Honesty

Everyone is out there these days - on Facebook, on blogs. Yet so many people are not genuinely there.

I am frustrated by the amount of dishonesty I see in the aforementioned media. People feel a strong need to make themselves appear as they would like others to see them, rather than as they really are.

I read a lot of blogs, many written by people I've never met in person, per my blog group. Over the past year, I have seen at least five of these women get divorced. And not a single one of them ever, ever, before the divorce, alluded to the fact that there was trouble in their marriage.

One writes about how she left her husband, and as she tells it, it is all his fault. Three of the others just one day, suddenly, write, We're divorcing.

This comes after weeks, months, years of entries about how perfect their lives were. I don't necessarily expect people to bare their souls, but come on - it cannot have been perfect one day and over the next.

Two blogs I read are women who are very up front about the fact that their husbands cheated on them and they have stayed in the marriage, working hard every day to restore the trust they once had. They deal with how hard it is, the recurring doubt, the frustration with the other woman. I appreciate their candor; it makes their writing so much more intense, makes them more real people.

My favorite (or least favorite) is the sanctimonious blog written by a woman who clearly has never made a bad decision in her life - go ahead and ask her. She may be divorced, but I guess we gloss over that (must have been his fault). Her kids are perfect (thanks to her - which she also mentions) and her life is perfect.

(And why do I continue to read this? Maybe for the same reason I read Cal Thomas or Jonah Goldberg - punishment.)

But she says awful things about her children's father, which those children can see. How can you talk about someone you were once married to in such a way, especially when he is the father of your children?

It seems as if it would behoove some people (and who knows - maybe I am one of them) to be a little more real, a little less pretentious in writing. If the purpose of a blog is to extol your own virtues and blather about your own accomplishments and perfection, then I want no part of it.

I have to say, I really appreciate my dear friend Tammy, who dealt with a life crisis in her own blog quite gracefully - she did not ignore it or pretend it wasn't happening or wasn't stressful, but chose to focus on what she was learning from it and how she would - hopefully - come out stronger. But also felt free to share that it all kinda sucked.

I much, much prefer this to the friend of mine who made up a ludicrous story about being friends with someone (a major celebrity) back at a time when it could not have been possible - I could draw her a timeline to show that it could not possibly be true. But no need to go there - I can let her struggle with why she feels the need to do this.

Or why someone I know on Facebook has not been honest about their education info. As if changing their year of college graduation makes them a better person - we don't all graduate in four years, so why the cover up? Because it might lend credence to the theory that you aren't infallible, but prone to make errors? In judgment? In life?

Revisionist history. Surely you know that someone out there knows the truth. I just wonder why this need to paint ourselves as perfect. When we all know that the interest in people lies not in their perfection, but in their flaws.

I think I will spend the rest of the day in my very untidy house, reveling in the imperfect human condition.