So if you are new here, I need to start by telling you that I employ a heavy dose of sarcasm in my daily speech. This may be obvious, given the name of my blog, but it is germane to the story. My sarcasm often gets me into trouble. Sometimes I say something sarcastic and it's not very clear that it's sarcasm. Sometimes I say something sarcastic and sarcasm is inappropriate. Sometimes I say something sarcastic, my husband reacts to it, I react to him, and fifteen minutes later we are literally arguing about how we got to the point that we've spent 15 minutes arguing about how I said x. Obviously I wasn't serious when I said x! Obvious to me; not so much to him. And there have been hundreds of times where I have wished we had a video camera so we could wind it back and see where the simple conversation went off the rails.
And to everybody else that made it this far, thanks for sticking with me. I am a work in progress. And I know this is a bit of a crazy post that really just demonstrates that one of my biggest personal demons is my own insecurity. So I seriously considered keeping this post unpublished and just for me. But so many of my favorite blogs deal with overcoming postpartum depression and facing life with autism and losing a child. And the strength of those women seems so amazing to me. This, by comparison, is so very trivial. So I'm putting it out there. Tomorrow, we will move on to something more.... superficial.
Well tonight, I got my wish. Tonight I got into a "disagreement" with someone on Twitter. Not my husband, no, but with someone, and the cameras were rolling; Twitter cameras that is. And after it was all over, I went back again and again to see how things went wrong. And even though every person who follows me on Twitter who was also awake at 1 in the morning said not to lose sleep over it, by 3 am, it became clear to me that I wasn't going to fall asleep until I got a resolution. So this post is for me, my dear readers. I am sorry to bore you (this is one LONG post), but if I don't get this mess out of my head, I will NEVER get to sleep.
The Instant Replay of My First Twitter Argument
Note: I am not going to include the name if the person who the disagreement was with, or any of the other people who got involved. I am going to assume she was a she, so I call her "HER" just as a generic alias. I still believe that this was just a misunderstanding, so I don't want anyone else tweeting her saying they're on my side or her side or who was wrong and who was right. This isn't about getting people on my side. It's a little to explain my side, but mostly so that I can get some sort of closure in my head. So no sides. OK?
Friday
9:42 am - Me
How many tweets do we think I can get in today? I'm guessing 3. :( Real life sucks sometimes. Gonna go make some money now.
*** Work has been so crazy busy lately that it's really been stressing me out. Quick check in with Twitter is all I have time for. When I next login to Twitter 9 hours later, I have 6 #FF tweets which just totally makes my day. I also have 3 tweets in direct response to the above tweet from people whom I do not follow. 2 of which are clearly spam. "My brother found this FREE opportunity to make $$$!" with a link, for example. Really, Twiter? Clearly I said I was going to make money. I don't need your help on this. I hate Twitter spam. The 3rd is a little different. ***
6:04 pm - HER
@rubyspikes very funny tweets & excellently sarcastic blog. Looking forward to more LOL! (plus a link)
*** My first thought: "Wow! That's like the sweetest tweet! From someone I don't even follow! ... Wait, there's a link to a website. And it's in response to my 'making money' tweet. I guess I should make sure this isn't an automated tweet to some work-at-home website." I click on her profile. I view her Twitter stream. Most recent tweets have lots of links, but doesn't look like a bunch of spam. Yay! I follow back. And then I tweet her back. ***
7:13 pm - Me
@HER wow. That was so nice. I kinda thought you were a bot. But if you are, at least you're a really sweet bot. :)
*** Yeah. In hind sight, she didn't really have the whole story that was in my head. Have I mentioned lately that I hate being limited to 140 characters? Then, some other stuff happens. ***
7:18 pm - otherperson1
@rubyspikes I thought that @HER was a bot too. Hmm
*** @otherperson1 already follows @HER, so I take this as a continuation of the sarcasm. I would totally not think twice of calling someone I know on Twitter a bot. But I mostly follow people, not businesses or organizations or groups, etc. And it's pretty obvious that @TheNextMartha is not a bot, even if I tweeted her, "you crazy bot." Well, that was my thought anyway.
