2.12.2012

Inside My Closet

I do not usually sit inside my closet. This picture was posed because it has been a contemplative weekend and the closet seems like a good place to think.

Photobucket

Yesterday, my friend and visiting teacher was offended by this post about when she cut my hair. She commented and asked me to remove the picture of her stating that "it is extremely unethical as a blogger, and terribly rude as a friend, to post pictures of another person without their express permission..." I was not at home at the time I received the email with her comment. I immediately stepped outside and called her. She did not answer so I left a message explaining that I would remove the picture when I got home. When I got home, I did just that. Then I received a Facebook notification saying she had written on my wall saying the same thing she had posted as a comment on my blog. I noticed she had also posted the same thing as her own status, claiming that she had a right to publicly defend herself.

I was confused by how this had blown up. First, I am still unsure as to what she was angry about. It seemed like she was angry about the picture being posted, "especially when the pic of you is when you are looking your worst." I never said her name in the original post and she was not looking at the camera in the picture. Then I thought she was offended because I didn't like the haircut. But as a hairstylist, she has to be familiar with the feeling of people not liking a haircut. I would like to state that I now love my haircut. When I called my friend yesterday, I said that I would even have her cut my hair again. The only thing I do not like is that one piece of hair was cut too short and does not fit in a ponytail. If you know me, you know that my hair is in a ponytail more often than it is down. Then I thought maybe she was angry about my making it public. But that didn't make sense since her backlash to that was to make it... more public? My page visits tripled yesterday!

I am writing all of this not to gossip, but to give a background for my feelings. I am fully aware that my blog is public. I keep it this way because I welcome everyone to read it. I am proud of my family, my opinions, and my life. With that said, this is my blog. It is a place for me to write my thoughts, feelings, and opinions about things. I am not campaigning with these opinions. You may come to the blog, agree, and come again. Or come to the blog, disagree, and never come back. Or you can realize that people have different opinions, and come back again. Having a public blog means I welcome one and all. I don't care if particular people do or do not read it. I like having readers though and I frequently track my readers. I know their demographics and frequency in visiting my blog. I am aware that complete strangers, friends, and people in between read my blog.

My friend's Facebook post was quickly inundated with hateful comments about me. Things that I knew I shouldn't read, but I did anyway. Things like, "For real, unfriend that person, electronically and in real life. I don't even know her and can tell she exudes drama and 'look at me' in a complaining/high maintenance way. No time for that! She's not even worth all this." Or "Consider this my gift of exhortation. I'll give you some examples: getting your haircut because your kids and husband mess with it too much, b.s., can't put it in a ponytail anymore, b.s., you have a blog post dedicated to your hair cut, that you are complaining about, that a friend did for you, for crying out loud! That, in and of itself, exudes drama."

Whew. Okay. I have so many, many, many issues with me "exuding drama" since the drama was clearly propagated by my friend. However, I was going to turn the other cheek here. I wanted this all behind me. So today I approached my friend at church and asked her if she wanted to talk. She said, "No." I told her I wanted to resolve this like adults. She quickly walked away. My hope in discussing it with her was to understand what she was feeling so I could compensate for those feelings. I never intended for her to be offended and hoped to repair our friendship, especially considering she is my visiting teacher.

I have talked to Sam, my mother, my mother-in-law, and my sister-in-law about this situation. I have received excellent advice and tried to handle the situation with as much grace as is possible. I am not very good at controlling myself sometimes. I had to vent to Sam to keep myself from yelling at the people who were judging me so harshly, and so undeservedly.

My sister-in-law told me about a phrase in Spanish that says, "Caras vemos, corazones no sabemos." It translates to "Faces we see, hearts we don't know." I wish my friend would talk to me so we could resolve our mutual distaste for this situation. However, since she refuses to talk to me and would rather talk about me, I am forced to deal with this myself; trying to piece together my heart about this situation. I wish she had not assumed what my intentions were, as the assumption was completely off base. I never intended to offend her. I was recapping my own thoughts and feelings about the haircut. On my blog.

We are way too sensitive about ourselves and not sensitive enough about other people. My friend has since removed these posts from our walls. I hope this has brought a softening of her heart, as it has mine.

16 comments:

Andrea said...

Love you girl. As a girl that has dealt with more drama than I care to I understand where you're coming from. Also as a hair stylist I can understand your friends feelings getting hurt. But that's our business and we are supposed to be able to adapt and go with the flow. I hope everything works out. Hugs from Arizona!

ndjsa;vjd said...

I was so confused reading this girl's initial comments. After all, I had read the haircut post and I had not seen her. I count myself as a pretty observant person and I didn't notice her in the pictures at all. I think this is a classic case of our *common* tendency to care too much about our own images instead of looking at them objectively. Love!

