Is The Internet Supposed To Hurt?
I don’t understand a lot of what goes on in this blog world. I have cyber-friends who I’ve met in real life — a fair number here in Qatar — and share my social circle with. But for the most part my clogging buddies are the ones I read up on most days and who I may exchange emails with. Still others are my IM buddies and we catch up a few times a week. What I dearly love are my sisters who have done all of this with me and taken it to the next level of talking on the phone.
I am 8 to 10 hours ahead of many of my blogging sisters. That means I am not online when many of them are. We also have problems with our internet service fairly frequently here in Qatar, so I may not be able to read people’s blogs for a day or so — and in this fast-paced blogging world that means you can be out of the loop in just a 24 hour period, like I have been over the last day.
Something apparently happened with someone who I considered a dear friend in the last 24 hours that has turned her against me and caused her to write a very hurtful email to me. I suspect there is some kind of misunderstanding because this person thinks I — or a close friend — has done something to her. The problem is, I don’t know what or who she is referring to so I cannot correct my error (if I have made one) or similarly she cannot correct hers (if that is the case) since she asked that I never contact her again.
The reason I am writing this post is because I just think we should be able to disagree about things without taking it to such a personal level. I recently became aware of a disagreement between brothers in the US that was being played out with all kinds of accusations on blogs and via email. I suggested to the brothers involved that they not let their political disagreements sink to the level of character assassination. I would also ask this of my blogging sisters.
I have been accused of causing fitna all over the Internet in order to fill my “void in life”. I’m not sure exactly what that is referring to — whether it is the nature of some of my posts, my comments or my emails. I am a seriously flawed human being and have no delusions about that you can be sure. I don’t mean to be causing pain, suffering and conflict in anybody’s life or on their blog. So if you think I am doing that, please tell me so I can rectify the problem.
I’m delurking to say I love your blog. I think you touch on some sensitive issues and are not always in alignment with the status quo of our muslim community. I’ve also seen some of your posts on other blogs (I think we visit many of the others) and I have yet to see you write something that I disagree with. I think we are very similar in some respects.
All that being said, I don’t know the specifics of this particular sister, but I do hope that your friend reads this blog and realizes that perhaps a misunderstanding is what caused this rift and will be willing to try to work things out. Sometimes when people are hurt they want to be left alone for a while, and once they cool off and are in a better place, they are better able to address whatever the conflict is.
“To each is a goal…”
May Allah bless you both to resolve this or at least to continue on a righteous path, be it together or apart.
Comment by KiKi — April 24, 2008 @ 4:18 am
The best thing to do is to send their emails to the trash folder. You can’t please everyone.
I love you.
Comment by Organic Muslimah — April 24, 2008 @ 4:22 am
The internet really leaves a lot of opportunities for misunderstandings. Close friends give one another a chance to resolve. Perhaps she didn’t think there was much of a friendship worth saving.
Comment by Cairogal — April 24, 2008 @ 4:59 am
assalamu aleikum wa rahmatulahi wa barakatuhu,
People need to get a life. Your blog is your blog, if they don’t like it, they can stop reading. NOone is forcing them to read it.
As for comments, people are asking for them! Why do they put a comment box if not.
The problem is that people want to hear only what they want to hear, not the truth, even if it is hurtful.
Although you do post some stuff about the Islamic world and what is wrong with it (and that makes me uneasy sometimes), your testiment is that you are a MUSLIM BY CHOICE and you continue to be one. Despite the ways people leave the Quran and the sunnah. People are flawed, Islam is not.
As for internet friends, they only show you a part of who they are. Also, real friends do that too.
You know, I used to read a lot of blogs. Some of them became private. Then, I stopped reading. The way I see it, blogs are like news, if its out there, it’s new to you and looking for an audience to read. If it’s private, it’s none of my business and I don’t care to find out unless you let me in willingly. I don’t ask for private passwords, I just move on to Olbermann, or get off my chair and off the computer!
Surfing the web takes about 30 minutes of my day. Too much time if you ask me. Watching news and doing research, well, that’s another story. But I am much happier since I have cut down my internet time, frankly.
Don’t sweat it.
Comment by musulmana — April 24, 2008 @ 7:13 am
Oh, and I don’t think you have my friend Nzinghas.blogspot.com on your links.
I think you would like her page.
