a story about a facebook fight

So, the thing that's kind of annoying about people's status posts on Facebook is that they are so often elusive/coy/vague. i'm guilty of it myself. i'll write something like "the movie made me puke and now i'm in jail" or something like that, leaving everyone to be all, "What happened? what movie? can i post bail?"
recently i have been particularly active, and maybe annoyingly so, on my facebook posts because i got my feeling really hurt on facebook and it just really devastated me. I feel the need to share some of what happened. i will try to keep names out of it.
it all started with a thread (that is when someone includes a whole bunch of people in a message, so that everyone included can respond) that someone I'd always tried to be a good friend to sent out, inviting people to an event. when people said they couldn't come, she responded with something like "you guys are retards."
I have deleted a lot of the exchange and can't get it back, but i'm going to include the parts of the thread that i was able to retrieve from my email account's "sent" box, etc. I will use made up names for people.

joe
"hey maybe you are the retard for not thinking of us retards sooner!"

jimmy
"ya retard"
joe
"ok, ur mentally challenged! there is the obama version of retard better?"

i asked, "what is the obama version of "retarded" supposed to be?"
I'd also asked, either before or after asking what this obama comment was supposed to mean, if people could stop using the word retard as an insult. i said it so nicely, like 'hey, i know you guys are just having fun but can you use another word? it really hurts my feelings to hear retard used as an insult. then he replied with:

Joe
"mentaly challenged. obama makes everything all gay politically correct crap"

so i said that obama is amazing, disabled people are amazing, and gay people are amazing, and that i thought what he was saying was really fucked up.

Joe
"if u think obama is amazing your ignorant, my cousin is gay and i have gay friends. if u think using a name is hurtful because it has another meaning than ur ignorant. thats like saying when u call someone an asshole all the assholes around the world are gonna be upset. its just a word and should be treated as such."

I wrote that words are hurtful.

then the person i'd assumed was my friend, who at no point decided to ask these people to stop picking on me (there were a looooot more things said to me than what i'm including), put her 2 cents in, which were "god, stop ruining my thread, i'm fucking pissed" or something like that. and to me personally she wrote that she didn't appreciate people spouting off politics on her threads but that hopefully we could get past this.

shortly after the girl i'd felt was my friend, i'll call her mary, told everyone "stop it!" this girl who i'd been really nice to when i'd met in the past, I'll call her Connie, wrote this really long piece of shit about how wrong i am to take offense at the word Retard being used as an insult, and she had all this like .... wikipedia knowledge or something to back up why i was so wrong. then she sent me this personal message:

Connie
The only reason I spoke up was because I'm sick of having this crap forwarded to my phone every 10 minutes and my response went out before I received Mary's message about the thread being closed.

Mary closed this thread for a reason. There are other people on this thread who haven't spoken up, who are probably just as sick of hearing about this. ___ and Mary are great people, and it looks bad on them to have this kind of garbage being forwarded to the rest of their friends.

Please at least be respectful of their wishes and don't continue this stupid argument on this thread.


and i wrote back:

it was their choice to include several people in this thread. i don't personally like reading everyone's comments to questions/invites they send out as threads, either, but i just delete them. i don't appreciate being scolded by you. i met you at a party and i thought i was very kind to you and i really don't understand why you would take such an unkind tone towards me in this email nor in the thread, during which all i was doing was expressing my personal feeling about the word "retard," when being used as an insult, feeling hurtful to me. instead, i got this huge hatefest, which, by the way, you contributed to with your very long comment, so if you are worried about ____ and Mary looking bad (to who? they sent this thread out to their friends? i can't imagine ____ and Mary's friends being like "well, i used to respect them, but now that i've gotten all these responses to this thread i've been included in, i don't like them anymore), you shouldn't have contributed (such a long) comment in the thread.

so, why don't you "please be respectful" (as you say) of me, a person who was very kind to you when we met, and not refer to my feelings as "a stupid argument." I mean, who do you think you are, writing to me in this scolding tone? my husband has known _____ since they were 2, and i hang out with them at least twice a week. why did you decide you had to come to their defense, and insult me personally by calling my expression of my feelings "garbage" and shit like that? i really, truly don't understand why you felt the need to send this email to me or why you thought you had the right to. If you were so "sick of this crap" you would have deleted it (like i do whenever Joe and everyone else responds copiously to their threads) instead of jumping on the bandwagon of making me feel like total shit for expressing my feelings. what the fuck?

at this point, i just couldn't believe that everyone was MAD at me, for saying my feelings had been hurt. things died down then started up again, between me and someone I'll name MAX.

