Even online, LISTEN to yourself! On unintentional jerk behavior

(The following happened a long while ago. I’m only just writing about it now because I wanted to let enough time elapse that the offender wouldn’t recognize themselves in this post on the off chance they find it.)

An acquaintance of mine just had a horrible death in the family, a close and only sibling. It was one of those, out of the blue, taken way too soon kind of things that there are really no words for because you just feel so badly for everyone involved.

A day or two after it happened, she posted a message on Facebook, something to the effect of, “This is so hard, I don’t know how I’m going to get through this.” A perfectly valid thing to say under the circumstances.

Amongst the friends that wrote their perfectly acceptable replies of consolation and support, there was one of her friends that wrote the following:

I’m so sorry! 🙁 I know when my dog died it was really hard at first but I got through it. But I’m a really strong person so it may be a lot harder for you. But hopefully it will be OK.

I think we can all agree that the person was trying to say the right thing and was genuinely attempting to console her friend. I also think that we can all agree she failed, pretty hardcore.

While attempting to console said friend, she instead managed to do all of the following:

• Belittle the death of her friend’s family member by comparing it to the death of a pet
• Out herself as a self-absorbed person who makes everything all about her
• Imply that her friend is weak and that she is the stronger person
• Imply some doubt that it will be OK
• Convince every single person who read that comment that she is a huge jerk

When I read this, I couldn’t believe it, it seems like something you’d make up for a character to say but I assure you it was real and I saw it with my own eyes.

If you are sitting in-person with a friend and they start to say something utterly ridiculous, you’d turn to them and say, “Will you listen to yourself?” When I see things like this, I find myself wondering if that’s the problem, that people don’t “listen” to themselves online or re-read what they write with the eyes of an outsider before they post it.

If you want to make an ass of yourself online, I suppose that is your prerogative but, in a case like this, what she said was insensitive and hurtful to someone who was already in a very bad place. If she’d have thought about how it sounded to her friend, she probably wouldn’t have posted it.

I am a huge culprit of speaking before I think, especially when I’m trying to be funny. But while you can’t un-say something you said aloud, before you post something online you can certainly take a few seconds to read that Twitter message, Facebook reply or blog post with the eye of an outsider. I think we could stop a lot of fights and hurt feeling before they start if we consider that our words may not read to others as they do to us.

Just think before you post, that’s all I and the rest of the world ask.