Facebook and the Façade

Every week day, on my way to take my youngest son to his babysitter, I drive past the First Baptist Church of Roy. In front of the church is a large marquee, where presumably the pastor posts a special message for the congregation and passers-by. A couple of months ago, the marquee read, “Get off Facebook and get into My book.” I smiled, amused by the creative pun, but my amusement soon turned to chagrin.

While I rarely log into Facebook from my home computer, I do spend an unnecessary amount of time, usually during random moments of boredom, snooping around status updates and posted photos via my cell phone. I am past playing games or taking quizzes, though I did my fair share of both when novelty negated reason. In the past, I have joked that I needed help cutting back and should probably spearhead a FA group. Despite the fact that Facebook is both a time- and brain-drain, it has been a positive way to reconnect with former childhood friends, lost contacts from college, special students who have graduated, and even keep up with kin, as we all move about our lives across the country. It’s been a teaching tool for my high school students, as well as a way to deliver important family messages about events, both tragic and tender.

According to the Facebook Pressroom, the average user has 130 friends. However, the average user may not be a high school teacher, having taught approximately 200 students annually for nearly thirteen years. The average user may not have a prolific and well-connected extended family. The average user may not be active in a religious organization or several statewide service organizations. The average user may not have grown up in a small town and know, by name, his/her entire graduating class. Therefore, I am not the average user, and I currently have 689 friends, all of whom I know personally (to varying degrees). This is not to say I am popular, but that I have had many opportunities in my life to meet many new people, most of whom I connect with and like. However, this number is down by two since Wednesday – I am not even sure yet who unfriended me, and it’s possible whoever it was simply deactivated his/her account altogether. And, it’s even more possible, they simply unfriended me.

Over the years I have had multiple Facebook friends, some former students, but mostly people from my hometown, unfriend me. They never say why they leave, at least not to me (though I do hear rumblings and rumors). No doubt, there have been “friends” I have unwittingly offended over Facebook, with my random, annoying, and off-color updates. Perhaps there are others who realized we weren’t that close to begin with, so why pretend to be friends in Cyberspace. I wish they would send me a message or post on my wall, “Hey, your excessive status updates were irritating. Peace out,” or “I’m cutting back on my so-called friends and since you never comment on what I post I guess it won’t be a big loss to you,” or “I just friend requested you to spy into your life and see if you were miserable, and now that I have looked through all your photos and info, I’m done.” Since there is no notification, and because I have nearly seven hundred friends, it usually takes me awhile to notice the person is gone from my list. I do notice, eventually.  Once, I went so far as to ask a “friend” why she had unfriended me, but never got a response. I suppose the answer didn’t matter.

Unfriending could be the simplest and quickest form of setting personal cyber boundaries. “Two aspects of limits stand out when it comes to creating better boundaries. The first is setting limits on others. … In reality, setting limits on others is a misnomer. We can’t do that. What we can do is set limits on our own exposure to people who are behaving poorly; we can’t change them or make them behave right. … God sets standards, but he lets people be who they are and then separates himself from them when they misbehave, saying in effect, ‘You can be that way if you choose, but you cannot come into my house’” (Cloud and Townsend, 1995, p.44).

There have been a few times I have unfriended people. I’m usually too afraid of hurting someone else’s feelings to actually remove them from my friend list, so I simply “hide” them instead. However, “making decisions based on others’ approval or on guilt breeds resentment, a product of our sinful nature. We have been so trained by others on what we ‘should’ do that we think we are being loving when we do things out of compulsion” (p.42).

When I did decide to delete a friend or two, my personal reasoning was to put some space between the person and myself because I felt betrayed in some way, and believed I needed to protect myself from their criticism and negativity.  Because I was uncomfortable confronting them, and “hiding” them only kept them invisible to me, I believed the best way to protect myself from them was removal from my cyber life. Once I felt I was able to trust their intentions (or once I let go of my own negative emotions), I was ready to again accept them as “virtual friends.” But really, it wasn’t about them, it was about me. “Feelings should neither be ignored nor placed in charge. … Feelings come from your heart and can tell you the state of your relationships. They can tell you if things are going well, or if there is a problem. If you feel close and loving, things are probably going well. If you feel angry, you have a problem that needs to be addressed. But the point is, your feelings are your responsibility and you must own them and see them as your problem so you can begin to find an answer to whatever issue they are pointing to” (p.40).