I then have to log off of Twitter. Because in addition to being crazy busy at work, I am also hosting a baby shower for my sister this weekend & there will be 50 people there and I have SO MUCH still to do. I actually managed to stay off of Twitter all night because I was so busy and I didn't want to get distracted. At 1 am, I decided to quit party planning for the night since I knew I'd have a long day tomorrow. I got into bed and decided to give myself 5 minutes to check Twitter. (Yes, I'm a little addicted.) I saw the following tweets from earlier in the night. ***
7:41 pm - HER
@rubyspikes bots? Hmm...We don't really like bots.
7:43 pm - HER
@otherperson1 @rubyspikes Thanks for the compliment (I think)...Been accused of many things - this is a new one LOL!
7:42 pm - HER
@rubyspikes Sugar & spice + everything nice.
*** That last one was in response to my tweet above where I said that if she was a bot, she was a really sweet one. I decided to respond to that tweet of hers about it being a compliment "I think".
***
1:00 am - Me
@HER compliment. Plus lately, I think EVERYONE is a well-disguised spammer. @otherperson1
*** I do think that. A lot. Every time I see a new follower, I think, "Real person or spam? Probably spam." I'd really like to just follow everyone back. But I just don't have time to look through everyone's tweet stream and see if they're just selling stuff. I tweet for fun. That is not fun. So I suck at following back. I'm sorry to all my new followers, but if you don't @ me, then I just suck. And if you do @ me, I might still think you're spam if all you say is, "I like you're blog." Because my blog is only 3 months old and it's schizophrenic and I haven't written a post in a week and what's to love about that. And I clearly have some self-esteem issues. Anyway, moving on. She immediately responds. ***
1:02 am - HER
@rubyspikes Honestly Ruby - I didn't appreciate the accusation. We work very hard at delivering a personal touch. We are not spammers.
*** I immediately begin typing a response. Her tweets were sent before mine, but I didn't see them until after I sent this: ***
1:05 am - Me
@HER oh my gosh. Seriously did not mean to offend. Was so appreciative of the kind words that I jokingly said, "this can't be real"
1:05 am - Me
@HER so really don't want to upset anyone, especially after the really nice 1st tweet. Really.
*** I hit send and see three more tweets in my mentions, which actually were sent while I was typing my response. ***
1:03 am - HER
@rubyspikes A little info about us - we always follow moms back, visit their sites, & say hello personally when they follow us.
*** Ok. But, um, I didn't follow you, so you weren't following me back. You were a stranger. But whatever, ok. ***
1:03 am - HER
@rubyspikes Time consuming & not easy. So you can imagine the feeling I got when I saw what you said. have a good night.
*** Yeah, that sucks. I am really sorry. Let me respond and say sorry again. Wait. Let me read this one more tweet from @HER. ***
1:04 am - HER
@rubyspikes Not to mention - "you're nice- so you must be a spammer" takes messed up to a whole 'nother level. Just saying.
*** Wait. Just saying? Did you just call me messed up? WTH? What happened to "this is a new one LOL!" And I said "complement." AND I apologized. WTH? So yeah, I didn't tweet a 3rd apology. Instead, I was kind of like, WTH? Then I get another tweet from @HER. ***
1:07 am - HER
@rubyspikes right ;) You must be a "spammer" isn't upsetting. Not at all...
*** I check the conversation thread. This is in direct reply to my, "really don't want to upset anyone" tweet. Really? So I said I'm sorry, but you want to tell me that, what, that's not good enough? Or that I should have known better? Or that you think I'm an idiot? What? Really? WTH? ***
1:08 am - Me
@HER yes. I'm messed up. Sorry about that. One important reminder: I use a lot of sarcasm. A lot.
1:09 am - HER
@rubyspikes Understood. Luv sarcasm - as I said originally. Lack of consideration - not so much.
*** Ok. So now I'm messed up AND inconsiderate??? WTF??? So this is where I look to see which of my followers is still tweeting at 1:00 in the morning. (My time anyway.) There aren't many. But really I'm feeling like this woman is just berating me and I'm about to go to bed and I want to talk to SOMEONE who actually likes me before I go to sleep. I tweet. ***
1:16 am - Me
OMG! Apparently I have broken a cardinal rule of Twitter. These really need to be written down somewhere. I need a Twitter owners manual.
