Then his warty trolls came out and I learned what it's like to be cyber gang-banged. You'd think I threatened his life by the way they all responded.
Here are the 3 things I learned after being trolled:
1.) The more sense you make, the angrier and less logical the trolls all are.
2.) The more sense you make, the more likely they will go and delete whatever illogical comment they'd made toward you that required a rebuttal.
3.) The more logical you are, such things as blonde jokes start coming at you...because everyone knows that hair color is the real measure of intelligence. Jokes from the 1980's are still relevent to trolls. I didn't know that. I also learned that you can assume anything over the Intenet....like apparently I eye roll and giggle because my hair is blonde. I was so happy that that was contributed to what I thought was an actual discussion.
All everyone did was prove that what I wrote was correct and that it struck a nerve, which actually wasn't my intention when I wrote it. Matt Walsh personally told me that he stands by every word and if I don't like it, I can "go away". Funny. He hadn't read my blog yet, nor had I called him arrogant or made fun of the whole "sayer of truths" thing. I hadn't called him a sell-out. He had no idea what I really thought of his demeanor and yet he still convinced me that I had been right....he didn't care what anyone thought and they can go away if they don't like it.
I wrote a blog about people listening and not being judgmental and what I believe God wants from us and all the trolls did was drive my point home. They were responding on a Christian blogger's post and they made fools of themselves, further isolating people from Matt Walsh's blog, including myself.
Rather than feeling happy about being right about some Christians and the message I had originally blogged about, I was discouraged. I was right and it upset me. I realize that sometimes talking to someone is like banging your head against a brick wall. People don't listen. People are judgmental. And then I started thinking "I can't believe Jesus can love us. He spells things out for us and forgives us over and over and we can be so mean to each other." I thought "it's pointless trying to talk to someone who disagrees."
Then someone changed my mind.
I got a private message on Facebook from one young man who had read my blog. He said he really hoped to understand me, so he wasn't posting it to the thread for the trolls to read. We went back and forth for a day or so and listened to each other. We have never met. I heard him, he heard me, we politely debated, and it was refreshing. I was in Nashville for 24 hours and I still stopped to write him because I was so pleased to see a stranger trying to connect with me, to learn and to understand me for no reason but for us both to possibly end up better people. We understand each other's views better now and he definitely made me consider some things. Some of the things that Matt Walsh said, I was able to hear clearer when it was said by a random, kind person who honestly cared about hearing me and me hearing him. His tone was kinder. It made me wonder, had Matt Walsh carried himself differently, more humbly, would I have understood or even agreed?
Then I started getting friend requests and messages from other people I had never met. People have shared my post and actually understood what I was trying to say. People defended me in the thread (only later to be accused of being related to me or hired by me) and I learned that some people do listen. As do I.
To Dylan, thanks for being an example. I enjoyed debating you in a Christian manner. You are a great example of an open person and how God wants us to interact with each other. I know nothing about you except that you're a very kind and intuitive person and that makes you very important to the world.
It's all in the way you say it, and as I said before in my post last Thursday, you're responsible for your message.
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