MAX
wait whats this talk about a thread? who here is a seamstress? i thought this was an email between a bunch of people? OOH like a conference email! oh wait no i get it its a series of newsgroup messages dealing with the same subject. man i am such a gay homo pirate retard.

& then I said something but i don't know what. and then:

MAX
no just too liberal. i like keeping the money i earn instead of it going to people in line for welfare that are too lazy to get a job because they know the "gov'ment" will provide a monthly check for them for free. in the timeless words of garth brooks, "if uncle sam dips in your packet, for most things you dont mind, but when your dollar goes to all of those standing in the welfare line, rejoice you have a voice if you're concerned about the destination of this great nation."

ME (robin)
well everything you just said was absolute bullshit, and if you ever become homeless, you are gonna thank god for welfare (like my mom, who is not lazy but too mentally ill for most people to want to hire her). but I just got torn a new asshole by Mary for continuing this thread after her directive to stop with the thread. i'm not sure if she's scolding everyone who continues the thread or just me, but in any event, i'm tired of reading your type of conservatism, and tired of getting bitched out by Mary everytime i respond to one of yr guys's responses. So ... could you please stop ruining my day? this is day two of me crying from being ganged up on and then told that all this dialogue is my fault, and believe me, i don't need any of this shit. ok? can you please have some gentlemanly mercy on me?

MAX
you started it. everyone was joking around having fun then you just came in here all high and mighty on your pedestal telling people that they were horrible for joking around. its just like when something you dont like comes on on tv, you change the fucking channel. do you call the tv station saying they need to stop putting it on tv? no you just pick up the remote and change the fucking channel. so if you dont like it when people disagree with you and you cant handle opposing views then dont come in on the conversation in the first place. retard.

ME
I didn't start acting high and mighty. i said "hey guys, i know you mean no harm but it kinda hurts my feelings to hear the word retard used as an insult. can you use another word?
what the fuck is wrong with me asking that, as a favor, after expressing the fact that it hurt my feelings. it wasn't a demand. it wasn't "what's wrong with you people?!" it was just me asking a favor. i can handle opposing views just fine, and i have to do so on a daily basis. i'm a pragmatist. but what happened was sean started making a joke out of something that was so clearly special to me and then he kept pushing my buttons. i cannot believe you called me a retard. there is something seriously wrong with you.

MAX
no no, you are actually misquoting yourself. in reality you said "hi, i know you guys aren't meaning any harm, just joking around, but I really feel I need to tell you that it can be very hurtful to use "retard" as an insult." thats a somewhat different meaning that what you just said. all i had to do was look further up in the "thread" as you people call it. and obviosly you cant handle when people feel differently about a subject because you said we were ganging up on you. remember, just change the channel. and i feel very offended that you say there is something seriously wrong with me, what are you trying to imply miss high and mighty? hmmm i think im gonna change the channel, you should do the same so you dont get your feelings hurt anymore.

then he added:
oh and Buck Ofama

and i quipped:
oh... too black for you?

at which point, I got scolded again for continuing on this thread instead of letting someone boss me around by telling me i'm not allowed to respond to people's shit.


I feel so upset.
this has ruined a lot of shit, including possibly the lifelong friendship of my husband and the husband of the girl who throws "retard" around all the time and who fixated on trying to get me to shut up instead of defending me like she should have.

stuff like this always happens to me and people always make me feel like it's my fault for getting too sassy or whatever.

i don't know, hopefully it's not libelous to have publish these people's facebook comments, i just really needed to get this all off my chest. it really hurts.