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someone backstabbed me after an offer just before the end of a school year, and may not know that I'm a person they actually know -
June 22nd 2015, 06:00 AM
I would say that on about May 21st or so, a person at my school (in a grade level lower than me; I graduated in the 12th grade class of 2015, and she'll be in 12th grade this September and graduate in 2016) instructed me to join twitter and follow her on it. I am a newbie to twitter as I have never used it before until this person told me to join her and another person on it, and so it took me a while to figure out how to use it.
This was a person at my school who was literally 112% friendly to me from the start of this school year to the end. She was never mean or frustrated with me. I never did anything to annoy or offend her in any of the 178 instructional days at school this year. Another friend of hers, was also perfectly nice to me and vice versa, and they would interact with me many times.
By the first week of June (which was the last week of instruction at my school for graduating 12th grade students, and for everyone else school ended like June 19th) after figuring out how to use it, they asked me again, and then told me to follow her and another neighboring person.
Anyway, on June 18th I tried to start a conversation on twitter with these people. It seemed like they were just shockingly disappointed at me out of the blue. One of them literally blocked me, I mean seriously, after she's the reason why I joined twitter and talked to her on it: because she wanted me to. The conversation was about me saying (after it's been hot where I live for the last several days) things about Alaska and cold weather. I asked if they would like to live in a place like Alaska, and I said that I thought that it's 10x easier to deal with cold weather vs hot weather (I have preferred that for the last several years). Was there anything wrong with what I said? They were perfectly nice to me all of the 2014-15 school year, at least, if not other school years before it. I was treated like I'm some stupid stranger idiot, and not the real person they know.
I'm also worried that I made a mistake in this case.
The main problem is that I'm also thinking about the likelihood that they may not know (one of them, at least) that I'm actually the student they told to join twitter with them before school ended. The one who blocked me, probably didn't even look at my profile, she just clicked the tweet and hit block. Because other than that, this wouldn't make sense. You wanted me to join you on this place, and now you're screwing me over and backstabbing me.
One of the people are probably telling other people on twitter that (some strange person) is talking about cold weather, and says that she wouldn't want to spend a single night in Alaska not even in the summer. This is another piece of proof she wouldn't know who I am. I have had numerous conversations to them in the 2014-15 school year about many things that interest me. Because I'm a newbie to the place, and know no one else that uses twitter, means I have no one to help me.
Last edited by It is 57 below zero; June 23rd 2015 at 11:16 PM.
Re: someone backstabbed me after an offer just before the end of a school year, and may not know that I'm a person they actually know -
June 23rd 2015, 09:13 AM
Without knowing the exact details of the exchange, here is what I would say are the possible reasons for the backlash:
1. They didn't know who you were, so you may have come across as someone invading their network;
2. They knew who you were, but what you said come across negatively.
Now, here's the issue with social networking: what you say allows for reflection. Your posts will always be there for critique. It's different to, say, having a face-to-face conversation or a phone conversation. In those situations, your words linger, but the only thing that matters is the initial reaction. If you were to say what you said in person, I bet they wouldn't have batted an eyelid. Even if it would have come across negatively, it wouldn't have stayed that way for very long. Now that it's always going to be on the internet, it will always allow someone to go back to what you said, and will again elicit a similar reaction. This is one difficulty with social networking that a lot of people seem to overlook (and another reason why I always avoid confrontation or anything that may be construed negatively on the internet).
That being said, how bad could it be? Surely it's not friendship destroying. Everything is recoverable.
How close would you say you are to these people? That can make a real difference. If you're not close, it might be that you joining Twitter specifically for them, despite them asking, was outside the realm of comfortable to them.
If you are close, all you can do is try to remedy the situation. Can you physically go up and talk to these people? Simply talking can make things a lot better - it doesn't have to be about Twitter, but could be anything.
Re: someone backstabbed me after an offer just before the end of a school year, and may not know that I'm a person they actually know -
July 6th 2015, 07:31 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Age of Ignorance
Without knowing the exact details of the exchange, here is what I would say are the possible reasons for the backlash:
1. They didn't know who you were, so you may have come across as someone invading their network;
2. They knew who you were, but what you said come across negatively.
Now, here's the issue with social networking: what you say allows for reflection. Your posts will always be there for critique. It's different to, say, having a face-to-face conversation or a phone conversation. In those situations, your words linger, but the only thing that matters is the initial reaction. If you were to say what you said in person, I bet they wouldn't have batted an eyelid. Even if it would have come across negatively, it wouldn't have stayed that way for very long. Now that it's always going to be on the internet, it will always allow someone to go back to what you said, and will again elicit a similar reaction. This is one difficulty with social networking that a lot of people seem to overlook (and another reason why I always avoid confrontation or anything that may be construed negatively on the internet).
That being said, how bad could it be? Surely it's not friendship destroying. Everything is recoverable.
How close would you say you are to these people? That can make a real difference. If you're not close, it might be that you joining Twitter specifically for them, despite them asking, was outside the realm of comfortable to them.
If you are close, all you can do is try to remedy the situation. Can you physically go up and talk to these people? Simply talking can make things a lot better - it doesn't have to be about Twitter, but could be anything.
I would say that I was moderately close to them. I talked to one of them 35 of the 178 or so days at my school in the 2014-2015 year, or about once a week, the other one, I would say I talked to about every two weeks (19 school days)
I started by saying that I feel like it is a lot easier to deal with cold weather than hot weather, and talking about Alaska. It was really hot where I lived that day so that was what inspired it. I asked them if they would like to live in Alaska.
One of them blocked me until about June 28th or so, but even still I feel like I'm at a very high risk with them. I'm really not sure what they wanted from me specifically, if anything, if they were the ones who instructed me to join them there. Before then, I didn't have a twitter and even then it took me several weeks for me to figure out how to use it.
So maybe I did something wrong just by talking about something as a form of recreation? I'm almost positive that one of them don't know who I am; a few days ago, the other person said she started to realize who I was at least.