There have been times in my life when I fretted over the belief that someone didn’t like me, even that they had unfriended me. In my first years of teaching, I felt terrible if a student thought I was a bad teacher or said they didn’t like me or my class. The same applied to co-workers. I recall, my first year teaching I was nominated by a colleague for a teacher of the year award at my school. The winner was selected by popular vote from among our fellow teachers. While it was an enormous compliment to even be nominated, not to mention during my first year teaching, the likelihood of receiving the majority of votes was improbable. However, I internalized my “failure” to win as a measure of how much or how little people liked me. I saw myself as a failure, instead of focusing on the success and recognition of being nominated. Suddenly, I had something to prove. If they did not believe I was good enough to vote for me, I must make myself good enough. This was not something I consciously stated, but in analyzing my subsequent behavior it’s likely my subconscious had pushed my work ethic into hyperdrive. In my mind, hard work + being liked = success. This pattern was first rooted while I was in high school, when I had been nominated by my peers (being liked) for Prom Queen, but regardless of my contributions and countless hours planning and decorating (hard work), I failed to impress the final selection committee (not being liked). The next year, my campaign for student body president (hard work) was not realized (not being liked). In college, despite my efforts (hard work), I was looked over for an excellence in student teaching award (not being liked). And, nearly every year since I began my career, I have been nominated for various teaching distinction awards and failed to ever be selected as the winner. Last year, a colleague asked if he could nominate me for yet another teaching award. Politely, I declined, asking him to nominate someone else, perhaps a teacher who would be retiring that year. I couldn’t take another instance of being subjected to the selection process, only to receive notification that once again I didn’t meet the mark. It was beginning to feel like a cruel joke … and even as I sit here typing this, I’d just like to slap myself upside the head and say, “Are you kidding me!? You are the most ungrateful person! Look at all of the people who are never nominated, never even in the running! Will you stop throwing yourself a pity party and be pleased with the love and recognition you did get?!” It’s a continual, internal tug-of-war of insecurities versus infinite individual worth.

There is no denying that I absolutely love what I do; I love my students, I love the subjects I teach, I love that I am making a difference for even one person, but that love has become twisted by believing that I am not worthy of reciprocated love unless I am the best at what I do, and I’m not the best unless others say I am. “What we value is what we love and assign importance to. Often we do not take responsibility for what we value. We are caught up in valuing the approval of men rather than the approval of God (John 12:43); because of this misplaced value, we miss out on life. We think that power, riches, and pleasure [or recognition] will satisfy our deepest longing, which is really for love. When we take responsibility for out-of-control behavior caused by loving the wrong things, or valuing things that have no lasting value, when we confess that we have a heart that values things that will not satisfy, we can receive help from God and his people to ‘create a new heart’ within us” (p.43). It’s as if I’m on an unattainable mission to please everyone, and essentially I’m pleasing no one, especially myself. This is because, as C. Terry Warner explains in his book Bonds that Make Us Free: Healing Our Relationships, Coming to Ourselves (2001), I have betrayed myself: “as self-betrayers we project an image of a deserving, worthwhile person, and then we struggle constantly to produce evidence that we’re measuring up to that image.  … We must conceal what we suspect we really are so as to keep from being ‘found out.’ But what we cover up when we hide behind this ‘false front’ – when we publicly project an idealized and fictitious version of ourselves – is not real. We are no more the worthless person we are trying to hide than the impressively worthwhile person we are trying to hide behind. … We have little conception of how worthwhile we are because we are working so hard to prove how worthwhile we are!” (p.74-75). I have spent hours meditating and re-reading much of what Warner writes, as it is difficult to wrap my brain around it all. So, let me see if I get this: I am hiding what I think I really am (a loser and a failure) behind a façade of dedication, hard work, and over competence, but really I am neither the failure, nor am I the amazing teacher, friend, homemaker, church member, etc. So, what am I if I am neither? I suppose that is what I must figure out. That is my quest, to seek the Holy Grail of what or who I am or want to be, and then to be that! I want to feel successful, not because I have a plaque that says so, but because at the end of the day I feel it; I want to know I did my best and no one can tell me otherwise; there is no trophy, title, or tribute that can be taken away.

