When it comes to being misinformed, incorrect or even insensitive towards the feelings of others, I'm one of those people who 99 times outta 100 will not hesitate in the least to step up to the plate and admit my transgressions, even as unintentional or unclarified as they may be from time to time, at the drop of a hat. To my fellow Facebook friends, this retraction and apology goes out to those offended with great sincerity. Apparently what happened is last week I posted a statement in open newsfeed on Facebook which somewhat offended several people whom I consider part of my close circle of friends on that particular social network. I know this because I was contacted by several people as well as de-friended by 3 of them, so perhaps what I have heard about my writing is true - maybe I do make more of an impact on others than I fully realize. Naturally, that would make anyone, but especially a writer, feel like they are on top of the world but not so with me because as you all know one of my main tenets I live by is to not intentionally harm others, let alone hurt their feelings. That's just not me.
The kicker about all of this is that I cannot find the offensive comment and/or sentiment that I posted! Yes, there is a legitimate explanation behind this and I shall explain that in a little bit. However, I do remember what it was all about, though I honestly do not remember my exact words, so I will try to summarize the entire matter right here-n-now. What I more or less said was this - that I thought it was a crock of shit that when I come home from work late every weeknight and conjtend with getting bombarded with all these people who wish to converse with me, yet on the weekends when I do have a great deal of time to converse with others in Facebook chat, none of those people with whom I speak are anywhere to be found. Naturally, anyone, not just me, would think that if folks really wanted to talk with me they would understand that I'd be much more attentive on the weekends when I naturally have more free-time. By the same token, being narcissistic is also not a part of my psychological demeanor and I realize that like most folks in real life, myself included, most people are out-n-about on the weekends doing things they cant get done during the weekdays/nights as well as having a social life. I do understand all of this and in no way, shape or form intended anyone to think or believe that I was saying "Fuck you when you wanna chat with me during the weeknights when I come home more than halfway-exhausted from working, ya either chat with me on the weekends or go to hell." No, no, no, I'm not like that, because not only does the world not revolve around HivSpice but I also realize and respect the fact that we ALL have lives outside of the sometimes crazy internet world we all frequent on quite a regular basis.
As to why I cannot locate the comment/post in question, that takes a bit of explaining too, but I will try to summarize as much as possible on this. When I first started blogging as they call it, I received a great wealth of information and friendly tips on blog-etiquette from several of my dear friends here online; however, there was one suggestion I received which I only recently found out (as of this past week) which I totally misinterpreted. I accept full responsibility for this because it truly is my fault. Here's the skinny on that.
One of my friends suggested that when writing a blog that it's a good idea to keep one's Profile page on Facebook as free of as many unnecessary posts as possible so that when others view the Profile page one of the main things folks focus in on are the blog postings themselves and thus may be more inclined to view them. The unnecessary postings being the ones that have very little long-term impact towards anyone, such as my liking this-or-that website or quote and the like. This made perfect sense to me then and it still does now; however, I sorta fucked it up. What I did is delete the majority of the postings in-between each of my blog notifications so as to keep the page very clear and streamlined. Well, I now realize by doing this that I deleted the majority of what could be considered "archives material" on my Profile page, including the comment or posting that was the basis for my writing this retraction and apology in the first place.
So there you have it, the full story. Since all this has happened, naturally, I have made a coupla changes. From here on out, I am only deleting the truly unnecessary postings on my Profile page. In addition, I have contacted the several people whom were personally offended by what I said and explained myself to them, as well have tried to make amends with each one of them. For what it may be worth, I have been sincerely successful on all of this, except I have lost 2 friends because of it but what are you gonna do, ya know what I mean? All you can do is be honest with people, give it your best shot and if they still dont want anything to do with you, I guess you just have to put it all behind you and march onward with life.
As for the one friend I gained back, well, I'm extremely happy about that. He's a wonderful guy, he really is - witty, compassionate, sensitive (in all the right ways) and goodhearted, yet he stands firm in his convictions in general about life and about people, he's no pushover let me tell you. I actually love and respect him for that because I like a man who doesn't hesitate in standing up to me when it comes to a difference-of-opinion issue. It shows he has real backbone. Anyone who is intimidated by me on any level is just being plain silly because I am sucha simple, down-to-earth person. The only folks who do need to worry about me are the hatemongerers and religious zealots, but my friends? No way. So again, I sincerely apologize to those individuals whom I offended, for it wasn't intentional, I was just releasing my frustrations about not being able to keep up with others. It was insensitive of me and I will do my best to make sure it doesnt happen again. I'm only human guys, just like the rest of y'all and I do make mistakes. We all do.
With that being said, I've begun working on a very large-sized blog entry that I will be writing for World AIDS Day tomorrow. That day is so important to me that I actually began outlining each paragraph for the upcoming piece like 2 days ago! No shit. The only problem is that when it comes to pieces like that, I like to post them on the specifically-intended date but that's not gonna happen this year because tomorrow, December 1st, I am gonna be in meetings at work most of the day and will not have time to pen anything. So, I might write it later this evening and autopost it from work tonight, as well as repost it tomorrow evening - yeah, it does mean that much to me. It's funny though, these blog things - for the entries you have no idea on how folks will react to, they usually turn out to be the most-read ones, whereas the ones you put extra thought and care into make a fizzling thud after they are posted! Oh well, as with everything else in life it's all about taking chances, heh? Sending good positive thoughts to everyone out there today and every day, and as always, thank you for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment