Fun. Without you.

[mrissa]

Last weekend, when I was still processing the crazy that was June, the Strib ran an article about Facebook depression. The tl;dr version is that some teenagers are sad because they see pictures of their friends having fun without them. The adult suggestion for dealing with this was to remember that not everything was going on FB and other people are sad sometimes too. And this is good but completely insufficient, to my way of thinking.

One of the kids is quoted as saying, "If [friends] go to a party, it feels like, why wasn't I invited?" And...uh. Really? Really? This did not seem like time for a major life lesson? Because your friends: they will have friends who are not you. They will have friends who are not your friends. They will go to parties without you; sometimes they will have parties without you. Because not every event is infinitely flexible or infinitely large. Because not every event is for you. You do this to other people. They will do it to you. Life is like that.

No matter how bad your day is, someone somewhere will be having fun. Possibly even someone who cares about you.

No matter how personable you are, some of the world's fun will happen without you. Even some of the portion of the world's fun that has been assigned to your near and dear.

This is the key to having a happy convention, but it's also pretty key to the rest of your life. Imagine how awful it would be to live with someone whose life was a boring or painful slog whenever you weren't around. Imagine how dreary it would be to have coffee with someone whose only joy in their life was your coffee time.

I mean, yes, if you find that the people you think are your friends are never including you in anything and are always doing things that could include you and don't, it may be time to reevaluate your friendship with them. But if you have some friends who went to the movies without you? It happens. Ask them how the movie was. Converse. Tell them about what happened when you went swimming while they were at the movies. More to the point, go swimming while they're at the movies. Adults need to know this. Teenagers need to know it. Little kids need to learn it before they get to the point of being teenagers and thinking that friendship means always doing everything together. And adults who don't address that and who blame Facebook are doing the teens in their vicinity no favors.

Comments

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you choose to take "Hurtfeelingsmom" ans anything other than a shorthand for "the mother who has chosen to share her hurt feelings with the entire group." I am also sorry you feel a need to decalre me not a "gracious and artful conversationalist." I would submit that that sort of jab is neither gracious nor artful, but leave you to decide for yourself if it's an acceptable level of offense.

R is a friend of S, the mom who hosted. She is NOT a friend of the guest of honor. Her children are not especial friends of the guest of honor. That R has chosen to be snippy at those who attended with their children (we do all remember that this was a child's birthday party, parents were incidental) is pretty off putting to me. Should S really have invited HER friend with her much younger children to her daughter's party despite the daughter's wishes? The young lady was turning 14 and wanted "just the big kids." She wanted her peers, not every child of every family in the larger group and I think it would have been awful of her mother to insist that her party be about mom's friends and their potential for hurt feelings.

We meet weekly with children ranging from 1 to 18. We are not all friends. Many, even most are friends or at least friendly acquaintances but some people don't care for each other. If 10 of us are sitting in a circle there are at least 4 conversations going on. If I turn to speak to S, the entire group is not held hostage to our brief bit of chatter.

While I think it is important to avoid hurting feelings, I think there is a limit to how far one can go before one is treating the other person like a fragile child. That to me is far more offensive than asking S about a towel. At a certain point it diminishes the adult and treats them like they are incapable of being rational about the fact that we all have lives without each other and I would find that pretty disrespectful.

And yes, I think when one takes their hurt feelings and expresses them sulkily all over the social group, on has crossed a line between "being sad" and "being offensive" and that big girl panties are in order. Even if you want to declare that S and I should be subject to R's snippiness because we dared to make passing references to a gathering she wasn't invited to, the other 7 people in the circle? They definitely don't need to hear it. Which do you think bothers them more, the passive-agressive sulk or me asking S if we left a towel at her house?

[cathshaffer.livejournal.com]

You've honestly lost me with the details of this incident. Personally, I've never found it helpful, when someone has hurt feelings, to tell them they're being oversensitive and to get over it. Good luck with that.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

Well, as I've never found being quite so condescending at strangers to be helpful either, I think it's time to wish you well and move on.