Sadly, this is not the only form of self-betrayal. There are multiple ways in which a person can betray him/herself. Let me go back to the idea of me unfriending people on Facebook. I believed I had been wronged or at the very least I was offended by the behavior of these other people. However, “one person can give offense only if the other will take offense. One person can insult, humiliate, intimidate, anger, bore, or provoke only if the other actively construes what he or she does as insulting, humiliating, intimidating, angering, boring, or provoking” (p.98). I chose to be offended by their behavior, and by judging them I made them my enemy, and I betrayed myself. Warner explains that this form of self-betrayal occurs:

When we … shift responsibility onto others by means of our accusing thoughts and feelings, we … believe it is their mistreatment of us that leads us to accuse them. This is the self-betrayer’s lie. The truth – the profound, almost world-shaking truth – is that we accuse them because of our mistreatment of them. … Life becomes hard to bear only when we, as self-betrayers, cast ourselves in a victim’s role by regarding others as our victimizers and nurse our misfortunes as if they were badges of honor. I think of self-betrayal as a form of subtle self-destruction because it obliterates the open and generous individuals we can and ought to be – and all for this paltry mess of pottage, the unsteady and impermanent feeling of justification in wrongdoing. … We can’t feel justified in withholding kindness from others unless we find, or invent, some reasons why they deserve it – some deficiency or despicable characteristic that requires us to ignore or correct or chasten or punish them … By our self-victimizations, we exaggerate others’ destructiveness and our own helplessness. … We display ourselves as suffering at their hands. And we evade acknowledging our mistreatment of them by accusing them of mistreating us. … Once we betray ourselves, accuse others, and box ourselves into the victim’s role, we no longer see things the way they really are. In our minds, there can be only two options: one is that we are right in accusing them, which means that they are guilty of all the trouble between us and that we are their victims; the other is that we’re wrong and they aren’t guilty after all, and this means we’re guilty of the trouble and they are our victims. … if we were to acknowledge not being a victim, in that very instant we would in our own eyes become a victimizing, hypocritical monster. (p.30, 54, 64, 67, 71-72)

First, I allowed myself to be offended by their actions. By so doing, I placed myself in the role of victim, thereby giving them power over me, my feelings, and my choices. Warner explains throughout the text that when we fail to act either as we know we should or act as we know we should not, we are betraying ourselves and living a lie.

Unfortunately, I live this lie every morning I drop my son at the sitter. As I race down the street, putting on my make-up in the car, I commence the drill sergeant commands: “Seat belt off, get ready, hurry, hurry, jump out, I’m late, don’t make Mommy more late, come on, Buddy … (tone change) have a great day, love you, be good … (no movement) okay, come on, get out, I have got to go!” His sleepy eyes droop, his shivering body still not adjusted to the cold of the car, his little legs moving slowly from his car seat to open his door. It is 100% my fault we are running late, because I stayed up the night before reading or thinking or writing, and so I snoozed my alarm to the last possible second. The rush to get ready and out the door lasts about thirty minutes, and most mornings I am worried I will arrive at school after the tardy bell has rung. My quietly dreaming son, warm in his bed, is woken abruptly by me putting on his socks and coat, packing his backpack with clothes for the day, and whispering directives to, “Get in the car.” It’s this terrible roller coaster I place him on every morning, and then I get frustrated and upset when he is moving too slowly, crying because he doesn’t “want to wear the shirt with buttons!” or stands at the babysitter’s door and won’t walk in. Because of my choices I am frustrated, not because of him, yet I treat him like he is the cause, like he is the enemy, making me late for work. Here I fail to do what I know I should (to get up early, to create a calm, safe, warm, and patient atmosphere for my child, to arrive to work on time, etc.) and then I vilify my own son in the process. And, how often do we do this with not only our children, but our co-workers, our friends, our siblings, our parents, and most often our spouse?

So, what must I do now?

§  I must realize I am of infinite worth because I am a daughter of God, and stop trying to prove my worth.

§  I must determine what makes me a success in my own eyes and live that truthfully.

§  I must own my emotions and not blame others for making me feel anything.

§  I must be true to myself by doing what I know I should and by not doing what I know I should not.

And when I fall short of doing all of that, I must remember the words of Gerald N. Lund: “Remember that one of Satan’s strategies, especially with good people, is to whisper in their ears: ‘If you are not perfect, you are failing.’ This is one of his most effective deceptions. … We should recognize that God is pleased with every effort we make – no matter how faltering – to better ourselves” (qtd. in Wilcox, 2009, p.108). At the very least, I should be pleased with my effort to move in the right direction and grateful for the distance I have traveled so far.

§  Workbook Questions: What do you tend to do with your feelings – ignore them or let them be in charge? Why? If you are nursing any negative feelings right now, what problem that needs to be addressed are they pointing you toward? You are the only one who feels the effects of your attitudes and beliefs, and you are the only one who can change those attitudes and beliefs. Which attitudes and beliefs that you hold are causing you to make poor choices or experience pain? What will you do to get those attitudes and beliefs in line with God’s truth? (Post your response as a comment.)