Brilliant … But Bouncy

Will I Learn To Shut Up?

I try to be helpful. I think I am being helpful. I often believe that my helpfulness will actually help.

But I have learned that this is not true. I am not helpful. Somehow my attempts are misconstrued as being a royal pain.

I’m not sure how this happens. I have spent the vast majority of my life trying to do what’s right. I think that other people want to know what’s right, too. But they don’t. They want to do whatever they’re doing, and they want me to shut up about it.

I am now 57 years old. When, exactly, will I learn to shut up?

My problem is two-fold: (1) In my youth, I never stood up for myself until I became a belligerent drunk, and (2) I always believe that it’s a good idea to tell people what is right.

So it’s tough to keep my mouth shut – or stop my fingers, since I am usually typing these “helpful” ideas on email, social media, or some other form of written communication. Ironically, I type because I want to make sure what I’m saying is kind – and it’s still misconstrued.

This recent misconstruction happened when my county’s Facebook page reported the weekly high school football scores. Someone read the scores and correctly pointed out, “Urbana isn’t even in our county!”

I noticed that this was correct, and jumped on the post to mention that Shane’s high school scores were not included. I said – and I quote:

“I don’t know about Urbana, but I am pretty sure ROCKVILLE is part of Montgomery County, and their scores aren’t here.”

Rockville is the literal heart of the county, the home of the county government buildings.

Three people verbally beat me to a pulp – after completely ignoring the person who complained about Urbana. “This isn’t ESPN,” they said. “Go get your scores somewhere else!”

This was not the reaction I expected.

So when the page administrator said that the scores were randomly sent in by people at the game, I suggested:

“Maybe if you aren’t reporting the scores by calling and getting verified information, you shouldn’t be reporting the scores.”

And this was taken wrong, too.

But what if, for example, some yahoo reported a score as 27-6 in favor of his own team, when that team had been crushed 54-3? That seems likely, especially in the area of high school football, I thought the website would want to avoid that.

So I went to bed, thinking I had helped.

But when I awoke, I’d been blasted again.

“You insulted the website!”

“You could volunteer to do research for them instead of complaining.”

So, as usual, I apologized profusely for saying something that I’d intended to be helpful.

“Sometimes comments are misread, and I am really getting that feeling here. I wasn’t complaining or insulting anyone, nor do I even care about the scores. I was just making a suggestion: if they don’t verify the scores, maybe they shouldn’t be reporting them. That was it. End of story. No complaints. No insults. No arguing. I was just making a suggestion. Obviously this is not a suggestion that anyone wanted to hear…. I am sorry that my response somehow offended everyone. It was never my intent. This is why I almost never put anything on this site. My ‘helpfulness’ is often misconstrued by strangers. Apologies everywhere.”

I’m starting to believe it’s the way I word things, more so than who I am, that makes people find me off-putting. In a way, this is good. The wording of my statements should be fixable.

I’m just not sure that I can do it any better.

It doesn’t feel fixable. It feels like I’m just being me, and I’m being judged and stomped upon for it. And to be honest, I am getting really tired of being judged and stomped upon. It’s been 57 years.

Being misunderstood totally sucks.