6 ms·

I had a talk with a friend recently who is newly single, and it was clear to me that Facebook was making her crazy. She kept asking me questions about what peo

I had a talk with a friend recently who is newly single, and it was clear to me that Facebook was making her crazy. She kept asking me questions about what people that were friends with her and her ex thought of her, or were saying behind her back, or were posting about her in a way that she couldn't see. It was an uphill battle, but I finally convinced her of the truth: nobody really talked about her or her ex that much at all. And what was said was trite and banal, "Oh, I'm sad they broke up..." This was a bit of revelation for her. I think people that obsess over what is said about them behind their backs should take that to heart. The truth is you probably spend a lot less time in people's thoughts than you think you do.

bitops 13y ago
I heard a good joke about this: when you're 20, you're obsessed with what others think about you. When you're 40, you don't give a damn what others think about you. When you're 60, you realize others were never thinking about you at all.
- stephengillie 13y ago
  I hesitate to quote Ayn Rand, but it's fitting: "Mr. Roark, we’re alone here. Why don’t you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us." "But I don’t think of you." -Ellsworth Toohey and Howard Roark, The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
  - dclowd9901 13y ago
    Michael Ginsberg: "I feel bad for you." Don Draper: "I don't think about you at all." (The irony of this line is that Draper, in fact, was obsessed with one-upping Ginsberg the whole episode.)
    - sanderjd 13y ago
      Things like this are what make Don Draper such a fantastic (and fantastically loathsome) character. He knows which buttons to push at which times. It is that quality that makes him both successful in his career and miserable in his life.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    "Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person." -- Mark Twain
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
- cinquemb 13y ago
  Does that empower the "Move fast, break things" mentality since others were never really thinking about you (or other people for that matter) and just mostly themselves?
- damontal 13y ago
  Ran into a coworker on the elevator. We worked together on the same floor in the same department for a few years then I changed departments and floors and now we hardly see each other. When she saw me on the elevator she said "I forgot you exist!"
rayiner 13y ago
> The truth is you probably spend a lot less time in people's thoughts than you think you do. There is a clinical term for this phenomenon.
- emiliobumachar 13y ago
  ?
  - rayiner 13y ago
    I don't know it... but I know it exists, LOL.
    - dctoedt 13y ago
      Perhaps pronoia ? [0] [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronoia_(psychology) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronoia_(psychology)
      - stephengillie 13y ago
        I was thinking narcissim...
- rmrfrmrf 13y ago
  Egocentrism.
Udo 13y ago
Just for fun, I'd like to throw in my opposite experience. A few years ago I was quite active on FB, you know, posting random thoughts and music videos and stuff like that. The stuff I posted was indeed random, just things I liked and wanted to share based on mood and ...well randomness. But unbeknownst to be, an acquaintance of mine, who was at the time engaged in a horribly soapy love triangle, got it into her head that I was speaking in code about her - more specifically that I was totally in love with her and wanted to make her nicely constructed love triangle into a quad-shape. It didn't help that I really had been unlucky in love for months at that time, and I once confided to said threesome girl my situation over a coffee. I did express to her quite clearly who my "problem" person was, but for some reason (and I learned that only much later from a meetup with her boyfriend) she actually thought I was again speaking about her, in code. I was not. However, she convinced a lot of people. Only after noticing that quite a few friends and acquaintances were turning their backs on me lately, and a few people coming out and saying strange things like "hey, what's up with you and X, you gotta let her go, man" or even "dude, I heard what you did and it's not seriously not cool" I gradually learned that this person was waging an epic info war around and about me, who supposedly couldn't stop hitting on her. Upon learning this, I broke off contact immediately, but to my amazement the damage was still unfolding. I simply could not believe the amount of gossip and straight-up fantasy people engaged in with me playing some kind of role in what had become a huge reality soap opera. Honestly, I never thought I was that interesting. But that didn't matter, because the made-up stuff just kept coming. It was as if I had a very active doppelgänger walking and talking around somewhere. It was absolutely stunning, and more than a bit horrifying. There are a lot of things I still can't wrap my head around. What was she getting out of this? And all the time, we had a "hey, let's grab a beer and cheer you up"-kind of relationship that I thought was pretty good. Why would anyone do this? And why was everyone willing to not only listen but also willing to add to this story? Now, years later, my circle of friends has shrunken immensely. There are a lot of people who won't talk to me anymore, and I never got to find out why exactly. I only know that the moment I start asking questions, the whole affair seems to get reactivated. One friend told me only recently (unprompted) that there are so many conflicting stories about me in circulation, it's hard to keep track of them all. And none of them is good. Why me? I'm neither rich, nor good-looking, nor in any imaginable way socially interesting. Seriously, it's stunningly stupid, and I can't for the life of me understand what powers this process. But it happened. A home-made conspiracy story. Sometimes, people really do talk behind your back - a lot.
dangero 13y ago
"You'll worry less about what people think about you when you realize how seldom they do." -David Foster Wallace
sliverstorm 13y ago
I'm kind of coming the other way. I don't think about what other people think of me much, but I do start to worry a bit when I notice a particular person constantly talks smack about other people to me- if you'll say that about person X, who knows what you say about me to person Y? I wouldn't worry, except sometimes the people prone to talking a lot of smack are the sort to wildly exaggerate or fabricate.
pdevr 13y ago
This is true. However, in some cases, the short amount of time people think and talk about you is enough to cause permanent damage to your reputation/career/job/life.
jgeerts 13y ago
This can be true, but Facebook is also used as a tool for people to measure how good they are doing in life to one another. Last weekend a friend of mine started talking about how ugly a specific kid was, then went on Facebook to look up a picture of the ugly ginger kid. Then when scrolling through 'the wall' he went on and on and gave his shallow judgement about people who all were doing worse than him in some way. Probably to reassure to himself that his kid is better on the scale he invented and that his life wasn't that bad after all. Sadly it's not the first conversation like this I overheard. It is one of the reasons I left Facebook, maybe private life should remain what it is, private. His quote about society is absolutely beautiful. "It would be like suddenly subtracting the strong nuclear force from the universe; the fabric of society would instantly evaporate, every marriage, friendship and business partnership dissolved. Civilization, which is held together by a fragile web of tactful phrasing, polite omissions and white lies, would collapse in an apocalypse of bitter recriminations and weeping, breakups and fistfights, divorces and bankruptcies, scandals and resignations, blood feuds, litigation, wholesale slaughter in the streets and lingering ill will."

