No, really, it’s not.
That’s a hard thing for some people to grasp. I know I struggle with it. I think it’s left over from grade school, where you were so insecure that you were sure that any slight was a purposeful cut, that any time a group of girls twittered, their head held close together, the twitter was about you.
Random aside: Years later, one of the nicer (i.e., not cruel, just well-liked) “popular” girls from my middle school told me that the reason I never got invited to anyone’s party or over to their house after school when I was 13 was that I “lived too far away.” I wonder if it’s because I “lived too far away” that they put gum in my hair, stole my purse and threw it in the dumpster, and dropped my gym clothes in the toilet. Middle school sucks. I think I write about somewhat older kids because middle school and even a large portion of high school sucks so completely that I’m afraid to access it again.
But really, outside of middle school, it’s not about you. Those rejection slips you get in the mail? Not about you. They don’t hate you. They don’t even know you. They aren’t whatever clique you were trying to access in school that wouldn’t let you in because they were mean girls. On an email loop, the people who are talking aren’t being cliquey. They won’t shoot you down if you say something. If you post a question an no one answers it, it may be because they don’t know the answer. They aren’t ignoring you because they don’t like you. It’s not about you.
It’s not about you. If you happen to email a blogger a question, and around about the same time, this blogger, who NEVER, EVER includes the names of the questioners in her online responses, posts a completely unrelated email and responds to it, and in her response, happens to use a vocative to which you note a vague and unsupportable similarity to your screenname, even though the blogger was in fact referencing a series of commercials that related to the email she did post and her response, do not start a flamewar on her blog, insisting that she made up an email and signed your (fake) name to it. She didn’t. She didn’t assign any name to it. It’s not about you.
It’s not about you. It’s not about you when someone makes an offhand and utterly neutral observational comment about the various levels of success at different epublishing houses. It’s not about you, and it’s not about whatever genre you write in. It’s not about you when people comment about what they are tired of seeing in insert-genre-here style romance, It’s not about you when they say they are tired of that genre. It’s not about you when the internet screws up, and it’s not about you when Yahoo decides to make all of your groups disappear (and you’re wasting time emailing the moderator over that one, btw. It’s disappeared for her, too).
Why do we want to think it’s about us? Does it make us feel more important? If it isn’t a random accident, or a completely unintentional overlooking, if it’s a slight, does that make us feel more important? Being ignored or unanswered, being unobserved as they might say in Joan of Arcadia, is a far, far worse fate than being reviled. Getting no Amazon reviews is worse than getting a hundred that hate you. Having enemies is better than having no friends. Is that the idea? If it’s about us, does that make us relieved, even if it’s wretched?
And that’s why we Google ourselves. We want to see who is talking about us, and where they’re doing it. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that the people who hate us are doing it in private forums (or, natch, as anonymous blog posters). It’s a shame, really, because nothing provides more fascination/revulsion than secretly listening in on a healthy round of hatred. After all, it’s better to be disliked than not to be known at all.
But it’s not about you. It’s not about you because the people involved aren’t thinking about you at all, They’re only thinking about themselves. The other day, I was very offended. I’d gone to a writing industry event, my brand new cover clutched tightly in my hands, I was so excited to show it to the other writers. I sat down and the woman sitting next to me asked me what I wrote. I told her, and showed her my cover. She turned away from me and starting telling the people on her other side that she couldn’t sell what she was writing because editors were only buying the stuff I wrote, and maybe she wasn’t twenty-six, like some people, but she should be able to sell her books too.
I sat there with my mouth open. I wanted to scream, “I’m not keeping you from selling your books!” But I didn’t. I was a little shocked that the person took the very existence of my book and me as a personal affront to her and her career. Jeez, it’s not about her. I wasn’t even thinking of her when I wrote and sold my book.
But then I thought about it some more and realized that actually, no. It wasn’t about me. She wasn’t even thinking of me when she was reflecting on the various market value of certain literary proerties, when she was thinking about all the years she’d spent on her craft, and when she was worried about whether or not she’d sell her latest project. I was not involved in any of those thoughts. She wasn’t saying it to hurt my feelings. She was talking about herself.
We think about ourselves. That’s all we have energy for on a day to day basis. When we feel angry, or jealous, or frustrated, or worried, we’re not really thinking about other people, we’re thinking about ourselves. We spend so much time thinking about ourselves that we’re shocked that other people aren’t doing it, too.
But they aren’t. It’s hardly ever about us.
By the way, all the things I mentioned in this blog post? They aren’t about you. Really.
November 22nd, 2005 at 11:20 am
Hey, I like this post. It makes me feel very unimportant (what do you mean, it’s not about ME???), but it says several good things.
Diana, while I think the woman who said those things after looking at your book cover should be bonked over the head for her behaviour, good for you for realizing it wasn’t about you. I bet dollars to donuts she was just venting her frustation at her own inability to sell. I know I do that all the time (in private…)–and it has nothing to do with you!
Cindy
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November 22nd, 2005 at 12:15 pm
Diana – what that woman did may not have been about you, but she’s still a bitch. Like we don’t have enough problems getting respect, now we have to rip on each other? And I know you’re probably over it, but let me just say good for you for writing and selling a good, marketable book at the enviably young age of 26. I think that’s extremely cool.
That being said, I really like this post, and I totally agree. When i find myself worrying about what people think/say about me, I have to remind myself that they’re just as self centered as I am, and too worried about themselves to worry about me. And if they do talk smack about me? Well, to paraphrase George Costanza, it’s not me, it’s them.
And as for the flaming… that’s why I stay largely silent on a lot of these boards, because I know it’s only a matter of time before I say something *I* think is hilarious but ends up really pissing someone off.
