good, mean-girls


November 30th, 2010
empowerment, relationships

“Please don’t say my friends have toxic personalities – they’re all nice people!”IMG_1011 That’s the last thing she wrote me before I blocked her. We are no longer Facebook friends, although we are still distant relatives who will likely never meet. Fortunately for her, she has over THREE HUNDRED other FB friends – presumably with nicer personalities than me – to console her if she ever notices I’m gone. The dispute began when my FB friend of two days, let’s call her Gabbie, posted a status update reporting, “The woman driving the car next to me just lit up a cigarette and started smoking with a baby in the car!” BTW – Of course, this is a TERRIBLE thing to witness, but does it also infer that Gabbie is texting while driving? Anyway, Gabbie’s friends were INCENSED by her post and began ripping the woman apart online. These girls are mostly a couple decades younger than me and many, like Gabbie, have babies of their own. What next ensued was the cyber-space version of a public stoning. The climax of which, for me, was when a young Charlize Theron look-alike, wearing a full dress Marine uniform in her profile picture, posted this comment, “Women who smoke when they’re pregnant are cunts!” We will return to our story after this important public service message … On September 30, 2010 the Pastafarians at USC hosted our first huge fundraiser: Stone-A-Heathen. We partnered with Amnesty International and raised money to fight stoning in Iran and other countries where stoning still unfortunately exists. The idea was that to ‘stone’ a heathen, one could purchase a water balloon (for a mere dollar!) to throw at the Pastafarian of their choice. The UGAtheists proved last month that this could be successful and fun as a publicity stunt, but we were curious (and a bit scared) to see how well it would work as a fundraiser. Back to our story … My first post on the now infamous cyber-rumble thread read, “I smoked when I was pregnant because I was an addict not because I was a cunt.” I braced myself. Within moments there was a new voice on the thread. A shy young mother who is softer, rounder and more tattooed than Gabbie’s militant Marine friend wrote, “I smoked when I was pregnant too. I feel so guilty and I want to quit so bad but I can’t. But I’m not a cunt.” I sent this young woman a link to a story I wrote for Edge Life News, Mind over Substance: Dare to be You, when I finally was able to quit smoking using hypnosis. I told her she could quit and I know how hard it is and she is not a cunt. Then, I posted my exiting remarks on the stream, “I’d rather lock my babies in a car with toxic cigarette fumes for an hour than leave them in a room for an hour filled with hatred and the toxic personalities displayed here.” Guess you know what happened next …

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Comments (12)

12 Responses to “good, mean-girls”

  1. Nicole
    December 7th, 2010 - 6:10 am

    Love it Linda! Thank God for women like you!

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  2. Linda
    December 7th, 2010 - 4:41 pm

    Thank you, Nicole! I’m pretty sure I never expected the words “Thank God for women like you” to be directed at ME in this lifetime … lol!

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  3. joanna
    December 14th, 2010 - 5:26 am

    i am with you, the baby would be in alot more danger from the toxic hate talk. people do things that you may not agree with LOVE THEM ANYWAY. try love over hate every time. my children all survived childhood in spite of my smoking. i no longer smoke but i feel no shame about the years that i did. i am over it.and so are the kids!!!

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  4. Linda
    December 18th, 2010 - 11:42 am

    I think the most confusing thing is that people think they’re being LOVING when they’re really being HATEFUL … how does one tell the difference?

    The “girls” in this story seem hateful and mean to me — but I seem hateful and mean to them for pointing out their hateful meanness! They think they are the loving ones for protecting precious babies from ignorant smoking mothers.

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  5. Clarence
    May 25th, 2011 - 2:06 pm

    Sounds like a lot of people who want some forgiveness, for addictions ranging from smoking, drinking, shoot-from-the-hip posting, blind defense of posts, being young, not wanting our own addictions exposed, need it.

    One way to define addiction is that we do it when we know it’s “stupid,” which makes it not stupid but an addiction.

    They are scary, especially the cigarette and alcohol ones that are legal. (Oh, and that money one, too.)

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  6. Dangerous Linda
    June 23rd, 2011 - 4:42 pm

    Clarence — always the thoughtful gentleman XOXOX

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  7. Larry Lewis
    June 24th, 2011 - 8:16 am

    Smoking is bad for your health, who doesn’t already know that? Smoking when pregnant could be like playing russian roulette, but you know that too. Alas when all our senses, our cells in our bodies are addicted to something, well giving up is so hard. I don’t think this is the issue of this article. it’s more to do with the freedom that social networking gives us to state our opinions. But worse still how many people abuse this freedom of speech trying to instill into others their beliefs. What i hope this article shows is that when you become abusive, and attack others, the sensible ones in here know that all they have to do is delete these small thinking, foul mouthed, opionated tyrants.

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  8. Corinne Rodrigues
    June 24th, 2011 - 8:37 am

    Thank you for sharing, Linda (I read the link too). One thing I’ve learned as I grow older is not to judge any one else. I’ve made a humongous number of bad choices in life and I know how easy it can be to be addicted. It’s sad when people pick on others!

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  9. Dangerous Linda
    June 24th, 2011 - 8:59 am

    Larry — Among other things, this post is about the ambiguity of judgments like what is “nice” and what is “mean”, what is “good” and what is “bad”. I certainly haven’t cornered the market on being “nice” or “good” and I always remind myself that it’s not my job to dictate to others what these concepts mean. But, it is my job to keep trying to gain a deeper understanding into the Truth of what these concepts mean and putting that to work in the world to the best of my ability to do so.

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  10. Dangerous Linda
    June 24th, 2011 - 9:04 am

    Hi, Corinne! –

    Experience is the great humbler, right? Got the t-shirt

    Thank you for stopping by and sharing!

    peaceout!
    L2

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  11. Jim
    June 24th, 2011 - 10:56 am

    I hate smoking , the look of young people smoking is so damn sad and if I see a pregnant women smoking it is even worse. But cowards who attack anonymously, in mass when in real life they would just keep eating their big mac and scratching themselves are the worse. It is so damn easy to attack someone on FB and then slink away. Really sad. I agree with you 100% Linda!!

    http://jpweddingphotograpy.blogspot.com/2011/06/sacred-ibis-and-american-white-ibis.html

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  12. Dangerous Linda
    June 24th, 2011 - 11:02 am

    @ Jim — WoW! You packed a lot of wisdom in that compact comment. Go gettem, Tiger! xoxox

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