bitops 13y ago

I heard a good joke about this: when you're 20, you're obsessed with what others think about you. When you're 40, you don't give a damn what others think about you. When you're 60, you realize others were never thinking about you at all.

stephengillie 13y ago
I hesitate to quote Ayn Rand, but it's fitting: "Mr. Roark, we’re alone here. Why don’t you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us." "But I don’t think of you." -Ellsworth Toohey and Howard Roark, The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
- dclowd9901 13y ago
  Michael Ginsberg: "I feel bad for you." Don Draper: "I don't think about you at all." (The irony of this line is that Draper, in fact, was obsessed with one-upping Ginsberg the whole episode.)
  - sanderjd 13y ago
    Things like this are what make Don Draper such a fantastic (and fantastically loathsome) character. He knows which buttons to push at which times. It is that quality that makes him both successful in his career and miserable in his life.
- icebraining 13y ago
  "Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person." -- Mark Twain
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
cinquemb 13y ago
Does that empower the "Move fast, break things" mentality since others were never really thinking about you (or other people for that matter) and just mostly themselves?
damontal 13y ago
Ran into a coworker on the elevator. We worked together on the same floor in the same department for a few years then I changed departments and floors and now we hardly see each other. When she saw me on the elevator she said "I forgot you exist!"

rayiner 13y ago

> The truth is you probably spend a lot less time in people's thoughts than you think you do. There is a clinical term for this phenomenon.

emiliobumachar 13y ago
?
- rayiner 13y ago
  I don't know it... but I know it exists, LOL.
  - dctoedt 13y ago
    Perhaps pronoia ? [0] [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronoia_(psychology) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronoia_(psychology)
    - stephengillie 13y ago
      I was thinking narcissim...
rmrfrmrf 13y ago
Egocentrism.