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November 22nd, 2005 at 12:36 pm
I’m so old, I only have one really snarky group in my life. Sometimes I really miss it, but mostly not. It all changes, and all your old insecurities become incomprehensible in time. How great is that?
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November 22nd, 2005 at 12:40 pm
God, what a bitch that woman was! She’s going to be even more po’d when she sees your name on the bestseller list – so sad.
And who in the world told you it wasn’t about me???? Everything is about me.
Actually, I sometimes think it’s not necessarily ego that makes us think it’s about us but insecurity and a complete lack of confidence.
I must go rest now. I’m mentally exhausted from reading the flame war.
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November 22nd, 2005 at 1:12 pm
I have to agree with the other people that while you’re right on the mature level that her insecurities weren’t about you, it was still a really rude thing to say.
But, over all I think you’re exactly right. It’s also something that you get working in any kind of customer service situation. They’re generally not actually bitching about you (except when they are) it’s about something completely unrelated. But, you’re convenient and unimportant in their grand scheme of things and therefore available.
Which I think works on posts online too. Since you never see most of the people you’re talking to, some people don’t worry about what they say quite as closely as they should.
But that’s okay, because I know everybody spends all their time thinking about me.
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November 22nd, 2005 at 3:49 pm
I think there are other things that feed this “all about me” stuff, too.
There’s a rebound effect from the “it’s never about you” phenomenon from our parents’ generation. There’s a whole group of people (women) who were taught to serve everyone else before taking care of their own needs. Yet we’re constantly being told that no one is responsible for our happiness but ourselves, and we’re gonna die from stress, and we can’t do everything for everyone, and we have to take care of ourselves. Those two combined lead us to sieve everything through our “me” filter.
Then, there’s the Internet phenomenon that gives us all access to SO many more people than ever before, and it’s all whirling around one point in a way the rest of our lives do not. So we’re literally the center of our own cyberuniverse.
My chapter’s retreat is titled “All About Me” because most of us have families and/or jobs and/or other commitments that we often put before writing. On the retreat, it’s only about us and what we are doing for our own work. That’s a common focus in the writing industry, too.
Then there’s the fleece blanket from Linens N Things that says, “It’s All About Me.”
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November 22nd, 2005 at 3:59 pm
I’m as guilty as the next person re: All About Me. There was this time when I didn’t hear back from my agent for a few days, and I convinced myself that I’d pissed her off and she was about to dump me… not, as it turned out, that she’d actually turned off her Blackberry for once in her life. Because the first answer is that it’s all about me. The second answer lacks some of that solipsism, but I need that moment to step back and remember it first. (Of course, it didn’t help that I was deep into a book about paranoia and conspiracy theories!)
Natalie, I think that might be two different things. I think the kind at your retreat is a very healthy sort of All About Me — a true examination of yourself and what you really want, which is, like you said, something can get lost int eh day-to-day grind of pay the rent, feed the kids, remember to turn off the oven. The one I’m talking about is neurotic paranoia. Imagining people are talking about/attacking you when they aren’t even thinking about you at all.
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November 22nd, 2005 at 4:13 pm
I did things backwards and read the spawning thread AFTER I read your blog.
Isn’t that called borderline personality disorder? Or is that narcissism? It’s definitely extreme. My word!
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November 22nd, 2005 at 4:19 pm
It was extreme, that’s for sure. I think Miss S. called it surreal. And some of the ad hominem attacks were really, really bizarre… and racist.
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November 23rd, 2005 at 7:29 am
Hey, I was twenty-three when I landed my first ebook contract and started trying to sell to the big guys. I turned twenty-five this October, and still–gasp!–haven’t sold to the big guys. I wish it were that simple
I don’t think she was saying it to hurt your feelings either. But I think she did think of you, in a self-related way. In the “I wish I were her” way. But hey, when they gave out manners, she must have been too distracted bitching someplace else.
On the bizarre note, sometimes I do find myself wishing to be attacked rather than ignored — because, you know that saying “if you went out today, and every woman you meet glares at you, congratulations! You look really great today.”
Same with attacks. No one does it when you are nobody, not unless you are in high school, anyway. But in the adult world, the mean girls are usually the failures, the losers–not their targets. So if you find yourself being envied and being snarked at because of that, just congratulate yourself. You made it. They didn’t. That’s why they are so bitter.
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November 23rd, 2005 at 10:30 am
Weighing in a little late here. I really loved this post, although I’m really pissed at those nasty middle school bitches who put gum in your hair and flushed your gym clothes. Children are so mean, but then again, so are adults.
And we won’t even go there about Ms. Attitude at your writing meeting. You’re right, that wasn’t about you, it was about her. (It’s still remarkably rude!)
Overall, people get so caught up in the world of these loops and blogs and message boards that they tend to lose a touch on reality and what really matters on planet earth. I have a friend who has a Masters in Social Work and Psychology and she says that such behaviors and making everything “about me” traces back to personal insecurities. That when people lash out like that, start flame wars, make false accusations, go off half-cock, or basically become coo-coo, it’s because they aren’t happy with themselves, their lives, their career, their whatever and are so insecure that they make the slightest thing, the most meager comment, mistakes, goofs, jokes or technical difficulties into the “all about me syndrome.”
And because of the immediacy of the medium, they emote too fast, too emotionally and it opens up a whole can of worms like on Ms. Snark’s blog (and plenty of other loops), when in fact, it could have all been avoided if people would just take a deep breath, not be so super-sensitive, not act on their insecurities and just step away from the keyboard. You don’t ALWAYS have to emote EVERY emotion as you’re feeling it.
While blogs and loops and boards are fun, entertaining and informative, you’re right, we all need to approach them without the “all about me” hat firmly in place. Good lesson and good post.
Your Fan
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