The Sting of Rejection
I have two MySpace accounts—one for my atheist forum friends to keep in touch with me and one for a hobby I do in “real life”. I don’t advertise my atheism in my daily life (nor do I hide it), so I choose to use one set of email and MySpace info for my atheist screen name and the other set for my given name. That way any email that comes into my MommaSquid account, I automatically know it’s from a forum contact. It simplifies things for me.
So this morning I logged into my “hobby” email account and saw that I had a friend request from Madelyn, someone I met during the course of my hobby. Right after we met, I looked up her MySpace page, intending to invite her to be a friend; but what I saw on her page disturbed me. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! Everywhere I looked! Under hobbies—serving the Lord, Jesus Christ. Musical interests—Christian music. About Me—"If you died today, are you certain that you will go to heaven? Accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior today and spend eternity in heaven.” Her entire MySpace page was littered with references to church and Jesus. What the hell?
She seemed like a person of normal intelligence when I met her, and yet she has this layer that I was unaware of until now. So I decided not to invite her to be a MySpace buddy. But what does that say about me? Am I closed-minded towards believers? At that level of enthusiasm, the answer is yes.
I figure since I was raised Catholic and was able to use my mind for rational thought to ask questions, leave the church, abandon the dogma, and realize that the universe is not run by an invisible man in the sky, everyone else has the same opportunity. It’s not like I’m all that smart. I’ll never cure cancer, but at least my mind is capable of producing rational thought. I wonder about people who seem smart yet continue to swallow the mindless dogma of organized religion.
Anyway, getting back to today’s friend request from her: I logged on to the appropriate MySpace account, while pondering what to do. Do I reject her request? I thought that would be the right thing to do, since we obviously only have one thing in common—the hobby we both enjoy. But when I checked my recent friend requests, her request was no longer there—she must have deleted it. She rejected me as well.
Did she reject me because I am an atheist? The only part of my “hobby” MySpace account that mentions my propensity toward free thought is the little box I checked under the religion section. Although atheism is not a religion that is the box I checked because it best describes my views towards religion. Did Madelyn see that tiny bit of information and decide I wasn’t the sort of person she wanted to know? We certainly got along well enough during our hobby encounters for her to seek me out online and request to me a MySpace buddy—so why the retraction?
Unless I ask her the next time I see her, I’ll never know for sure. I find it very amusing that we both rejected each other (potentially) because of our views on god and religion.
How very human.
So this morning I logged into my “hobby” email account and saw that I had a friend request from Madelyn, someone I met during the course of my hobby. Right after we met, I looked up her MySpace page, intending to invite her to be a friend; but what I saw on her page disturbed me. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! Everywhere I looked! Under hobbies—serving the Lord, Jesus Christ. Musical interests—Christian music. About Me—"If you died today, are you certain that you will go to heaven? Accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior today and spend eternity in heaven.” Her entire MySpace page was littered with references to church and Jesus. What the hell?
She seemed like a person of normal intelligence when I met her, and yet she has this layer that I was unaware of until now. So I decided not to invite her to be a MySpace buddy. But what does that say about me? Am I closed-minded towards believers? At that level of enthusiasm, the answer is yes.
I figure since I was raised Catholic and was able to use my mind for rational thought to ask questions, leave the church, abandon the dogma, and realize that the universe is not run by an invisible man in the sky, everyone else has the same opportunity. It’s not like I’m all that smart. I’ll never cure cancer, but at least my mind is capable of producing rational thought. I wonder about people who seem smart yet continue to swallow the mindless dogma of organized religion.
Anyway, getting back to today’s friend request from her: I logged on to the appropriate MySpace account, while pondering what to do. Do I reject her request? I thought that would be the right thing to do, since we obviously only have one thing in common—the hobby we both enjoy. But when I checked my recent friend requests, her request was no longer there—she must have deleted it. She rejected me as well.
Did she reject me because I am an atheist? The only part of my “hobby” MySpace account that mentions my propensity toward free thought is the little box I checked under the religion section. Although atheism is not a religion that is the box I checked because it best describes my views towards religion. Did Madelyn see that tiny bit of information and decide I wasn’t the sort of person she wanted to know? We certainly got along well enough during our hobby encounters for her to seek me out online and request to me a MySpace buddy—so why the retraction?
Unless I ask her the next time I see her, I’ll never know for sure. I find it very amusing that we both rejected each other (potentially) because of our views on god and religion.
How very human.
posted by Patricia at
Friday, April 18, 2008
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