Katie said...

You're a champ. These situations always suck. Forgive my french, but they just do. I think you were very grown up about the situation (not that my opinion matters at the moment)but from a third party perspective with absolutely no emotional tie in the matter, I think you're just great. I can see why she would have been offended from the standpoint of a professional person wanting to gain credibility and positive exposure; but posting the matter on Facebook was not the professional PR work I would have recommended. Like you said, it's your blog. And there was no malice in your intentions. Remember, you're great.

Three cheers for drama :-)

Katie said...

ps. If you're wondering about that comment I deleted, I'll just admit it was littered with spelling errors :-S

Three cheers for Monday morning!

MeganandClaudy said...

Bummer. That is a poopy situation. I'm sorry. That would really upset me, and I'm sure it's been hard to deal with, feeling there is no immediate resolution. I've bothered people with some of my blogs. It's hard, because it's supposed to be a place you can unabashadly (sp?) share your feelings and then you get called on them. I agree you should be able to write what you want on your blog and if people don't like it, then don't come back. I think you were very wise and loved this phrase at the end: We are way too sensitive about ourselves adn not sensitive enough about other people. Hope you can find peace, and hopefully absolution with her soon. Life is too short to fight--esp with friends! :)

Paxton said...

Funny, my friend who's a hair stylist and cut my hair this summer told me to wait a week and if I was unhappy or unsure how to style it she'd come back and recut it, or show me a few hair styles with it. Maybe she should have leaned THAT way instead.

And btw you are the most UNDRAMATIC person I know! She obviously doesn't know you at all. In the few years that I've known you, you have seemed level headed and adult about uncomfortable situations that arise. You don't perpetuate gossip and you try to make sure everyone is feeling comfortable.

Oh well, you can't please them all! Too bad there's not a lesson in "forgiveness" coming up this month for visiting teachers. :-P

Julie Manning said...

Meh. I think there is a problem with people these days that would rather write {type} their feelings in a status update then confront them in person. I don't exactly know where this lady is coming from or how she ticks, but it seems that she put herself in the category of discuss it through a status {which is immature in my opinion} rather than speaking to the person she is peeved at.
I don't like facebook because I think it enables people to say things just to get attention, both positive and negative. It's dumb. Go write in your journal, talk to your husband, pray to God, but keep your personal "issues" off of facebook for all to read. For reals.
I like blogs because you can say what you want, after all, it is your blog and if someone doesn't like it then they can be excused from reading it.

Hopefully things can be resolved soon. Good luck.

Carly said...

Emily,
I'm so sorry!! I can totally feel for you there. It seems people (especially people who THINK they know me..when they don't know me very well) often assume/misunderstand/misjudge me when I say things..thinking the worst possible scenario I could have meant! They treat you like a horrible person who had publicly ruined them when they are the ones who make the big, public deal about it. I'm proud of how you've been handling it though! Just know that this is your blog and you have the right to have feelings, opinions and emotions. Although I can understand how she may have interpreted it as something unkind, If you didn't say anything unkind/rude on purpose to/about her and you didn't mean anything like it either.."to be offended is a choice [she] makes". I feel the same way about "public blogs". The only reason I made mine private was because I was so sick of dumb drama like this and how it affected me in a bad way TOO often. I too have a very bad habit of reading mean things when I KNOW I shouldn't because then I just feel horrible about myself, judge myself harshly and end up in a drawn-out, crying and depressed mood where Daniel has to come help fish me out.
Good luck, girl! Just pray for her and pray you'll have the commitment and courage to continue trying to befriend her and help her learn about the "real", wonderful you. :) Also..I totally get the hair in the face thing. My poor kids! I tell Dan all the time I don't want my kids to grow up with a "ponytail mom" but alas! I'm seen with one way too often even when my hair is short! lol.

Kristi said...

Weird. I'm sorry that you went through all this. I hate that it's someone that you see at church all the time too. I couldn't imagine.

I know facebook and blogs have made all kinds of weird situations for me lately, but thankfully, we've been lucky enough and good enough friends to actually talk it over and understand that in the cyber world, it is so easy to misunderstand what someone was trying to say.

I still like you! And feel free to post any pictures of us you want. I don't care. :o)

Geevz said...

Yikes! I never quite understand why people will criticize blogs. You don't HAVE to look at them. I do think it is reasonable to ask someone to remove a picture of you that you don't like. Asking everyone ahead of time if you can post their picture is unrealistic. You could never post a picture of a party or concert. We were all focused on your haircut and I know I didn't notice the picture of the person cutting it.

