I have a friend. I’ve known him for quite awhile now. We met on an anonymous blogger site and got to be friends. Eventually, we exchanged emails and became friends on facebook. We’ve never met for real. He’s a cantankerous old fella.
No, he’s a dreaded troll. The king of trolls.
He can be your best friend and buddy, but get on the wrong side of him… WHEW! Sadly, it’s rather too easy to get on his wrong side. Just disagree with him (like have your own opinion on something that doesn’t match his) and you’re well on your way. I watch him on facebook every day. He rants and raves about things on different sites and in different facebook groups. Some agree with his aggressive, angry speeches and befriend him to cheer him on. Others hate him because when he gets angry or when he thinks you don’t believe him, he erupts into a barrage of hatred and rage. He screams and curses and insults and belittles.
The ugly troll king has come out and he’s hungry to draw blood.
Normally, I ignore his blustering. But this week, I did something I shouldn’t have. I posted a picture of one of his favorite subjects – politics. Innocently, I thought no one else would comment on it and it would be noticed and shared and forgotten on my part.
Or not.
You see, my husband is a bit of a troll too, though his trolling is much more innocuous. My husband doesn’t make people feel completely destroyed or hated. He doesn’t harangue. He uses humor to point out perceived silliness sometimes. And this time, he decided to be silly about this picture I posted. Then another of my friends commented and agreed with him. Than another. Next thing I know, the troll king has arrived and is tearing off heads right and left. He is foaming at the mouth and calling my other friends morons and idiots and attacking them. Even my hubby trying to put him off easily didn’t work.
Me being me, I deleted the post.
Almost more than anything else in the world, I hate conflict. I don’t deal well with it. It stresses me out, even when I’m merely a bystander to it. I’m always the peacemaker, the mediator, the “find-the-common-ground-two-sides-to-every-story” girl. I accept people for who they are and hope they accept me too. Maybe I’m too nice and maybe I put up with too much. I’m trying not to let people step on me but it can be a fight sometimes.
But again, me being me, I feel sorry for the troll king. He loses “friends” almost as quickly as he gains them. He stomps his big feet and spits in someone’s face and honestly can’t understand why they leave him. He is a contradiction to himself. He wants people to believe he is who he says he is but his actions are so out of character for someone who should know so much that few can look past and suspend disbelief.
He’s put himself in the hospital with a near heart attack and yet, as soon as he is back online, he’s back at his hostility. He’s in his early seventies. I wonder if he’ll make seventy-five. I try not to take it personally when he insults all Canadians in a storm of temper against someone else. I mostly ignore his fractious comments. I don’t want his wrath turned on me.
He can be so bewildered sometimes. He plaintively muses without comprehension at the losses of his friends. He can’t understand what’s wrong that people keep unfriending him. All I can see is a confused, old man who can’t see his own peevish attitude is what drives them away. I don’t want to be one of those who throw him away.
Perhaps it’s my ego talking, but I think he’d be hurt losing me.
Or maybe I’m just an enabler.
Bumbling Along 