While we were visiting my friend, I'll call her Amy, she and I were talking about ways that I use Facebook and other social media...but primarily FB. Amy told me that she is a part of a small group of other homeschoolers who all communicate on FB but she wouldn't go to FB for over two years. This past month she joined FB just so she could contact that group of women. Amy felt very uncomfortable with that website because messages both appeared on her FB page but also sent her an email. OH MY. But it really overwhelmed her.
I begged Amy to please please please stay on FB so that she and I could remain better connected. (Our primary source of contact is by email.) She thought about the advantages of that and she acquiesced and added me as a friend. For six hours. But she couldn't take it. If I'm on Facebook then I'm in Karen's head, she explained.
I understood that Amy's comment was simply her way of saying that she preferred being disconnected and more isolated than some people but it still made me wonder exactly how annoying my head is on FB. How tiresome or how kind of too much my head is on FB. My insecurities kicked in immediately.
But since then, I have been posting far more seldom...I wonder if anyone notices. I wish FB wasn't another place for me to worry about what people think... I assume my friends appreciate my thoughts and such since I appreciate theirs.
But...how can I know for sure? And why am I still this insecure?
I know Amy would not want me to be experiencing this, yet here I am... Besides, to be fair, I go through this type of thought in my head every so often anyway. I go through times when I post far less, feeling as if my stuff is misunderstood, annoying, etc... I know I'll figure this out...just thinking out loud.
Oh I understand this so much. Or worse, that people seem to ignore what you put online at all. Being one who is always self-conscious, I do wonder what people think of the things I post. Or if they read it. Or if they care. Or if they judge me and how. I don't know which is worse, the fear of being judged harshly or the fear of being invisible. I keep a lot to myself for this reason, a lot bottled up inside as unfortunately, I learned pretty quickly in life that most people don't want to hear what I have to say (and I mean, this lesson started to be pushed at me when I was a pre-teen so well before the internet even came into existence and THANK GOODNESS I was older when it did become available).
ReplyDeleteOf course, when I'm down and unsure of myself, it's even worse, like right now. *sigh*
I tend to think that most people are, like, OK with most things and with most people. And that most people see my stuff and think, OH or LOL or YEAH! or No way!
DeleteJust whatever. :) And I'm ok with that.