A Friend Unfriended Me Because of A Comment I Left On Her Facebook
A friend recently decided to end a friendship based on a comment I left on her photo.
It began innocently, I left a remark on one of her Facebook photos commenting that her eyes seem unusually big, and to quote (in case you think I’m exaggerating), I wrote: "nice hair but your eyes seem unusually big.”
Which was an honest comment; my thought initially was that it could be the photo looking skewered, or maybe it was one of those beauty app blown up mistake (which is common). Heck, I myself played with beauty apps all the time. They’re fun, makes you look amazing and imo intriguing to no ends with all those make-up features. But she completely took it the wrong way, deleted my comment and wrote me a personal message that we’re no longer friends and she didn’t need to justify herself, and implied that my comment could potentially ruin her Sunday.
It left me dumbfounded. Here was a friend whom I have enjoyed time and conversations with when we first met, have known for more than 8 years, whom I have congratulated on her wedding and the births of her children, and who is a modern mother of two. They did say mothers “should" be incredibly loving, kind and patient beings.
The first thought that hit me was: "Wow! How insecure do you have to be to act this way?"
Which made little sense. After all, her fb is filled with photos of her travels to countries across the world, numerous times a year, more often than not in extravagant and expensive hotels and resorts. Works in an amazing job with an amazing company, has a loving husband and two beautiful children. She must be so blissfully happy that nothing can tick her off, especially not a harmless comment on fb, right?
Or maybe not?
Social media nowadays is filled with endless amount of beautiful alterated selfies, tons of gorgeous travel photos and successful career stories. It’s common knowledge that social media can easily portray the ideal life of a perfect bachelor, couple or marriage. Who doesn’t want to travel all year long, work in the best companies, dine in 3 michelin stars, get paid top money and surrounded by loving friends all at the same time? Truth is, real life can be pretty mundane, if not boring most of the time.
For example, my everyday life can be summarised into these following routine: 6 am wake up, hiking (on weekdays), breakfast, shower, goes to work, finish work, browsing/reading, dinner (dine-in or out), chat, wash up. sleep. Repeat.
I get the occasional vacations, maybe staycations somewhere near if I'm up for it. Otherwise, there isn’t anything interesting for me to share. And less prone to sharing when bad things happen. I definitely don’t share when I get cheated off money by big reputable companies who bully small business owners like myself; nor when my relatives pass away and the whole family go into mourning; nor the days when I feel lonely and emotional due to my menstrual cycle and I just want to hug myself and cry (ok fine, sometimes I do post an update or two ranting about it). However, generally I am happy with my life, despite hiccups here and there.
So what goes on beyond the beautiful pictures and claims on social media is only known to each oneself. 99% of the time, the prettier the surface, the sadder the reality.
Or maybe I'm just being judgemental.
Then again I must have horrible taste in friends, after all, what kind of person consistently tells me that I can never afford the hotels and travel lifestyle she was/is used to whenever we brought up the topic of travelling (it was a common interest between us back in the days). Not once, not twice, but consistently, over a span of 8 years. Or maybe I'm just being judgemental.
Here was an actual conversation that carried out most recently (by recent I meant last year) when I asked about a specific hotel she has once stayed in during her travels to xx country.
Me: Hey (let's called her Mrs X), how have you been? I saw you went to xXx. How was it?
Mrs X: It was spectacular. I would stay in xXx but there is only one hotel there and it might be out of your budget.
Wow. Where did that come from? Now call me sensitive, but this conversation was followed by many previous conversations that went similarly like this:
Me: Let's go travel!
Mrs X: Yes let's! But I could never backpack, I cant do your style of travelling. At the very least I can flashback in boutique hotels.
(I used to backpack, but that was well over 6 years ago! I had just got out of uni and was travelling for a few years. It's amazing how after so many years she still assume that I can never afford my own hotel room.)
Note that I have never once asked her to rough it out with me. I know who to choose my travel partner for those kind of trips.
And nothing against backpacking, I think they're incredibly fun and the best way to meet amazing friends when you travel. But with age, it does get more difficult to sleep on buses and flat hard beds in a room full of people that's constantly noisy. My advice? Travel when you're young, when you're carefree and can afford to be; when you need not worry about life, work, kids, pets, business, etc and have the urgency to answer your calls or reply emails every 2 hours during your travels.
Perhaps it is one of those unsolvable mysteries in life like the missing sock (what is it with socks and washing machine) and I may never get an answer to what exactly ticked this former friend off (instead of telling me nicely, you know, like a grown up);
and while I ponder and mourn for our non-existential friendship that prevailed only on Facebook, here's an unusually big-eyed photo of myself:
Tags:
Just Blabbing
4 kissed Nicole
lol
ReplyDeleteit's seem too hard become an honest nowadays :) but i always feel better when i tell the truth.... *you don't owe anybody by lying*
ReplyDeleteShe is just insecured. Sometimes social media bring the worst out of people. Comparison and putting ppl down for their own pleasure is not a true friendship. Be grateful to end this kind of "friendship" before you get more unpleasant comments from her. Good luck and cheer...
ReplyDeleteShe is just insecured. Sometimes social media bring the worst out of people. Comparison and putting ppl down for their own pleasure is not a true friendship. Be grateful to end this kind of "friendship" before you get more unpleasant comments from her. Good luck and cheer...
ReplyDelete