Moff Jerjerrod: ”Lord Vader, this is an unexpected pleasure. We are honored by your presence…”
Darth Vader: “You may dispense with the pleasantries, Commander. I’m here to put you back on schedule.”
Moff Jerjerrod: ”I assure you, Lord Vader. My men are working as fast as they can.”
Darth Vader: ”Perhaps I can find new ways to motivate them.”
Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi
Yeah, that’s pretty much me right now. I’m going to be done dispensing with the pleasantries in about 3 more seconds.
Padawan Learner has a facebook ‘friend’ that’s really laying the “I’m the one that’s been chosen to SAVE you from your wretched life of disbelief” crap on mighty thick these past couple of months. She’s even begun using Dad Windu’s recent lay-off and our possible need to move if DW finds work out of the area (something she knows PL is dreading) as her “lead in”. He’s asked, and then told, her to back off about the religious stuff, and she has point blank said that she has no intention of doing so NOR does she have any intention of apologizing if she has been shoving her religious beliefs in his face against his wishes and offended him. I’m trying my hardest to stay out of it, to continue to let PL find a way to deal with it, but… it won’t be much longer if it doesn’t stop. Immediately.
He and I both know the difference between someone who holds strong religious beliefs and someone that is being a religious bully. We know lots of people who hold strong religious beliefs. We know that this is not acceptable or normal to the majority of people with strong religious beliefs. As I told PL, “She’s not being a friend; she’s being a bitch.” There’s a big, big difference between the two. And yes, that is the word I used.
Now I’m off to find 50 cents for C-3PO’s cussing jar.
PS – Yes, I know this is a rather crabby post. Feel free to disregard as needed.
Tell Padawan Learner to keep his head up and stay strong. Maybe he can teach his friend a thing or two about how to treat people and how to show respect for other peoples beliefs. I love you both very much. See you next week.
DITTO Dadwindu.. If need be you step in and rain on her parade!!!
GOOD LUCK with the job hunt~!
One word: DeFriend. And, if he doesn’t want to do that, he can at least set his privacy setting to block her posts.
OMK – Those are the options I gave him last night, if she continues this behavior. He’s been trying to be nice and polite about it since about late October to no avail. Her snotty/snarky reply last night just pushed me over the edge. Oh, and these are private messages not status updates. He figures her status updates are her own deal to say what she wishes. All this is going on in the private messages.
Thanks for stopping by my blog! Like Sandra, I was going to suggest defriending. Furthermore, you can choose to block yourself from another user, meaning you won’t exist in FB land for that person. Good luck to you!
Yeah that’s what I had running through my head reading your post: UNfriend the ninny. I have zero tolerance for religious bullies….they’re the worst kind around, IMHO.
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. Blaise Paschal
The biggest problem is that he doesn’t want to be “mean” to her by DeFriending her. My biggest problem is that she doesn’t appear to give a flying fig about treating him badly. Ah, the teen years. It’s a learning experience, if nothing else.
Both my kids are now on Facebook, and I have to say, if nothing else it’s full of learning experiences. I know some Teen girls, who attend BIG schools, who are avoiding signing up for FB to stay out of the drama. So far, my thin-skinned 10yo son doesn’t have any FB friends, but your situation makes me re-evaluate whether I should have given in on letting him get an account. Teen daughter, on the other hand, enjoys being outrageous and would revel in crap comments. As it is, she gets confusing pseudo-spiritual advice from my mother on FB, and I’m proud of her for responding politely. She even leaves those comments on her wall, whereas she immediately deletes ANYTHING I put on her wall. I guess what I’m saying is, how you and your son respond really depends on his temperament. It’s great that he’s been polite, but who needs the ongoing stress?
Whoa Nellie…that’s a toughie! Is this someone he sees IRL as well? Someone it would be awkward to bump into at Walmart after de-friending? If not, I say get rid of her immediately. Uber de-friended some of his old schoolmates just for putting up religious slogans on their updates every day (what can I say, I’ve TRIED to teach tolerance)
OMK – No, it’s a friend of a friend. IRL stuff shouldn’t ever be an issue. Thankfully!
Ok, firstly I think the situation SUX. It’s clearly bullying and bullying of any form is nasty and abhorrent no matter how she chooses to window dress it in her own mind. And um, bearing in mind we aren’t at this parenting phase yet, it is one of those horrible life learning experiences. Kudos to PL for being such a generous spirit. There are two things maybe you could discuss with him. One is the concept of personal boundaries. I found the Boundaries book (Cloud / Townsend) to be a personal revelation that I did not need to be nice to everyone or let everyone invade my personal space. There is also a Boundaries for Kids book. They are however ironically from a Christian perspective so maybe not helpful in this situation. The other approach is to talk about ‘emotional vampires”. I love this term! It’s so evocative!!! And yet it’s really, really practical. Mr Google has some good results, two I quite like are
http://patrickwanis.com/blog/index.php/2009/06/10/dealing-with-emotional-vampires/
and
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2009/10/27/5-emotional-vampires-and-how-to-combat-them/
I think teens can relate to the fact that these are types of people who simply suck the life force out of you.
I salute you because the whole “when do we intervene” debate in parenting is still ahead of us. I know our kids are going to encounter people like this in the future as well. May the force be with you!
OMK – Thanks for the great resources. I’ll look into them ASAP. Emotional vampires, now that’s descriptive!
OOOOOOH!!! That makes me sooooo mad. I hate that manipulative crap. Friends don’t act like that. Not real ones, anyway. Tell PL I said: don’t let her get to him.