I've been on Facebook for awhile now. I started the account originally for both professional and research reasons. But I soon found myself using it not just for professional connections with former colleagues but to keep in touch with friends from high school, college, and graduate school, most of whom I live quite some distance from. And let's not forget relatives. I keep up with a wide array of family members from both my side of the family and my husband's.
And I will admit to getting sucked into a few of the game applications. I blame that on the hubby and the sister-in-law, mostly. :)
Lately, I've found it kind of interesting how sometimes FB mirrors what can be the same awkward situations that you can encounter IRL. (Sometimes it makes them even more awkward.)
I have these two friends from high school. We'll call them Sari and Wade. Wade was at least a year, perhaps two, ahead of Sue and me in school. Sari and Wade married. I'm not sure how long they were married, to be honest as they were married when I got back in touch with both of them via FB.
Yes, I am FB friends with both of them and have been for awhile.
And this is where the awkwardness comes in.
It seems that over the past year, Sari and Wade were in the process of getting a divorce. Everything was quite about that divorce as the process was ongoing.
But now that the divorce is finalized, which Sari announced with not just a quiet status change, but a status change and a SHOUTED comment, things have gotten nasty and awkward.
Sari blocked Wade on FB, and then began a daily celebration of the divorce in public comments and notes to which she tagged all her friends.
Then Sari took her kids FB accounts and blocked Wade from them as well. Sari has two children from a previous marriage and two with Wade. She blocked Wade on all four children's accounts and announced this move on her own FB page.
In the meantime, Wade posts daily status updates about how much he misses talking to his kids and knowing what is going on in their daily lives.
Wade currently lives in a separate state from Sari and the kids as he had to move temporarily as part of a contract for his job.
I do not pretend to know the circumstances of what went on in their marriage or what lead to the divorce. I also don't really feel inclined to ask.
While I realize that such awkwardness happens in RL (not that FB isn't part of real life) when one is friends with both parts of a couple who separate, I find myself cringing at the playing out of this over FB.
And then there is my niece Rena and her husband Adan. I am friends with both of them on FB.
Adan is a bit rough around the edges. He's very much a redneck, which there is not necessarily anything wrong with, who has a good heart.
Adan and Rena have three boys and then Rena has another child from a previous relationship whom Adan adopted.
Rena recently made some very big changes in her life, including losing over 100 pounds and going to college while being supported by her father and his wife as Adan way laid-off halfway through Rena's college degree process.
About 2 weeks after graduating, Rena filed for divorce from Adan.
Here's where the awkwardness comes in for me.
A few of my family members and I are friends with both Rena and Adan on FB, while other family members are only friends with Rena on FB. These family members who are only friends with Rena are ones who actually said to me over the summer that they couldn't wait until Rena finished her degree because they would be glad to see her get the degree, get a job, and dump her lazy husband who didn't have a job.
At the time, I didn't respond to the statements but I couldn't help thinking that many people don't have jobs right now because of the shape the economy is in. And while, Adan is a bit immature sometimes, he's basically a good guy.
Unlike Sari and Wade, Rena and Adan are keeping things low-key and civil on FB; they aren't airing their impending divorce through comments and notes. But they did both quietly change their status to "separated".
While I remain friends with both on FB, I did notice that few family members who were also FB friends with both of Rena and Adan, defriended or unfriended (I hate those two words as verbs.) Adan as soon as the separation and impending divorce was made known.
I'm so not choosing sides here.
While Rena is my blood relative; I basically like Adan. And Rena and Adan have remained connected on FB. Even Rena's brother J.J. and Adan have remained connected on FB.
It's the other relatives who defriended Adan as soon as the separation was made known who are setting my teeth on edge because of their very thinly veiled disparaging comments about Adan on their own FB pages.
I think that I'm finding the situation awkward and even disturbing on some level because it's something being played on publicly that wouldn't necessarily have been played out this way 10 or even 15 years ago.
Yes, such remarks would probably have been made, but from person to person over a cup of coffee or via a telephone call or perhaps at a face-to-face family gathering. But now, with the changes in the way we communicate along with changes in the way we think and act in social media environments, these remarks are made public to anyone with the ability to view the status.
Having suffered the "death" of a few friendships during my divorce I'm glad I wasn't on FB at the time. I have blocked my ex from me, but the kids are both connecting us and I don't care if relatives on my side choose to remain friends with him. I find it particularly nasty that friends and relatives feel it neccesary to take sides. To do so in a public forum is just a disgrace. Unfortunately you can't really tell people how stupid it is to behave that way.
I myself have several friends who are divorced and I consciously choose to remain friends unless they give me a reason to do otherwise. Stick to your guns, ignore the haters.