Keeping up Appearances and bull#@$%!

I am soooo sick and tired of keeping up appearances. I am SICK AND TIRED of keeping up appearances.

"Don't rock the boat", "Go ahead and accept this person's friend request because you don't want anybody to think that you are mad or anything", "Make sure you speak to that person when you go to this function because you don't want anybody thinking you have a problem with them".

People say these well meaning things, partly to keep people out of their business, but, really, I'm not interested in all that anymore. I have to admit, I used to live in a world, a social network of my life where appearances were better than reality sometimes. It was better for people to think that you and former friends were still friends because it kept everything nice and even. People didn't feel like they couldn't talk to you or whatever else about certain subjects or people because you were keeping up appearances of "normalcy".

I'm so over all of that. If we aren't friends after 11 years, then we still aren't friends. If I see you on Facebook or Myspace or any other place, or I run across your e-mail, or a mutual friend says, "hey, here's so-and-so's number and e-mail, you should keep in touch", I'm probably not interested.

However, because of what's been ingrained in our upbringing, my husband tells me, "do it, and hush, because you need to 'keep up appearances.'"

Wow.

There we are, back at that again.

Maybe one day I'll be able to pretend to care less and fake my way through things that others may perceive as me having feelings about something so that I can properly "keep up appearances".

And, maybe, one day people will stop caring. I hope that happens first.