Udo 13y ago

Just for fun, I'd like to throw in my opposite experience. A few years ago I was quite active on FB, you know, posting random thoughts and music videos and stuff like that. The stuff I posted was indeed random, just things I liked and wanted to share based on mood and ...well randomness. But unbeknownst to be, an acquaintance of mine, who was at the time engaged in a horribly soapy love triangle, got it into her head that I was speaking in code about her - more specifically that I was totally in love with her and wanted to make her nicely constructed love triangle into a quad-shape. It didn't help that I really had been unlucky in love for months at that time, and I once confided to said threesome girl my situation over a coffee. I did express to her quite clearly who my "problem" person was, but for some reason (and I learned that only much later from a meetup with her boyfriend) she actually thought I was again speaking about her, in code. I was not. However, she convinced a lot of people. Only after noticing that quite a few friends and acquaintances were turning their backs on me lately, and a few people coming out and saying strange things like "hey, what's up with you and X, you gotta let her go, man" or even "dude, I heard what you did and it's not seriously not cool" I gradually learned that this person was waging an epic info war around and about me, who supposedly couldn't stop hitting on her. Upon learning this, I broke off contact immediately, but to my amazement the damage was still unfolding. I simply could not believe the amount of gossip and straight-up fantasy people engaged in with me playing some kind of role in what had become a huge reality soap opera. Honestly, I never thought I was that interesting. But that didn't matter, because the made-up stuff just kept coming. It was as if I had a very active doppelgänger walking and talking around somewhere. It was absolutely stunning, and more than a bit horrifying. There are a lot of things I still can't wrap my head around. What was she getting out of this? And all the time, we had a "hey, let's grab a beer and cheer you up"-kind of relationship that I thought was pretty good. Why would anyone do this? And why was everyone willing to not only listen but also willing to add to this story? Now, years later, my circle of friends has shrunken immensely. There are a lot of people who won't talk to me anymore, and I never got to find out why exactly. I only know that the moment I start asking questions, the whole affair seems to get reactivated. One friend told me only recently (unprompted) that there are so many conflicting stories about me in circulation, it's hard to keep track of them all. And none of them is good. Why me? I'm neither rich, nor good-looking, nor in any imaginable way socially interesting. Seriously, it's stunningly stupid, and I can't for the life of me understand what powers this process. But it happened. A home-made conspiracy story. Sometimes, people really do talk behind your back - a lot.

dangero 13y ago

"You'll worry less about what people think about you when you realize how seldom they do." -David Foster Wallace

sliverstorm 13y ago

I'm kind of coming the other way. I don't think about what other people think of me much, but I do start to worry a bit when I notice a particular person constantly talks smack about other people to me- if you'll say that about person X, who knows what you say about me to person Y? I wouldn't worry, except sometimes the people prone to talking a lot of smack are the sort to wildly exaggerate or fabricate.

pdevr 13y ago

This is true. However, in some cases, the short amount of time people think and talk about you is enough to cause permanent damage to your reputation/career/job/life.

jgeerts 13y ago

This can be true, but Facebook is also used as a tool for people to measure how good they are doing in life to one another. Last weekend a friend of mine started talking about how ugly a specific kid was, then went on Facebook to look up a picture of the ugly ginger kid. Then when scrolling through 'the wall' he went on and on and gave his shallow judgement about people who all were doing worse than him in some way. Probably to reassure to himself that his kid is better on the scale he invented and that his life wasn't that bad after all. Sadly it's not the first conversation like this I overheard. It is one of the reasons I left Facebook, maybe private life should remain what it is, private. His quote about society is absolutely beautiful. "It would be like suddenly subtracting the strong nuclear force from the universe; the fabric of society would instantly evaporate, every marriage, friendship and business partnership dissolved. Civilization, which is held together by a fragile web of tactful phrasing, polite omissions and white lies, would collapse in an apocalypse of bitter recriminations and weeping, breakups and fistfights, divorces and bankruptcies, scandals and resignations, blood feuds, litigation, wholesale slaughter in the streets and lingering ill will."