Straight Talk / Does this sound like I'm mad (angry)?

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I'm confused. Recently I joined Facebook. I only joined because I got an email from my sister that said (in the subject line) : Check out my photos on Facebook.

The body of the email said:
Hi Cosmiccat, (only it was my real name)

I set up a Facebook profile where I can post my pictures, videos and events and I want to add you as a friend so you can see it. First, you need to join Facebook! Once you join, you can also create your own profile.

Thanks,
My sister's name

I really didn't want to join, but because my sister invited me (or so I thought), so I did join immediately. She is my best friend and I wanted to see her pictures. After I joined I made several positive comments on the things she posted including a few of her pictures. A few days went by. She never replied or acknowledged I was there or anything. So then I took a better look at the email and realized it was automatically generated through my sister's email address book. I have a lot of family on Facebook and they were all glad to see me there. I also found some family members that we had lost touch with years ago and sent them to her as suggestions for her to send friend requests to. Facebook prompts you to do this.

Back to the subject of my sister's pictures and my comments, which is subject of this thread. One of the pictures she put up was a picture of the two of us together over the Christmas holidays. It's a very good picture of her, but not a very good one of me. But I could live with it being on Facebook and it was no big deal. So I commented on that picture in a joking way. This is what I said:

"Oh no .....You didn't. Sure, it's a swell picture of you, but I look like the Wreck of the Hesperus. Quick, strap me to the mast before I'm swept away."

It's several days now since I joined and my sister hasn't communicated with me at all, on face book, personal email or phone until just a few minutes ago. She called me. We talked a bit about the family members and other stuff, then she said "Oh, I read your comment that you posted on that picture of us and I told my husband, "Uh oh, Cosmiccat is mad. I have to take her picture off Facebook. So I just want you to know that I removed your picture. "

I said "I'm not mad at you. It didn't make me mad that you posted my picture."

She said "Well how would I know that? I can't see you. I can only read what you wrote."

I said "Do you mean you can't tell that what I wrote was funny? I thought you would get a laugh and say something funny back to me. If I was mad, I would come right out and tell you that I was mad."

My question to you all is: Does the comment I made about the picture (Wreck of the Hesperus, etc.) sound like it came from a place of anger? Do you think it was humorous and friendly?"

This stuff really confuses me. I would appreciate your input.

I personally would interpret it as you just being funny or making a joke about yourself. I interpret it this way probably because I do exactly the same thing you do....or rather I have similar humor.

I find that it helps to add some sort of emoticon or smiley. Maybe something like =P (I take that as silly joking). Even just a plain smile would be good.

This doesn't sound particularly angry, but it's not very funny to me either. I have no idea what the Hesperus was.

Sarcasm (or perhaps more relevant in this case, hyperbole with sarcastic undertones) don't really go well over the internet. The only way it can work effectively without profuse emoticons and internet abbreviations (like "lol") is for the reader to know your typical behavior and sense of humor. Otherwise, without body language or use of vocal tones, it's hard to see what other meanings you might have. This situation makes me wonder if your sister thinks of you and/or your sense of humor as serious, austere, or no-nonsense.

My dad gets that spam message from 'me' all the time.

With that message... it's not so much that they couldn't see the humor in it, they probably didn't think you intended it to be funny from past experience. Believe me, though, weird things happen on fb all the time. Someone's fiance threatened me because she mentioned me to him, and he assumed I was a stalker or something. Now THAT is communication to base a marriage on.

Numbskulls.

i agree with the above. maybe your sister took the photo down because she thought you were putting yourself down, not just being humorous. i'm not sure why she thinks you're angry, though.

To me it is quite clear you were making a funny comment, because the last sntence is a playful make believe one. However, I don't know you or your sister and what your joking is normally like. Sometimes people make jokes to express their anger. This is called passive aggressiveness and there are just as many who hate it as who do it.

M_p_furo wrote:

Yes, good idea about the emoticons in the future, or the LOL thing. That would have let her know I was joking. It's funny though, one of the first things I noticed about FB was no emoticons. Then I thought, of course, "normal" people don't have to use them, they get humor, irony, sarcasm, etc. when they read it. I was kind of relieved that I wouldn't have to add emoticons every time I said something on FB that might be misinterpreted. Guess this means another myth has been busted.

Stinkypuppy wrote:


My mom always used that expression "Wreck of the Hesperus" in a joking way to indicate she or someone else looked like a wreck, so I thought my sister would get a little kick out of my using it. Maybe my sister, who is 8 years younger than me, never heard my mom say that, and so, like you, wouldn't know it was meant to be humorous.
Wreck of the Hesperus

When my sis and I are together, I am always saying things to crack her up and one of the things I like most about being with her is that we laugh so much. I thought, and still think, that she "got" my type of humor because we grew up in the same environment. I'm wondering too now, how she thinks of me and my humor. I know there are times when she thinks something I say is inappropriate, she will shush me, poke me, or if others are around, she will explain my words or put them into a context they will understand. I think I embarrass her slightly at times, but she doesn't seem to get mad at me. But coming from a dysfunctional family (I'm beginning to think most people do) our humor can seem strange to outsiders because they don't know the common denominator that makes the joke funny.

So I'm beginning to think, now that I'm on FB, she might be worried that I will say inappropriate things and embarrass her in front of the friends that she connects with. That's why she joined FB, to try and find old classmates. And also, because I am her older sister, the firstborn, and have always been a mother figure to my siblings and a little "bossy", she may not have been pleasantly surprised to find that I had joined FB. But as I mentioned, I joined thinking she had invited me to join. All of these insights are coming to me after the fact, after the passing of time, and after reading all of the responses here.

