Years ago I befriended a woman whose son was in the same daycare as my son. We would often run into each other when it was time to pick them up and stand about chatting for ridiculous amounts of time until it became obvious that we should just hang out somewhere OTHER than the parking area.
In retrospect, the parking area was fabulous.
In reality, I realized right away that we were, in fact, NOTHING alike and although we could enjoy each others company we obviously disagreed on some major issues like parenting styles, marriage styles, and all around morality.
Sometimes these are things that can be worked around. Sometimes they are not.
In our case, we hung out outside of the parking lot just a few times before she moved from town and so the issues never really became issues. We've kept in contact over the years and gave been friendly with each other, never going so far as to telephone each other but email, the occasional Christmas card, that sort of thing, yes, we kept up with that. Networking sites...
Tonight I was on her Facebook profile and realized that her son has a profile as well. I clicked on it, assuming I would see nothing because he is underage and even if he wasn't, surely she would know better than to leave her child's profile available for any freak to look at, or any friend to ah *ahem* judge.
Here's the thing: her child is an absolute hellion.
I'm being terribly polite. He's a little dick. The fact that he's twelve is all that's stopping me from using stronger language to describe my impression of him. What's truly sad is that if I had stopped knowing her when they moved away, and just had to work with what I knew of their family dynamic at the time and the way her son behaved back THEN, I would still have come up with the profile I was boggled to be looking at this evening.
No. No, that isn't true. I'm far more optimistic. In my heart of hearts I might have feared he would be as awful as he apparently is, but I would not have outright assumed that he was. This is backed up by the fact that I was horrified and repulsed by his profile. Had I truly expected that, I wouldn't have had such a strong reaction.
Earlier I had told my son that the kid had a Facebook profile and he said, "Oh yah? I'll have to send him a friend request...if he still remembers me." I was perusing the kid's profile after my son went to bed, so he wasn't awake long enough for me to inform him that he would do no such thing, nor would he want to after reading it anyway. My son is even more sunny and optimistic than I and I am quite certain he will look over the boys profile with his jaw slack and in total shock, with much sputtering and exclamations of, "What!? How could he...?! Seriously, what the...!?" while wising filling in the ellipses in his head and not out loud, something this other child could have learned.
But Jill, you may be asking yourself, are you judging the child alone? Aren't children the products of their environment?
Oh yes indeed, dear reader, oh yes indeed. And my next jumble of thoughts went over knowing that the mother and son write on each others profiles, it's not as if she's somehow clueless, and therefore his behaviour is condoned in some way or another, and if you've already figured out where this is heading then I assure you that NO, I do NOT wish to be friends, however remotely, with a woman who raises a boy to become a man like that. Oh little but ever growing shop of HORRORS.
I walked away from the computer and paced in the kitchen for a bit. I talked it out with my husband as audience. I wanted to be sure that my deleting this woman as friend and allowing our friendship to slip into the void was not something I was reacting to, but rather acting on, albeit years belatedly. Had she stayed in town and we had hung out in person just a bit more, this all would have become unavoidable in short order- instead it's been over seven years in the making. And to clarify, I do not friend and unfriend people willy nilly, be it in the realm of Facebook or real life- my own sets of personal boundaries and those I respect of others leave no gray areas, it's all or nothing. I don't mean every blistering detail of your life must be open to me or vice versa, but that I don't bother wasting time on half assed friendships or try hard to build up trust with people who have proven themselves unworthy, I don't give third chances to people who behave horribly and emotionally abusive (second chances can happen, people can do horrid things under stress but not repeatedly- that's not stress, that's a character flaw), and I cannot abide by people who have morals in direct conflict with mine- that's not to say I cannot respect difference and appreciate a person anyway, I mean things like repeatedly cheating on one's spouse, the sorts of things that equate to emotional abuse of other people even if those people aren't me because *duh* sooner or later that same lack of respect for other people will be turned in my direction, of course. It's not even that. The kharmic fallout of people like that is wretched and I have no desire to watch their train wreck in slow motion. So, my deciding to eradicate a friendship is simply that: eradication. Life is too short for gray areas and bothering with people who don't respect boundaries or don't appreciate your own.
If only I could be so clear sighted when it comes to lovers. Oh, the irony.
At any rate, after a bit of pacing and blathering I quickly came to it: there simply was not much to lose. It was demonstrated by the ease of which the undoing occurred- click "remove friend" from Facebook, delete her entry in my email contacts, one two that's it.
I choose to surround myself with as many good people as I can and being the best person I can be. Now I'm merely curious to see how my son reacts when I show him the boys profile. Will he be more forgiving, more open to differences? If I were a betting woman, I'd put it all on "Nope". Not because I don't feel my child has a less iron clad set of boundaries that I do (at twelve I might think it was odd if he didn't) but that this particular childs set of horrid characteristics will set off full alarms in my son as well. He is a gentle soul, and this other boy... I think my son may not have the word "crass" available in his regular vocabulary yet, but that would be the word he would describe the boy with if he had the word to use. If I were a betting woman, I would bet he will try to get away with using the phrase "asshat", perhaps a bit under his breath or saying, "Wow, what a BLEEP hat!"
Time will tell. It has a way of doing that, dontcha know.
