Exaggerated Reports

There are times when one's trust is compromised. I suppose by now, after 22 long, cruel years dealing with imperfect people, a less than perfect world and various devious organizations such as The Government, public education systems and Kiwanis, I should have been molded into a bitter, jaded, burnt out husk of a human being like some people are, but I try to keep an optomistic outlook on the general wellbeing of people. But, as I mentioned, there are times when it's hard to maintain that philosophy on life.

As you astute readers probably have gathered by now, now is one of those times.

While I am not 100% positive about what has taken place, I can guess by going over what I've done today the mastermind criminals behind this sad event.

I made the mistake of using someone's laptop today to check something on Facebook (of which they were insisting that I check their statuses on the site to try and piece together an incomprehensible, garbled story of kidnapping. I still have no effing idea what they were talking about). I made the mistake of not logging out but merely closing the browser. I made the mistake of doing this fully knowing that her computer is set to remember the last used username and password for any site visited on the device.

So when I come home from the gym this evening and check on a whim my Facebook page, I am, first of all, immediately shocked by the number of messages in my inbox - 161 messages. I am then confused when Facebook is telling my it's my birthday. And when I check my inbox, I am dismayed as all the gears click into place and I realize what has exactly happened when I read the messages congratulating me on my engagement. And then I read the wall post of my brother reprimanding me that it's positively bad form to get engaged and not even inform the family personally before posting it on Facebook. My heart sinks even more.

I suppose they were laughing it up as they vandalized my Facebook profile as if it was just another Wikipedia page. I suppose they thought it was absolutely effing hilarious to play such a prank that had such widespread implications. I suppose they thought it was the golden opportunity, the funniest thing in the world.

Well, we all suppose things from time to time that are completely wrong. As one who has seen the widespread, rampant destruction the internet can do, I've been fairly careful in recent years in cultivating my "online image," only letting certain amounts of information out, calculating and careful, a regular Bush Administration lackey. This is not to be deceitful, since I never outright lie about who I am, but because I understand the power of rumors, gossip and the internet in causing untold grief for a person and have deliberately chosen and worked very hard to keep my personal life from leaking into the interwebs. At least, up until now.

Sure, it could be considered a harmless prank. Or, perhaps, consider the fact that I had not made many public or practical jokes at all about getting engaged because maybe I wanted the people I told to take me seriously when I actually got engaged. Maybe there was a reason that I was careful when random people would ask me if Dantzel and I were going to get married and a reason why I would feed vague answers so that people wouldn't speculate and gossip about us. Maybe, just maybe, there was a reason that for the most part (except for two times with Connie, of which I emphatically apologize) I wanted to keep my engagement something special, that for 22 years of my life, I didn't want it to be trivialized, to become the flash topic of breakroom conversations and ward prayer predictions. Maybe, it's because, for a sentimental romantic like me, I wanted to keep the one time in my life ever to ask a girl to spend the rest of eternity with me personal, private and sacred.

Well, in about an hour's duration of work, that childhood dream has been blown out of the water. Shattered, gone, irrecoverable and irredeemable. To put it lightly, I am thoroughly upset. Perhaps I have no reason to be. Or perhaps I do. Perhaps I should just accept the fact that sometimes things like this happen. Or perhaps I should be justified in expecting my friends to have a sense of humor that transcends just dealing inconvinience, annoyance and chaotic confusion in somebody else's life for a couple of cheap laughs. Perhaps I shouldn't have trusted them with sensitive information, even if it's just a username and password to a social networking site (and heaven knows I've had plenty of opportunity several times while borrowing her laptop to sneak into her profile). Or perhaps I wanted to trust them, and now disappointment permeates my mood right now. Shock, then anger, and then simply, pure, unadulterated disappointment.

In a few weeks (after dealing with the aftermath of dispelling all confusion, which will take those few weeks - my family, my extended family, my close friends of the family, my student ward, my home ward, my mission companions and all the random others who somehow fit in the strange, catagorical cubby holes in my life "know" now that I am "engaged" when not really engaged), I will forgive and forget about this whole incident. Perhaps in a few years (after I am actually married, hopefully), I'll laugh about this whole thing. But right now, I am disappointed, disappointed at the lack of foresight and respect and sensitivity in some of my friends.

I've been contemplating for almost half a year now to delete my Facebook account because I felt it was too impersonal. I just may do that after this.