Made the mistake of posting something anti-Corbyn on Facebook and now I'm paying for it
I shared this onto Facebook this evening.
Probably 90% of my friends are full on Corbynites so you can imagine how well that went down.
My best friend of many years who I haven't spoken with in ages (yup, one of those friends) immediately popped up and said "Need context for you posting this". One of the reasons we've remained friends for so long is our mutual love of copious amounts of alcohol and not talking politics. Obviously I'd upset her. I reminded her of my background (my hometown is all about the armed forces) and she said she understood. We then discussed my experience at Glastonbury 2000 and I made her very jealous.
Phew, one down three to go.
Next, a guy (I'll call him Joe) who didn't bully me once (Joe was in the minority) all through primary and secondary school. Joe asked me if I had heard his whole speech. I replied that I couldn't bring myself to as I can't stand him (Corbyn, not my friend). I then explained that I had had a previous, shall we say, bad experience talking politics on Facebook so I normally avoid it but this one had actually enraged me. This is where a friend of Joe's butted in as I had unwittingly left my post public, I'll get to him in a minute. Joe came back to me a little while later more or less as I expecting him to, with a well informed and thought out post. Rather than biting back he agreed that we are all entitled to our opinion and then when into some detail about how social media (and Facebook in particular) isn't the best space to have reasonable political discussions. The words "divisive" and "create a disconnect" were thrown my way. If I had any complaint about Joe's post (apart from his friends antics) it was that he didn't use ANY paragraphs and it was loooooooooooong. Speaking of which.
Gratz if you got this far. I realise everyone's being very understanding at the mo and you came here to read some drama but it's coming and (IMHO) it's worth the wait.
Two down, who's next? Ah yes Joe's friend.
Joe's friend, I'll call him Ted. It started out badly. "I will never win for some people" followed by a link to an article on The Independent. Now, I can't stand it when people don't make an effort on the internet, especially in a public forum where anyone can view what you've written. As you can imagine "I will never win for some people" pretty much sent my eye a-twitchin. This time though, I didn't scold him for his bad grammar as that's rude now on Facebook apparently (that's a whole 'nother story for a whole 'nother time), I answered the best I could.
If you didn't read the linked story (after I went through all the effort to link it >.>) it's a story about how 2 years ago on Remembrance Sunday Corbyn stayed behind to applaud and speak with Veterans.
" Good on him, he did something 2 years ago which meant he didn't have to attend services on armed forces day. What a champ ... ".
Ted immediately pounced on what he evidently thought was the winning argument.
" And Theresa May voted to send soldiers into war, so she had to attend I suppose? " because of course if I don't like Corbyn I must think May is the bees knees.(1) I told him that I had no idea if May had been to any events today as I don't have a TV(2) and that rather than worry about what the rest of the country were doing I had been at my local event. This seemed to bewilder Ted a little. He was confused over whether or not I cared about May doing the rounds today. He seemed to think that I would've prefered it if Corbyn had stayed at home and wondered if maybe I had failed to get a "Glasto" ticket and so I was jealous?
Nope. As you will probably remember, I've done Glastonbury (I'll record my stories of Glasto some other time) and have no wish to go again. Not because I didn't enjoy it, more because none of the acts have tempted me to even consider it since. I saw Bowie for goodness sake. Anyway. I looked up where May had been today, and as expected she was at an Armed Forces Day event. I told Ted this with a "as a PM should be" on the end. I then clarified why I was actually annoyed. " What I enrages me so is the fact that he's not celebrating our armed forces with our armed forces. I'm not sure how I can be clearer ... " to which his answer was, a Gif(3)
He didn't say anything else. My answer was so epic, I'm going to record it here lest it be forgotten.
Wasn't that epic.
And now, this is it, the one you've been waiting for. I bet you've been reading about my last encounter thinking, is that it? And why wouldn't you. You don't know me from Adam. You don't know that I always save the best for last.
Meet Jill. Jill is a 60 year old woman who I met five years ago, through Facebook.(4) I've always considered her to be quite a nice, educated, respectable lady. That is until the UK GE began. This was when Facebook got really unbearable for a while, it was almost as bad as the US Elections had been. Constant political posts. Momentum was everywhere. Jill a founding member of her local group was pouring all her resentment into every post. I watched from the sidelines having decided to stay out of it after upsetting a few apple carts during the US Elections. "How dare you say such a thing?" I could practically hear her scream through my computer as I read her replies to unsuspecting people who had simple questions about his terrorist sympathies and whether or not he would push the Nuclear button. I had no idea just how bad she could get.
Apparently she was unhappy with me. I also think she had been drinking this evening. She can normally spell.
"Why did you post this for? I fort you were on ourside, the riteside. I used to like you but I cant beielf you, of all people, would do sumtin liek this". Apart from the awful spelling the other evidence of her saturday evening drinking was the "you, of all people". You see, Jill doesn't actually know me. We've never met. I've never discussed any political views with her and I don't post my personal life all over Facebook. Jill, literally has no idea what she is talking about. I asked her what she found so objectionable about my post, I said I assumed she'd read my other replies and "surely she could see why I might hold the opinion that I do".
Jill lost the plot here.
"Seriously you are going to tell me that aftr eveything weev done together you tought you could just suddenly turn your coat and post this? Ive never been more DISAPPOINTED IN NYONE IN MY LIFE. DONT YOU REMEMEBER WHAT WE DID AT (redacted) WITH (redacted) AND (redacted)."
At this point I'm a little concerned for my friend. I had no idea what she was talking about, what we'd done together?
"HONESTLY I DONT FINK ILL EVER SEE YOU THE SAME WAY jANE. u DISCUST ME. Never spek to me again. I am going to tell ALL OUR mutual fiends what an awful person you are"
Guess what my name isn't Jane. She'd confused me with someone else. I tried to tell her but she wouldn't have it. As of now Jane has been unfriended by Jill. Jill then did a big status update in which she tagged all her friends (including me funnily enough) espousing her belief that Jane is actually worse than Hitler. The words alt-right traitor were there, she called Jane every foul name under the sun and told everyone that Jane had slept with her husband.
I really didn't want Jane or Jill to catch the flack for this. Neither of them deserved it and besides I'm a nice person. Luckily for Jill, I'm also friends with her 80 year old mother Eloise who is rarely in bed before midnight and was therefore guaranteed to be online. I sent her a message "Please call Jill as soon as you can, she's made a massive mistake". About ten minutes later I got a message back "Thanks. Jill is asleep. Her husband will delete the post about Jane. Please remove her comments from your post."
I don't know how much of it Jill will remember in the morning. I've said I won't mention it. We'll have to wait and see.
(1) I don't. I like her more than Corbyn but not by much.
(2) This is the god's honest truth. I haven't had a TV for 13 years, well it's slightly longer as before I moved in with my now Hubster I lived in various shared houses where there was a TV but it wasn't mine and I didn't watch it as I was either at work or in bed. Probably the last TV which I regularly sat down to watch was the one my Mum had when I lived with her. I moved out in 1999.
(3) The latest feature of Facebook and actually quite good fun is the ability to drop gifs into comments.
(4) How I met her is only on the edges of relevant so I'll leave it for now and tell that story another day.
Thank goodness you didn't post any " frogrock " it seems if you want to have any different point of view to the masses you must get approval first incase you trigger people with your hatespeach......
Here in America the political posts have been brutal as you can imagine. It's a shame that any kind of civilized discourse has gone out the window. You can't disagree with someone without being disowned and demonized.
It sounds like you handled this well, with an open mind and a sense of humor.