I unfriended my brother on Facebook.
He said something that offended me so much that I just decided I didn't want to deal with him for a while.
The thing is, I don't know why it hurt me so much. He didn't really say it about me; he said it about a version of me that only exists in his own head. Before, I was able to just dismiss whatever it was that he said about this other Ron, ignore it, even if I didn't like it. Not this time.
Several years ago, when Rosie O'Donnell had her daytime talk show, she talked about how much she liked reading about herself in the tabloids. She said that since none of the stuff in the tabloids had anything to do with her real life, it was like reading about a fictional character, Tabloid Rosie, who led a much more interesting life than she did.
I don't feel the same way about Tabloid Ron. Tabloid Ron, to me, is a smothering blanket that I must fight my way out of. I explained something like this to him the night I came out to him. Instead of just telling him I was gay, I actually took him out to my favorite club in order to "blow the sides out" of the box he had me trapped in.
Now, I have a tabloid Scott, too-- a version of Scott filtered by my interpretation of my experience with him. Scott is a force unto himself. He's got to dominate every conversation and be the center of attention in every room. Everyone is entitled to his opinion, and no one is allowed to have an opinion of their own. For him, it's a competition, and he's got to win. Any dissenting opinion will be punished: maybe not now; maybe 20 years in the future.
He'll remember what you said (or something
like what you said, or maybe something someone else said that he attributes to you, or maybe he'll just take the words you said and jumble them around so that they can become something he can gripe about for the rest of your life), he just won't have ever known what you
meant. He's simply not interested. You can try to explain, but it's a futile effort. He doesn't care what you think; he only cares about what he thinks about what he thought you said. This is the womb of Tabloid Ron.
Scott said once that he's a person who gets in trouble because he likes to ask "why". He doesn't. Instead, he asks "whether", which is a much more limiting question. "Whether" is a cage the truth must break out of before it can be itself. But breaking out of the cage requires a dissenting opinion, which is always going to be seen as an attack, and which, as I've already said, will be punished. It also requires a lot of words, all of which will be misunderstood, and every half dozen (or fewer) will require at least half a page of rebuttal... each. The rebuttal(s) will not have anything to do with what you said (meant). If you try to clarify, eventually you will find yourself drowning in quicksand.
Over the last few years I've come up with some guidelines for online communication.
1. Only answer answerable questions. Keep it short and to the point.
2. Do NOT respond to opinion. He's entitled to an opinion (even if you aren't), and it's just an expression of where his head is at at the moment. Comments are unnecessary.
3. If he asks for an opinion, approach with caution. Usually it's a trap. Keep it short and to the point. Remember the quicksand.
4. He loves "chasing rabbits". Don't follow him.
Needless to say, this severely limits our communication. At least online. But he lives almost 12 hours away, and Facebook and email are the easiest ways to keep in touch, especially with my schedule.
Somehow, though, when we talk on the phone, everything works itself out. Even more so than in person. Weird, huh? And this time, I had provoked him into wanting to know my point of view on our points of contention. So we talked. And talked and talked and talked. We talked about our different perceptions of things that had been said or done in the past. ("Christie sent you an email about..." "And I gave her a snarky answer because I thought it was you." "Yeah. Why did you do that?" "I didn't think you seriously wanted an answer. You were just looking for a reason to grind my face in the mud." "Ron, I'm always looking for an answer.") I explained that I care very little for debate, but do enjoy exchanging ideas, and that I feel his communication style makes me feel that my opinions aren't worth anything to him. He explained that it's not his intent to make me feel bad; he's just trying to pull out more information. All this took about four hours.
Anyway, as usual we've ironed things out for a while. And while we were talking, Scott got a new friend request, which he accepted.
