Skin Like an Alligator

Not today so much, because today all I’ve seen on facebook is ‘Oh my gosh, Obama’s so wonderful, now we have gay marriage’ but often I have seen comments from people like ‘How could somebody come onto MY page and say such nasty, hateful things about my writing/painting/whatever.’
Of course, I haven’t read everything on their page, and certainly not the offending comment because they’ve deleted it, but I think at least some of these are due, not so much to harsh comments, but to over-sensitivity.
The implication is that everybody should either offer positive comments or say nothing at all. How unproductive is that? Grow a thicker skin, people.
It could be that part of my objection is just jealousy. I’ve never had anybody come onto my facebook page and tell me that my writing sucked (People have told me my opinions suck plenty of times. There has even been the occasional, much more general ‘you suck’ kind of comment. That’s O.K. That’s nothing new.) I suspect, from that, that nobody’s actually reading my writing.
Don’t get me wrong. I actually think my writing is pretty good. I’ve read through my novel several times, and it holds my interest. I can read back through this blog weeks at a time, and nod along in agreement. Yup, got that right. I am generally totally satisfied with my poetry. The rhymes are tight and, in every single case, I agree with what I say.
But, I’m sure if lots of other people were reading my work at least some of them would be writing in to say “You suck. Your metaphors are weak and cliched, your rhymes are trite, your word play is juvenile.”
Let me just go on record here and now. If you come on to my facebook page saying shit like that…I’ll either answer you or not. But it’s O.K. I won’t defriend you for it. You’ll have to do a whole lot worse than that to get defriended.