Comment by musulmana — April 24, 2008 @ 7:15 am
Don’t let it get you down…misunderstandings happen all the time and it’s best not to take them to heart…in a week or so you’ll have forgotten about this and in a year you probably won’t even remember so smile
Comment by Arima — April 24, 2008 @ 12:02 pm
I have issues with people who end friendships as quickly as that. Two mature adults can usually resolve any conflicts/misunderstanding that may arise between them. What problem can be so big that there is no solution for it?
Comment by Solace — April 24, 2008 @ 12:25 pm
She was mad at you for no reason……………I don’t think that is the type of friends you need
real freinds wound’t do that……….in my opinion someone who says those things….when you did nothing..really thinks that of you secretly……………
You are a wonderful person. We all love you. Misundertandings are so great in blog land..Don’t let it dampen your geat personality or change who you are.
I sent you an email…if you need me call me …..
I love you
Nasi
Comment by TheAngryMuslimah — April 24, 2008 @ 6:41 pm
Maybe I’ve developed a thick skin or an appreciation for a good scrap from my time at IOL, but the only time I will walk away from a debate/argument/slugfest is if the person bores me. I figure if we enjoy attacking each other and if it’s done with style then I’ll roll with it. Eventually you run out of insults and it gets repedative and boring at which point an interesting person will try different approaches. If they have a valid point to make they will soon learn not to dilute it with cheap insults. Eventually you can get to a point where you can agree to disagree or even agree. This is the internet, a place to vent and enjoy unreserved criticism.
Comment by Bob — April 24, 2008 @ 6:59 pm
That’s it, PM, you deeply offended me and I therefore request you not to contact me ever again, and I would appreciate if you didn’t splash our fall out all over the internet.
Many thanks.
Comment by Qatar Cat — April 24, 2008 @ 9:17 pm
I don’t know any details of what happened but, if someone is sending you hateful e-mails then perhaps it is a cry for your attention?
Sounds like someone might need a big sister.
Just a guess.
Comment by Bob — April 24, 2008 @ 9:45 pm
i like ur posts! wish i would have talent like u!
Comment by zeynep — April 25, 2008 @ 1:01 am
Salamu alaykum Dear Sister,
I think you are a kind and compassionate sister with a big heart. I’m sorry to hear you’ve been hurt. If the person is a muslim then they should know the rule of 3 days before reconciling. There is a hadith about the person who holds a grudge against his brother/sister. One shouldn’t hold a grudge for more than 3 days. May Allah guide us all to good conduct. Ameen.
Comment by relief — April 25, 2008 @ 3:57 am
oh PM, I don’t comment much, mainly because I’m lazy! But you have always struck me as a very kind person. it sounds like a drama to me, it’s not fair just to react, definitely not your issue.
Comment by Saha — April 25, 2008 @ 3:24 pm
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
Let us add that this test can also apply to “emotionally strong enough.”
I love your straight talk sis, but not everyone is able to “take it” especially when it applies to them and they don’t want to believe it.
Love and Peace,
~Brooke
Comment by Ummbadier AKA Brooke — April 25, 2008 @ 9:58 pm
Long time Sis. How have you been doing? We need to catch up, love. I have been thinking about you for a few days now. Are you going to give me peace of mind, or are you going to shun me to the palace of pitifulosity? NEXT, on Jerry.
Comment by Omar — April 25, 2008 @ 11:11 pm
As Salaamu Alaikum Dear PM:
Sister Musulmana wrote:
“You know, I used to read a lot of blogs. Some of them became private. Then, I stopped reading…If it’s private, it’s none of my business and I don’t care to find out unless you let me in willingly. I don’t ask for private passwords, I just move on…”
I think this is what I’m going to do from now on. Move on. Most of the blogs I was reading on a regular basis have now gone private. Checked into another one tonight that has also gone private. I wrote to two of them and asked for the password. No response. Allahu Alim; I don’t think I ever did anything to offend them. I get the message. I will not ask for passwords again unless someone invites me willingly. I had so many passwords I was beginning to forget them, lol.
See, I have become “close” to my cyber sisters. I genuinely care about them. I live in a small town and we have a small masjid. It’s not easy to get and give the love and support that is available from my cyber sisters. Around my town, if I confide in my sister, then she tells her husband, OK - he knows my husband. Then I feel I have back-bited my husband. So, on the Internet, people don’t know us personally. I feel a bit freer to say and ask things that I wouldn’t to members of my masjid. I was never one for little cliques of women. OMG, the fitnah. I am sorry to admit that I, at times, have also contributed to the fitnah.