Quoting Apera:


Re; FB spam - My sister is not very internet or computer savvy. When I talked on the phone with her yesterday, I tried explaining to her that I signed up only because I thought she had personally invited me, but later realized that FB had gotten my name from her email address book and generated the invitation to me and various other people. She clearly did not understand what I was talking about because she said "That's okay." Her response dumbfounded me. In fact, I got a little ticked. I said "What do you mean, "that's okay"? She said "Well, I mean it's okay that you joined FB." I got even more dumbfounded. She was giving me permission to join FB? But I pulled myself together, telling myself, don't get mad, she's clueless about this whole thing. Then she told me her son signed her up, so I realized she knew nothing about the process of signing up for FB, or choosing people from your address book. I tried to find some humor in that. Ay-yi-yi, I was ready to pull my hair out.

I agree about those weird things that happen on FB. It's really a pretty stupid place. What's up with all those farms and clubs? It's like jumping into small talk hell. Chit-Chat purgatory. Got to say though, it's got it's good points. I've only been on there for a few days and already I found three cousins that I thought had fallen off the face of the earth, an aunt that I thought was dead, and a picture of my grandfather. Now my children will know what their great grandfather looked like.

I agree with you though, definitely a bunch of numbskulls on there.

Quoting exhausted:

I'm beginning to think she was projecting. Let me explain a little; the picture in question was one of many that were taken at the same time. At Christmas time, our cousin from another state, had sent us each a special gift which arrived at my house in a single box with both of our names on it and a sticker that said "open together". So my sis came over to my house and we opened the box together as instructed. Inside were two vintage mink hats that once belonged to the mother of our cousin, a very dear aunt of ours. I suggested we take some pictures of us wearing the hats and then send them to our cousin. My daughter then took a series of photos of us. I emailed the photos to my cousin and my sister.

In some of the photos, as is usually the case, one of us looked great, the other looked awful. There were a couple in which I thought we both looked great, but that's just my opinion. When I spoke with my sister on the phone the other day she said she put that particular picture up on FB because it was the only one where we both looked halfway decent. She then said that in all of the other photos we had taken, a certain facial feature ( which she is self-conscious about) was more prominent, but in the photo she put up it wasn't so noticeable, and that is why she chose that photo to post on FB. You see, in my opinion, my sis is beautiful; the feature she dislikes so much, is to me, part of what makes her beautiful, She's very insecure about her appearance. I am not so insecure about my own, hence, while I didn't particularly like the photo of me that she put up, I could live with it, it wouldn't bother me if other people saw it. I think my sister was projecting her own insecurity onto me and thinking that I was mad because she would have been mad if I had put up a picture of her that she did not like.

As I said earlier, these insights are only now coming to me after much thinking on this matter, prompted largely by the comments you all have posted here.

Quoting Omnomnom:


Ah yes, passive aggressive humor. I know it well. I admit to using this myself on occasion. But this was not one of those occasions. I think, speaking from personal experience, that people who are not allowed to express anger directly, will resort to this kind of humor to let their anger out. As a child growing up, I was not allowed to be angry. Bottled up anger can cause lots of problems as we all know.

I want to thank everyone who helped me figure this confusing situation out. I really appreciate all of your input and perspectives.

It doesn't sound angry to me, on the other hand NT's often seem to be looking for content in messages that go past the words used.

Thank you. That's what I thought too. It might have something to do with the closeness of our relationship in that her knowledge of me prevents her from being objective.

"Oh no .....You didn't. Sure, it's a swell picture of you, but I look like the Wreck of the Hesperus. Quick, strap me to the mast before I'm swept away."

Maybe I'm alone here... but I think, how does that *not* sound angry? That's just my viewpoint. I think people here are biased because before they even read what you said you emphasize that you just meant it in a light-hearted way. Making a joke has nothing to do with whether a message is angry or not. People say all kinds of witty things when they are being angry, mean, etc.

While I think it sounds angry, I think more importantly you shouldn't obsess about this misunderstanding. Just casually mention that you didn't need her to take down the picture, from this she'll learn how to interpret your messages better, The End. Misunderstandings happen, just let them happen and learn from them instead of obsessing about whose fault it is. Your way of communicating is just as valid as anyone else's (unless you insist on speaking Klingon or something), there's no golden standard that everyone knows and is supposed to follow.

sounds like a joke to me!

Quoting BlueMage:

You make a good point. I hadn't realized that I may have biased the outcome or responses. I didn't do that intentionally though. If I had left that out, people here would have been forced into being more objective about the message. Yes. That's probably true. I wish I had just posted the comment here on WP without any comments about what was going on in my head when I posted it on FB.
Yes. Especially if they just can't come out and say "I'm mad." I am a person that usually says exactly how I feel and wishes that others would too, in fact, I'm noted for that in my family.



Good advice. Thanks.

Well, I was laughing out loud (seriously) when I wrote it, anticipating that she would laugh too.

That's really insightful. I can totally imagine reacting that way if I was your sister, for exactly the reasons you name.
But shoot, your Facebook comment was funny, don't let 'em tell you otherwise.

Quoting Omnomnom

Thanks. I know that it came from a funny place in me.

I wouldn't have a clue what you meant. If that was posted on a pic i put up i'd be sitting here working through all the alternative meanings behind the post and working out what the best course of action was to resolve the situation without causing further issues by playing it up too much or ignoring it.

I'd be basically thinking ffs if you want it removing say so, otherwise don't post comments that you clearly wish i didn't put it up, unless you're just disclaimering it becuase it looks bad, tho this is usually only done by people who think they look good and they just look less good, in which case i'd ignore it as they're being vain rather than truely upset.

Yes i can spend so much time trying to work out the smallest of things, i wish comunication was more clear.