*** Yes, I expected people to ask what I did. And they did. And I expected the people who regularly follow me to read the tweets I sent, know my tone, and know, based on my past behavior, that I had meant no ill toward anyone. I expected them to say, "Well we love you. Now go to bed." I kinda forgot that Twitter is the wild west. And at the moment, I was pretty annoyed at being called inconsiderate and really messed up. So some of my followers read the conversation. Most said that it was clear that I was joking. Some tweeted @HER to tell her to lighten up. Not sure what else my followers said to her or what she said to them. All I know is that It was all a big mess. I tried to put my phone down and just go to sleep. I couldn't. I picked up my phone. I had a tweet from someone I don't follow. There is good evidence that this new person is one of HER friends. ***
2:10 am - HERfriend
@rubyspikes I saw this discussion & I feel that Ruby was originally rude & then to make it worse, she semed insincere with her apology.
*** WHAT??? HOW could I have been more sincere. Let's recap. I said, "oh my gosh. Seriously did not mean to offend. Was so appreciative of the kind words that I jokingly said, 'this can't be real'" OK. I'm not going to win here. It's after 2 am and I decided that I needed to put this mess down because I had a baby shower to plan. I laid in bed for an hour... and couldn't sleep. I picked up my phone and saw another tweet from @HERfriend ***
3:09 am - @HERfriend
@RubySpikes Even if none of your friends will say this-I will: Saying what you said, the non-apology, & puling other people in wasn't right.
*** Now I'm just exhausted. And I don't know why I'm letting this bother me. I know, whether anyone on Twitter believes me or not, I absolutely did not start off to hurt anyone and I was absolutely sincere in my apology. I still believe that neither my "bot" tweet nor my "spam" tweet were particularly offensive, but that's not really the point. The second she tweeted me that it bothered her, I immediately, as genuinely as I could in 140 characters, tried to convey my sincerest apology. I really did, whether she or her friend believe me. And then she got all name cally on me. And then I turned to my Twitter friends and they jumped in, which was not my intention either, but again, that's not the point. They did. And now it's 4:45 in the morning. I haven't slept. My sisters baby shower is in 30 hours. My baby will be waking up in 2 hours. And all I've learned is that sometimes I'm going to say shit that some people are going to misunderstand or disagree with. And that maybe I am too thin-skinned to be out here on the World Wide Web, because even though I don't know this woman from Eve, I am apparently still upset that this woman and her friend and probably several other people who I will never ever meet, think less of me now than they did yesterday. Shit, yesterday they didn't know I existed an today they think I'm an inconsiderate jerk.
Let me tell you something, people, I don't ever want to be famous. I don't think I could handle the number of people who would dislike me. I totally get that not everyone's going to want to join the rubyspikes' fan club. But the people who want to join the rubyspikes anti-fan club, yeah, I'm not so good with that.
Also learned: having Instant Replay doesn't do JACK! It's not that you don't remember exactly what was said, it's that what you say and what you mean and what the other person thinks you mean are often three totally different things.
So in conclusion.
@HER, I really am sorry. I hope that if you read this, you will understand what I was thinking, now that I have more than 140 characters to explain it. I am sorry that you thought my apology seemed insincere. I was quite sincere, but admittedly became less so the moment you said I was really messed up. But also know that I think that I am owed an apology just as much as you are. I'll assume the best and assume that your "messed up" comments and all your other jabs were really just you upset as well an maybe not your finest moments. I'll hope anyway.
And to everybody else that made it this far, thanks for sticking with me. I am a work in progress. And I know this is a bit of a crazy post that really just demonstrates that one of my biggest personal demons is my own insecurity. So I seriously considered keeping this post unpublished and just for me. But so many of my favorite blogs deal with overcoming postpartum depression and facing life with autism and losing a child. And the strength of those women seems so amazing to me. This, by comparison, is so very trivial. So I'm putting it out there. Tomorrow, we will move on to something more.... superficial.
******
Monday morning update: In case you read this now and are worried that I'm stressing too much on it, I'm over it. I said something that was meant innocently, but could easily be misinterpreted. I apologized. I tried to be sincere. I got offended. I fired back. I inadvertently sucked other people into the disagreement. I have considered sending both people additional apologies or clarifications or just a link to this post, but I have abstained since I'm pretty sure we'll all be happier if we move on instead of rehashing Friday night. So I'm done. Moving on.
This morning: one of my followers who had NO IDEA of my weekend escapades detailed above tweeted this to me.
myrandomology
@daydreaminfool no. No exploding @rubyspikes head. Unless she's a bot. Are you a bot? If so, you make a pretty good impression of a human.
Oh gosh. I couldn't stop giggling.
