I Heard It Through The Passive Aggressive Grapevine.

I have had more than my fair share of committing this "social media sin" on Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger. I have gotten so upset at certain people that I outright post their names and their crimes against me for everyone to see; at least on Blogger anyway. However, the relief is shallow and the hurt, anger, and resentment come back even worse than before.

It boggles my mind that a society as advanced as ours in communication and technology lacks the abilities to speak honestly and openly with the people who affect us in certain ways.

That being said, I do feel that we can learn a lot about a person when it comes to a particular combination of certain people and certain passive aggressive posts.

For example, for the past year and a half, I have seen my boyfriend's sister in law post myriads of things against me disguised and tucked away in the passive aggressive messages she has shared on Facebook. The picture on the left is one of these e-cards that she has posted about me. To those who see these posts, yet know nothing about the context with which they are being shared, these posts seem innocent and truthful. They don't realize that the person posting these is aiming them to injure a certain person or group of people.

Another contributing factor to why I feel people display these comments and memes is because of the attention it gets. Let me clarify: we all like to see others like/comment on our posts. When it comes to these passive aggressive posts, we like to garner supporters and encouragers; even if what we are doing is wrong and our intentions come from a bad place. However, the benefit of seeing people agree with you and assuring you of how right you are does come at a price. We sacrifice our integrity and we delve deeper into the selfish, vindictive part of our heart.

We are using the social media attention we get, to bolster our confidence and give us more reason to feel better about how much we dislike this person or group of people. And for all intentions and purposes, it works. Without actually saying so much as a word to the person we are angry with, we are able to prove our point to them by getting as many likes and comments as we can. It makes us feel better about ourselves, and in our twisted minds, we believe that we have crushed these people with our ingenious passive aggressive e-cards.

Even on a small blog such as this, that seems so petty, silly and manipulative.

And that is why I refuse to stoop so low as to participate in that kind of behavior anymore. I may not be the most well-rounded adult, but I do have a sense of right and wrong. It is something that I cannot deny for the rest of my life. Living like a perfect, passive aggressive, version of ourselves on social media can never translate into reality.

The sooner we realize that, the sooner we'll be able to stop hurting people this way.