Thanks for the reminder: I really do need to get a life.
Love and hugs
Safiyyah
Comment by Safiyyah — April 26, 2008 @ 4:20 am
hmmmmm……kind of curious isn’t it? Cheap shot if you ask me. I wonder what kind of person would deal with things like that? That might be something to ponder. You have helped me.
Comment by Rhonda — April 26, 2008 @ 6:12 am
Salamu alaikum Sis.
People who take the word of others without hearing your opinion on the matter are naive to say the least. This “friend” of yours obviously feels shunned for something you didn’t do, and rather than ask you if it is true, she took it as truth and went with it.
This “friend” is no longer a friend for doing such a thing, and she also should take a page from the Islamic Manual on How Not Being a Jackass, because this manual clearly states, “If you take the word of another over a friend without first consulting the friend about the authenticity of such a word, you are a jackass”.
Don’t let people get to you. If this “friend” didn’t bother to give you due rights in the situation, then she doesn’t deserve any of your emotional commitment.
In regards to greating fitnas, i believe that there is a difference between challenging cultural and traditional norms, and challenging Islamic law. BIG difference.
Comment by Omar — April 29, 2008 @ 1:27 am
Assalam-alaikam Sister PM,
I have to say that I was attracetd to your blog for two reasons.
1. Because you raise the issue that need to be raised and we as Muslim’s need to help with.
2. Because I could feel what a kind person you are from your comments and posts. That counts for a lot with me.
Also, Darling Sis Safiyyah,
I agree, with the exception of one where I was invited, once a blog goes private, I assume its not meant for me and remove it from my favourites.
PM keep posting insh’Allah, we need someone who can say the things that need to be said.
Comment by Umm Salihah — April 30, 2008 @ 12:02 am
I like what you said Solace! And thanks to PM for bringing up the issue…..
Comment by Safa — April 30, 2008 @ 7:32 pm
You know, there’s something funny about this whole Internet thing. It is both supremely intimate and supremely not. I don’t know how else to describe it. There is something about distilling yourself down to nothing but the words you write that peels away the layers that normally shield us from - what? - the slings and arrows of outrageous daily life?
And the connections we make with people through this medium are very intimate while at the same time lacking the human touch that face to face contact has; the caution we exercise in daily life gets thrown to the wind and we are at once vibrating piano wires of sensitivity: brilliant (we think) and awfully prone to snap.
Honestly, PM, your emotional fearlessness is singular among the blogosphere, and one of your many appeals. You insist on us remembering our humanity - I am thinking specifically of the Wahhabi Misinthrope incident - and refuse to accept our Internet anonymity. I think many of us struggle to accept that we are still human when we type, and frankly many of us lack the skill to acquit ourselves well when the only means of communication is written, and so we tell ourselves that none of this Internet stuff matters. To some extent that’s true, and of course to some extent that’s not. I don’t think any of us have really figured it out yet.
Frankly it’s only been recently that I myself have even taken seriously this realm of electrons, and I was a geek long before the web was even a twinkle in its creator’s eye. You have been a part of that. Your simultaneous emotional vulnerability and strength (because it takes strength to be that vulnerable) and refusal to accept anonymity has forced me to take this seriously. I allow myself to think of you as a friend.
I’m guessing for a lot of people - particularly women at home with small children and traditional (whatever that means) husbands as well as odd little misogynist toads who jerk off to Internet porn and simultaneously hate and obsess about the women they can never have - this Internet thing is the only place they have the illusion of autonomy in their lives. And when someone online gets under their skin - either positively or negatively - they push hard and away because that’s all they can do.
I have no idea if that’s what happened here, but we all have a lot of growing up to do vis-a-vis this Internet thing.
Comment by TVDinner — May 3, 2008 @ 9:44 pm
I for one am deeply hurt by all this by-play of she-said she-said going on lately. And just when my pc breaks down too so I can hardly keep up when some of my friends have gone private and others just deleted and suddenly half my links wont work and I’m just left questioning where did everyone go and why wasn’t I informed. TVDinner is right on the money. We can be so close to net people yet when they choose to jump ship if we don’t have their physical contacts info it’s just too bad make new friends…which makes me oh so sad
Comment by AmericanMuslimaWriter — May 6, 2008 @ 2:02 am