Have you ever had a moment, where you are happily glancing through one of your (many) online social media apps, and you read a Tweet or a status update and immediately felt like;
“Wow , what is he trying to say?” , OR, “I can’t believe she tweeted that, especially when she knows my circumstance”, OR,“She didn’t like any of my social media updates, something is up “.
With that you start to feel this sense of betrayal, disappointment , and hurt. You feel the need to defend yourself and to say something back! But not directly to them of course, because who says anything that direct and honest these days online? Everything is filtered, everything is vague, nonchalant , everything is in-between the lines, waiting for you to figure it all out.
WELCOME TO THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF SUBTEXT!
Subtext Definition : “Subtext is content underneath the dialogue. Under dialogue, there can be conflict, anger, competition, pride, showing off, or other implicit ideas and emotions. Subtext is the unspoken thoughts and motives of characters—what they really think and believe.”
Those all consuming thoughts propel us to react emotionally. Because we start assuming things, then we start subtweeting or subtext our updates online as a means of “getting them back”.
Now some of you may be reading this and may think “What on earth? Who has time for this? “. Then there are others of you who have experienced this, and have been hurt by what people (friends,trolls) say online or are doing online.
There are people who intentionally go out of their way to “discretely” hurt you by what they say and how they say things online.
I have witnessed it myself on many occasions. Especially when people “forget” that you have mutual friends online, and if one friend has a fall out with another friend, then you witness odd outbursts online, OR, when a couple breaks up and you read all of their “I don’t need him” quotes, followed by his quotes ; “The truth will set you free”. Then all of us innocent bystanders have to lay witness to the mini subtext wars!
Then there are moments where we think something was subtweeted / sub-status’d for us, when in actual fact maybe it wasn’t! Maybe it was someone’s honest ramblings, someones thoughts, someone just saying something online for the sake of being present online. But we take their words to heart. We try to look for things that aren’t even there, because we are insecure, too scared to maybe confront the person, and hear the truth.
We are so fearful of someone trying to hurt us that we start to react emotionally, as a means of protecting ourselves.
WHAT WE SHOULD BE DOING:
PAUSE : Pause for a moment, and ask yourself; ” Is this tweet / status update truly about me? ”
CHAT : Chances are that it’s not about you, however if you maybe suspect that it is about you – then chat to the person, IN PERSON!
REFLECT : Ask yourself : “what are the root causes for your insecurities?”. Especially when it comes to reading things that other people post online.
REMOVE : Once in awhile you should remove yourself from online social media – especially if it causes you to emotionally react online. How much time do we waste getting caught up in what other people are saying online?
KNOW : Know your sense of self worth, you do not need affirmation from any online source, or from any person. You should feel a sense of worth by knowing how dearly loved you are by God. When you come to know that peace and love that only He can bring, you start to feel confident, empowered, brave, and you start to feel secure, secure in yourself.
Friend, if I may encourage you, don’t get caught up in the “Subtext” . Life is far too short to worry about what others are saying online. True friends won’t feel the need to subtweet or subtext things online about you, if you have friends who you know for a fact are behaving that way, you have a choice to walk away, or you can confront them about it. You deserve an amazing life, a life that is meant to be enjoyed with the people you love.
My life has truly turned around (in all areas) when I made a decision to get to know God, and do a journey of Faith with Him. Over the years, I can truly say that He has helped me to know my worth, my identity, my sense of belonging, and to know a deep sense of unconditional love! Which in turn has helped me to take action through a secure loving space. If you want to know more about this unconditional love, then may I encourage you to click on the link below.