love out loud: these boots were made for walkin’
Based on some of my previous posts, I may have given the impression that I have an uncommonly good relationship with some of my ex-boyfriends. This is true in at least one case, but in the rest, I pretty much adhere to the stereotype that ex-partners are rarely on better-than-okay terms.
My parents have been trying to tell me since babyhood that they know best, but it’s only in the past couple of years that I’ve started to believe them (in most situations, anyway).
Several weeks ago, I was telling my mum (possibly whilst drunk) about a couple of the horribly shit experiences I’d had with dudes before Julio that made me appreciate that much more how wonderful he is. And when I told her about one situation in particular, and that he’d been making semi-unpleasant comments on links to my column on facebook since then, she told me that I should have just blocked him on all social networking forums as soon as the initial situation had occurred.
Blocking someone on facebook often seems very trite and juvenile, but that’s because there’s little precedent for it. It probably seemed rather worthy of an eyebrow raise to ignore someone’s phone calls at some point too, but it can be important to send the message, no matter how passive it may be, that someone no longer has a place in your life. And even though the relationship you have with most of your facebook friends is rather trite in itself, sometimes even this isn’t something you want to afford to someone.
What Mum made me realise is that some people’s very presence can be toxic to you. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re a bad person, but just that sometimes their actions are such that you shouldn’t go out of your way to be polite or kind to a person. I’m not advocating being outwardly rude, but it’s important to separate the wheat from the chaff, and rid yourself of the chaff when circumstances call for it.
Following that conversation with my dear mother, I blocked two of my previous amours on facebook after one of them implied that I’d looked trashy the last time he saw me (and even though I don’t think any girl should have to defend her outfit, for the purposes of communicating that he’s something of a reaction-seeking wanker, I will mention that I was wearing a knee-length dress with long sleeves), and the other hadn’t seemed to realise that asking if he could crash at mine after a night out, even if my house is closer to his current location than his own home, is not appropriate given the shit he’d put me through some months earlier.
In truth, I was barely in contact with either of them anyway, so it’s made little difference in my day-to-day life, and I don’t flatter myself that either of them have even noticed. But I nonetheless feel that much lighter having purged a few negative influences, even if only on facebook.
There are a lot of shit things in the world that are beyond your individual control. Having douchebags turn up in your newsfeed is not one of them.
(Image credit: 1.)
