I am struck once again by how much people live life on social media. They live too much life on social media. Social media may help keep us all connected, but it’s not the real world.

And while social media keeps us connected, it’s not a justification for bad manners and lack of boundaries. And it’s the lack of boundaries that in part bothers me.

This week I had an extremely unpleasant experience with someone who is an employee of a service provider. They crossed professional boundaries that leaves me disturbed.

When I realized who they were and their comments were even leaving me uncomfortable, I quietly removed them from my page. I was actually trying to do them a favor. Not all employers like controversy. Especially in today’s hyper charged social media world. They started messaging. I quietly blocked that. Then they made the ultimate presumption and started messaging my private messenger rather combatively. That is a boundary that should not be crossed because then it is a professional breach of conduct since they work for a service provider I have a relationship with. I blocked them again but now I am left with a very bad taste in my mouth. They didn’t get that there are things in life that are just not appropriate.

Then we leap to the politics of it all. Should politicians respond to questions? Yes. But sometimes it is all about how you ask. One of the problems with social media is the lack of conversation. It can’t always be whomever gets all of the toys wins. And people seem to forget that all of their issues and things they champion personally, or not necessarily going to be yours. Or that you, as an individual might support them, but not so fervently for lack of a better description and that doesn’t make people bad, it just makes them different and we do have to allow for differences. Isn’t that what we fight for for real?

The lack of boundaries and decorum is something I feel is very much lacking in today’s world. And it has a place.

And in general people think we all should available to them 24/7/365. I am not. I have a life of my own and it’s off of social media. People don’t seem to realize that all of us have things to do and things going on in our lives. And that’s not necessarily bad or hysterically busy things, it’s just our life. And I find a lot, that sadly this isn’t respected by people because they expect you to respond to them immediately. A lot of people also simply don’t want to interact on social media.

It’s a big wide world out there and it really takes place off of Facebook and whichever social media platform you favor.

Go outside. Enjoy the world in real time interact with people face-to-face have an actual conversation. Live life in your own moments. Real moments. Not ones engineered with social media prompts.

Am I Miss Manners? No. But I think we all could use reminders now and again.

Ciao.