Although, I think she has as much right to post her feelings on facebook as you do to blog yours now. She felt attacked and needed some validation or a way to explain how she was feeling. The comments about you being "drama" are silly and were just meant to comfort your friend. I can see how much they would hurt though.

Now walking away when you tried to talk to her about, that is also ridiculous. Nothing more you can do now. Hopefully time will make it all seem like less of a big deal and you'll be able to rebuild your friendship.

Little Lovables said...

I am not upset she didn't like the haircut. She has spoken negatively about me and my family a few times now and I have gotten fed up with it, because I have only ever been very nice with her. I stood my ground the way I did because you have just been ramping it up and because you have a history here, normally I could care less, but you need to know you have to respect people and not make your own assumptions all the time. She confronted me at church in a hallway full of people in a rude manner. Which is why I very politely and quietly walked away because I was hurrying to go teach my class and did not want to cause a scene, in which she is famous for doing here in our ward. You people clearly do not understand the situation. Emily, seriously, let it go, you have started random fights over nothing with several people now in this ward. Calm down and maybe you will be able to make some good friends here. It's unfortunate that you have to go and create problems where none lie. I am guessing it must be a self-esteem issue. Peace, I'm done.

Jason & Shannon said...

Oops, deleted my comment. That sucks. I hope it blows over quickly.

Camille Elise said...

OH Em. Stating a fact you and I both already know, we have been friends for quite some time. I can not fathom a reason to be mad at you. You are exactly right, from my view of the situation...it is YOUR blog. And Geevz is right, I was looking at your haircut and not whom else was in the photo. OH dear. Drama. I'm sorry this has happened. I love you and can't wait til you ever come visit again so I don't have to pretend we're visiting when I read your lovely blog... :)

Merkley Jiating said...

Lisa- I had never said a bad word about your family. I had nothing bad to say. I do not have any "random fights over nothing" with anyone in the ward. I approached you and your husband strolling through the hallway, right by the door so we could step outside. I wish you would have answered your phone when I called you a few minutes ago. Or call me back when no one is around so you feel more comfortable talking. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings or something someone told you I said (which I can assure you I did not, as your name has never come up in a conversation before) hurt your feelings. Feel free to excuse yourself from my blog now.

The Monsons said...

What a strange situation! I hope you are able to resolve this with yourself, if not the gal who has such bitterness towards you. I did not find any drama in the original post about the haircut, the stylist wasn't even mentioned in it! Obviously there was no intention to hurt in your post. Perhaps your friend had been having a very bad day, week, etc.-- and she needed an outlet to vent her frustrations. And unfortunately, that became an attack on you! I'm so sorry about all the negative things that were said about you publicly, that was not fair, and should be apologized for. Hope you find some peace soon, I love your family!

Holly Decker said...

things like this have happened over and over again in my own life, Em. with church people nonetheless. and its really hard. harder than anything. but i have a testimony that God can help us understand how to make things right. sometimes it takes a LONG time to understand what WE are supposed to learn from things. and sometimes when we are POSITIVE that we are RIGHT about something we just cannot FATHOM what is wrong with the other person... what is THEIR PROBLEM anyways?
each situation is so different. but i have felt that way so many times and then i was SHOCKED to eventually realize later that i had some faults in the matter.
i dont know if this post is more of a vent and 'write it out to make sense of it all' post (i do those all the time), or if you care for advice... but i think that you need to realize that even though you may have ACCIDENTALLY hurt someone, whether it was intentional or not, it HURT them. and if your son accidentally slams another kids finger in the door, you don't just walk away and say, "it was an accident- get over it." you would do EVERYTHING you could to mend that hurt finger. i think its well worth your time to keep trying to mend this with your 'friend'. she may not be handling her hurt the way YOU want her to, and you may have some valid feelings and whatnot, BUT you need to do all you can to mend this. i have really struggled with things like this in my life and i have NEVER regretted the effort i put into mending things with the people i hurt.
what? you want MORE advice?
1. pray. pray to know what you did and see things her way. pray for your heart AND her heart to soften and to know what to do.
2. make her a treat and write her a heartfelt note of apology and explain yourself in a NON defensive way. stop trying to show her you are "right" and just say sorry.
3. recognize that just because someone handles things and views things differently does not make them bad or wrong. perhaps she is more private than you- and that does not make her a bad person. perhaps your public display of dislike for her talent to cut hair made her extremely humiliated. and perhaps that would not have bothered you if it were viceversa- but it bothered her nonetheless.

anyways, off of soap box, and sorry if i just made things worse. good luck, i hope things heal quickly between you two, because, "remember a person to be loved is more important than a problem to be solved."

LOVE, em. LOVE.
Ether 12 has been my "go-to" chapter when i am in these situations.

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