.

People are stupid and annoying a lot. Sometimes making fun of them acts as a salve for putting up with them. But they are still people.

I plan to think twice about mocking people going forward, especially on social media.