This is not an easy conversation to have with anyone, but especially someone that you’re close to and that you really don’t want to offend. For the most part, I am A-okay speaking my mind to strangers on the internet about my beliefs. I may not delve too deep into why I believe a certain way, but I will make my beliefs known. When the person on the other end of the disagreement is your sister, for example, it’s a lot more difficult to stay impartial. Emotions tend to get in the way of reason.
That is the person that I chose to speak to about the ‘grandmother problem’. She is a frequent over share-er on my Facebook page, and I generally just roll my eyes and continue on my scroll so see who is doing what. This week, when I noticed that she was blindly sharing random crap again, so I called her.
To say it did not go well is an understatement. I explained to her how important is it to make sure that everything she shares is correct before she actually shares it. That for some people Facebook can be the only news they actively seek out. Somehow, this became turned around to my political views and to be honest, I’m still not sure how she managed to do that.
To say that I was unsuccessful would be a massive understatement. She just took what I was saying to her and twisted it to mean that I didn’t agree with what she was sharing. I didn’t, but that is just because it was flat out wrong, which I proved to her (in a nice and educational way). I guess what I’m saying is that some people are going to believe what they want to believe, even when provided evidence to the contrary. I stated before that you have to pick your battles and I still believe that. It’s incredibly important for correct information to be shared on social media, but at the same time I’m not sure if your interpersonal relationships were to suffer due to constantly correcting friends and family it would be worth it.
