Dancing Into War

“The tongue like a sharp knife… Kills without drawing blood.”~Buddha

A lot of people have been testing my patience as of late. And sadly for the rest of us, it does a number on my head and it does lead to fallout of some sort.

Most recently with this rumor extravaganza that I endured, until I had the strength and the smarts to investigate the roots of these rumors and find out where they were being bred.

I had to do so, because it had caused me a great deal of pain and I ended up losing quite a bit of sleep over it.

Sadly, I would come to find out that not all of the information was rumors and that a number of pieces of information were actually true. But a majority of what was spoken to me was false. And as I confronted that which was true, I had actually received a personal apology, and the rest was just lies.

And after countless people that had been involved with these rumors that I went to them personally to find out what was going on, I was able to decipher on my own which was real and which was not.

The most common rumor that was being spoken was that there’s a huge circle of people that know me on Facebook, and that they do not like me. But they just “put up” with me. And when specific names were dropped, I went to them and asked. Most of them getting very upset and angry that these words were even spoken and it did not represent how they felt about me at all.

Most of them had a desire to kill the person responsible for those words. And I think that was just a natural reaction to the situation.

All of them were super pissed off. All but one. That one did get defensive but did not show the signs of the outrage that others immediately fell into.

After gaining “the other side of the story” I went back to the original tale tellers and told them that I wanted to speak to them again about the situation that they created. Little did they know that it was a trap. And little did “I KNOW” how things were going to turn out.

They had changed their name on Facebook, but their photos were the same, their information was the same. The only thing different was their name. Almost too easy to relocate them again.

I was able to convince the main person responsible for all of this to actually talk to me over the telephone to discuss the situation and to see what other kinds of information that they might have on colleagues or acquaintances of mine.

Once I got them talking on the telephone, they started to drop names again. The same ones. And more stories and tales about them. But I had stopped them in mid-sentence and warned that I had already spoken to those people and right now…. they were pissed off that these words were spoken about them.

If what they were telling me was so in-depth and true… why would there be such an outrage??

After a few minutes though, I began to listen to their tone and quality of voice. And it didn’t seem all that right to me.

So I asked how old they were.

14 years of age.

That young and already knowing so much dirt about people and creating even more bullshit to compile onto it. Knowing so much already about people, getting others to earn their trust and let them speak personally… only to have it backfire and their words twisted around and their trust shattered, by someone so young.

I finally had the upper hand and had them admit that they had lied to me to begin with. However, they were most adamant about NOT lying about one particular individual and kept up with their stance on them. And it just so happens to be the one person who didn’t show emotions of rage like the others. And I wonder if there is any validity to it at all.

The person that they were talking about kept denying things, saying things were untrue. But they weren’t so upset that they were wanting to kill those responsible for the vicious lies. Defensive for sure, but not wildly emotional.

It just really makes me wonder.

People hide behind their Internet connections every day. And in this case, the teenager thought that they were going to be able to hide behind their keyboard and be safe. I proved them to be wrong. And now their Facebook accounts are disabled, with a promise never to come back. Coming from a teenager, I don’t believe that. What I think though is that they’ll start over and try something new.

I don’t know if this child did it for attention, or just simply to start shit with me and other people, or just started it to get a reaction. I honestly don’t know why it was started. But you better believe that I had finished it, for sure.

I am still the kind of person that will stand up and fight for those I care about. And this was obviously made clear today.

Conversation Serial Killers

“It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.”~
Josiah Stamp

A conversation is taking place. A jovial and social interaction between two people. But by the time the end of the conversation comes, you’ve realized that the topic of conversation has drastically changed.

What was once a pleasant exchange about how you enjoyed your time at last weekend’s family picnic has ended with you discussing how when you were seventeen, you stole your neighbor’s car for a joyride and now you are feeling remorse.

How in the world does that happen?

The subject matter never came to an ultimate conclusion. I mean that it never got to the point where you have said all that you had wanted to say about it and now its still incomplete. Some way, some how, someone did not want to hear about the food fight over Aunt Gertude’s prize-winning Spicy Potato Salad.

Sometimes when we engage with others in correspondence, we have multiple things that we would like to tell them. But when it comes down to the fact that you are going your separate ways, you realize that only a fraction of the topics that you were wanting to share with them were brought up.

