On Being Open and Facebook

I am an open person, but still am deemed by folks as mysterious and closed off. Oxymoron, or just the truth of my character, I can't really say. In any case, my openness is sort of a defense mechanism, a way to put out who I am in the world so that it can never be misconstrued what my intentions are, so that it's never hard to say what Tes is about and what Tes is striving for.

So, it happens that on Facebook, a person I knew years ago, a person who was my best friend at the time, comes out of the woodwork to tell me that I've changed; I'm a mean person, a closed off person, and unforgiving to boot. He told me that and then asked for my phone number to call me to talk. ...excuse...what?

Sidebar: What is it about Facebook that makes people think they know all there is to know about you? You post a few pictures, list a few favorite movies, and now people have insights into your inner workings based on arbitrary likes and dislikes. What's that about?

This person literally disappeared from my life. I'm talking, one day we're on the phone and hang up as usual, then four years later I get a Facebook friend request. And now he comes out his face to call me mean, say I'm changed for the worse and haven't forgiven him for pulling a Houdini at a time when I needed all the friends I could get. 

Anyone who knows me truly, or is on their way to knowing me truly can attest that I am a kind person, almost to a fault. I'm the kind of person who actually thinks about living her life in a way that doesn't harm other people; how many other people my age can actually say that? 

There is a difference, though, between kindness and foolishness, forgiveness and being somebody's Patsy. Dude straight up called me to the carpet, disparaged my character and demanded my phone number like I owed him something. And let's not even get into his indignation when I told him "no."

The long and short of it is I had to tell him about himself, let him know I had forgiven him a long time ago and no longer even thought of him. Explained that people change, and grow and not everything under the umbrella of "being nice" is actually nice or entirely black and white. And then, when he demanded a better response, I told him to fuck off.

When he knew me, I was 18 or so. No responsibilities. No school at the time. No real goals. Since then, I've gotten an apartment, am on my second car, two years at my job, been in a committed relationship, none of which I had accomplished at that time when he knew me. I've experienced things, and thus I've changed. And I no longer need or want him in my life. It's part of growing up, figuring out who the leaves and who the roots are in your life...

What he fails to realize, I think, is that I don't need more people in my life. I need more good people. More like-minded people. People who respect my choices and know that I'm on a journey in life to find the zenith of myself and are not gonna impede that process. He was never that person, never one of those people. 

Open or not, some people just don't deserve me, which is oddly something I learned after my break up. I've started to realize that I am better and thus deserve better, so if that means losing points in somebody who I don't know's eyes, then that's just what it's going to have to be.

Sometimes I forget that the folks who were your friends, were your friends.