August 15, 2009

• Sharing

  As an only child, I didn’t have as much early experience or training in sharing as kids do who have siblings.  It wasn’t entirely lacking.  My parents didn’t neglect that aspect of my development.  The issue just didn’t come up often in my early years.  Taking turns and sharing were challenges I was compelled to meet in kindergarten. 

  I remember fighting over paints and being sent to sit in a chair facing a corner of the classroom, wearing the dunce cap.  It was the 1940s, and that was considered appropriate punishment.  But I digress….

  Later in my childhood, when it was just my mother and me, “share and share alike,” was one of her favorite aphorisms.  She preached it a lot, and practiced it where food was concerned, but not much otherwise.  I would get in big trouble for getting into her toiletries, cosmetics and “stuff,” and if there was conflict over what to watch on TV, etc., she had the power and wasn’t inclined to defer to me or take turns.

  The custom of equal divisions of food portions from my mother’s household did not survive in mine.  If one of us wants to have part of something set aside to eat later, he or she makes a point of saying so.  Otherwise, it’s common property and nobody gets any grief for eating more than a “fair share.”  Share and share alike would not work for Doug and me because our tastes are very different and his caloric requirement is greater than mine.  Our system works now that the household is just the two of us, because neither of us is greedy and we have plenty.

  I’m having new problems with sharing now, and I’m not sure that even growing up in a big family would have prepared me for this.  It is a different kind of sharing.  I have observed the meaning of “share” evolving through my lifetime.  I was in my thirties before I heard anyone say, “Thanks for sharing,” in reference to a personal revelation or amusing anecdote. 

  Now, social media have added new connotations to “sharing” just as they have to, “friend.”  The “friends” I have on Facebook are mostly strangers to me.  Although only a few of these people are really my friends, I’m going to omit the quotation marks for the sake of convenience.  I assume you know what I mean. 

  I have been seeing conflicts develop because some people think that their FB friends are sharing things that are inappropriate, or that they are sharing too much of one thing or another.  I ran into a bit of that sort of judgment on Xanga while I was writing my memoirs.  One tight-assed Xanga Relic commented that reading my memoirs was like walking in on me as I stepped from the shower.  That’s me, the naked autobiographer.  Read me at your own risk.

  I bridle at even the suggestion of censorship.  If my revelations are startling, annoying or offensive, nobody needs to be exposed to them more than once.  Anyone who subscribes to me here, or any friend who includes my input in his newsfeed on Facebook, has no room to complain about anything I “share.” 

  Facebook makes it even easier to hide the output of a friend than Xanga makes the process of blocking or unsubbing.  I have concluded that those who complain about what their friends share are either ignorant of the ease of hiding people and blocking apps, or they have control issues, are afraid of offending the friends who have offended them, or just get perverse pleasure from criticizing and complaining.

  I get many invitations, suggestions, and requests from Facebook friends that I choose, for one reason or another, not to accept.  I block and hide apps frequently.  Less frequently, I hide the entire feed from a friend.  Even less frequently than that, I unfriend someone.  If any of those actions angers or offends someone or hurts her feelings, that is her problem, not mine.  I’m exercising my admin-given prerogatives.  These social media are new enough that anybody’s idiosyncratic rules of conduct are bound to lack the force of tradition. 

  I tend to live by my own rules anyway.  I have a simple rule of thumb that helps me decide whether someone’s egregious behavior warrants having her feed hidden or being deleted as my friend.  It’s based on how I feel when I look at her profile pic.  It is entirely arbitrary and capricious, my business, not hers.  I don’t make a production of it, no threats to hide or delete her if she doesn’t shape up and do things my way.  It’s perfectly okay with me if everyone goes on doing things their own way, as long as I have control over my exposure to what they’re doing.
  

  • 6:22 pm
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