You have been side-stepped. Once something comes up and the topic begins to change, it is do-si-do and away you go! The other person side-steps the subject and moves on to something else even before you are finished talking about it. Almost as if they are line dancing around what you feel is important to discuss.

Now I understand that there are times when a person will bring up something that might be uncomfortable for you to discuss, whether it be answering a personal question or discussing something that you feel might hurt the other person’s feelings. But do you honestly believe that dodging the subject or question is going to make things better?

What does that make you look like? And how do you think that makes the person who was talking to, feel??

There are many ways in which people dodge conversations. I went to find out just why people do this. There was very few legitiment possible answers to the question.

Comfort. Apparently the other person is not feeling comfortable with the topic and does not wish to continue any longer in that particular sore subject.

Defensiveness. This comes in particularly if a person is asking a question that is either difficult or personal, or both. The other person dodges the subject and tries to move on because they believe that by responding back, they are going to hurt that person with whatever they respond with.

Ego. The person with a massive ego always takes delight in changing the subject. Mainly, because they want their time in the spotlight and they want to talk about themselves rather than anything or anyone else. For as long as they can, by as much as they can, they will do whatever it takes to talk about them.

Of course there may be others that I am missing. But these seem to be the repeated ones over and over again as to why this nonsense is happening. Yes, nonsense!

Ego- I believe this explains itself.

Defensiveness- When I was in high school, I had a serious crush on a girl who did not reciprocate any crush back. In fact, she was more repulsed by the idea. And because of those wild and running feelings of that crush, I was blind to that ever being the possible reason why she did not return those feelings. Yet my father knew of the situation, he knew that she would turn me down. But he said nothing. Even when I went to him with tears in my eyes, asking the question of “Why won’t she talk to me?!?”, he kept silent throughout because he knew that the only truthful answer that he could give, was going to hurt my feelings.

Would it have been best for him to say something? Possibly. Although there was that chance that yes, my feelings would have been hurt. But then I may or may not have been responsive to it, so I think in this case my father allowed me to learn my lesson on my own.

Comfort- Let’s face it. Sometimes in life, we are ignorant. And I think that is why we talk about certain things, and ask specific questions… because we do not know and we are willing to take that risk and ask a question in order to lessen our ignorance and lean more towards knowledge. There are those times when we think we know a person, but then there are those times in which we touch a nerve by mistake. And the next thing we know that person is feeling uncomfortable (but not to our knowledge) and therefore that’s when the attempt of a new topic of conversation comes into play.

However this is my bottom line opinion on this entire scenario: We should not ignore people and try to manipulate what is being discussed.

If it is a situation of not being comfortable, I think that the other person should take up the responsibility to just simply and calmly say, “Hey, I do not wish to talk about it”. There should be no resentment at all for having to say that.

“If you don’t mean it, don’t say it.” — Does anyone remember hearing this growing up??

If the conversation is making you uncomfortable, you have the option as well as the right to change it, but allow the other person to know what page you are on instead of line dancing around it.

As far as defensive, there are times that I think people need to hear certain things. Particularly if it is clear and obvious that they are going down a dangerous road in their life. They really do need to be told of the warning signs that you are seeing, and apparently they are not. If you honestly care about a person, wouldn’t you feel that obligation to let them know how you feel?

As we all know, we can’t stop people from doing stupid stuff. But if we warn them about it, then it does return the responsibility back on to the other person who brought it up in the first place. Dodging the conversation because you don’t like it, is pretty lame.

Everyone has their own equal rights to say how they feel, think, or believe. Yet at the same time, if you actually engage in correspondence with that person, you are taking up the responsibility for that conversation, particularly your side of it. You’ve made the choice to talk to them, rather than not.

With equal rights comes equal responsibility. Use that responsibility, and use it wisely. Allow the other person to know that whatever it is that they are saying or asking about, is something that you don’t care to discuss. When you have done that, you have taken the mature step to ending a conversation that could ultimately become uncomfortable. And if they are not willing to accept it, then you are NOT responsible for their own actions.

I think that it is totally ridiculous that conversations bounce all over the place. Unless these certain things don’t take up a lot of breath and time and you are able to say what you wanted to in the first place and then swiftly move on to the next thing that you wanted to talk about.

Don’t be a conversation killer. In the end, it kills more than just current conversation.