haters

Hey, I thought I did not have any haters.  There would be a tarot card about someone wanting to cut a bell off my dress, and I’d be like–weird.  How could that apply to me?  No one’s even paying attention to me.

Then I was like–oh yeah.  That person I don’t even know who messaged me to shame me for my sexuality and something I didn’t do.  Seems pretty hatey there.

Oh yeah, and then that other person who messaged me to shame my friend.  Then when I didn’t perfectly agree with her, she shamed me too.  Yuck!  Who does that?  I wouldn’t even want to do that, let alone follow through.

Also, some months ago, someone from my past combed through my blog to find things to be upset about, then left nasty comments about what a bad person I am.  Yep, sounds like a hater too.

googling grad school classmates

“I’m going to search for things that hurt me” is a sick impulse.  I’m actually familiar with it.  For the hater, she searched through my blog to find evidence against me.

For me it manifests as googling people I went to grad school with, then crying about their bestsellers and slick author website with professional head shots and mass marketableness.  Ouch!  “Look at all those books they’ve published?  What have I done?”

Googling grad school classmates is a special kind of self-harm.  Akin to facebook stalking exes, or the exes of a partner.  “Oh, she is so much prettier than me, and look.  She has that grownup job, and she’s all functional and smart and can do life skillfully.  I’m just a loser forever.  Why do I bother to live?”  Jeeze–who needs haters when I can hate myself.

A few days ago I told Ming, “When you were out, I wanted to social media stalk _______ really bad.  I was that close.  So glad I didn’t do that to myself.  Please be proud of me, that I didn’t do that to myself.”

“Yes, good work not doing that to yourself,” Ming said kindly.

ladies

Usually it’s ladies hating on me.  Why is that?  I can think of a gay man who hated on me also, a couple years ago.  I think it’s mostly ladies because haters are all about jealousy.  Ladies are the ones who mostly want what I have.  Dudes mostly have other projects.  Caution: painting with a broad brush ahead.

Lady project: Do love skillfully, have a happy family, be really good at something meaningful.

Dude project: Find self-worth through work, avoid difficult emotions, own lots of wrenches, both standard and metric.

A lady sees I’m doing well at love, family, and a project.  She burns with jealous rage that she does love shittily, has dust for a family, and her projects are so so.  The ouch of rage is not acceptable; she needs to make herself feel better somehow.  So she tries to figure out how I’m fake or somehow failing.  She’s gotta poke holes in my goodness.

Urgently, she fabricates a way I’m bad, to relieve herself of the painful failure-feeling she created.  But it’s not enough to secretly think ill of me–she needs to hurt me, pushing her hate upon me, so I know my badness as perceived.

provoking

There can be a provoking aspect also.  If the hater says something mean and I respond with hate, I’ve proven their point.  Sometimes I do think of an insult to reply with, but I keep it to myself or tell it to Ming in private.

“That’s pretty bad,” Ming tells me, admiring my fantasy insult.  “Yep.”

“I would never really say that,” I assure Ming.  “But I did think it.”

Just like my hands aren’t made to hit people, my words aren’t to harm anyone.  Mother God didn’t put me on earth to do violence.  If someone gets hurt by my words, I’m sorry they’re suffering, but that was never my intention.

Truth can hurt, but if I leave a sharp truth somewhere and a hater picks it up and cuts themself, I can’t really help that.

blocked

The man I mentioned earlier would read things I said on facebook, get upset I experience and believe something contrary to his world view, and attack me.  Somehow the concept of “if you don’t like what you read here, there are lots of other places to internet” doesn’t occur to him.  Seemed like a moral compulsion, to see a thing he disagreed with and fight.

I don’t go on his facebook and see things I disagree with, then attack him, of course.  Arguing isn’t my idea of fun.

It was wearing me down–friends encouraged me to block him.  Yes, it felt like a waste of energy, to be attacked over and over.  The weird insults were destabilizing.  It took too much energy, being fair to that harshness.  So I think he was the first person I ever blocked.

I’ve blocked several people since–I understand the concept now.  Once I saw a meme that said, “Block him and move on.”  Moving on is really smart sometimes.

love

I can’t be present with everyone, holding hands with everyone.  So choosing who to give my limited energy to is important.  I need to choose people who are kind to me and bring good to my life, who I enjoy, and our life goals are aligned.  Some friction is inevitable in any relationship, but I don’t have time for haters.

Haters gonna hate–my project is love, so I need to ally with others doing love also.

haters

A poster like this is on the back of the bathroom door at the Steampunk restaurant in Tehachapi, and I’ve been reading it for years.  I feel excited by its ideas.  I’ve experienced all of this, and it’s worth it.