Dear Friend,

I am sorry that blogging about my miscarriage has made you feel uncomfortable. I am sorry that you found it in bad taste for me to choose to share the post on Facebook where all my friends could see it.

But you know what? I found it damn therapeutic to write about it, and I will continue to write about it in the future. As for Facebook? Should I have kept it silent, let the news spread slowly via word of mouth, and continue to receive messages/wall posts on how the pregnancy is going? I felt that delivering the news en masse, no matter how impersonal, was the best method for me.

Yes, allow me to act selfish while I mourn the death of my 3-month-old child whose heartbeat I saw and heard, whose head, arms and legs…even its tiny feet, were distinguishable on the ultrasound.

If you do not like what you’re reading, just stop reading my blog. De-friend me on Facebook (or hide my feeds).

Just don’t tell me how I should grieve.

Pregnancy hormones are not fun. I have been extra-sensitive lately with the littlest things setting me off.

The latest in the series of dramas – some of which I’m sure are only in my head – involve a couple of internet friends. Recently I found out that someone I had considered a good friend (at least in internet standards) de-friended me on Facebook. I know she is still around, because I can see her commenting on others’ status updates, photos, etc. However, now she has set her settings so that I do not even have the option of requesting to be her friend again, let alone shoot her a message to see if something’s wrong.

Now, I have just discovered that another person I considered a friend has unfollowed me on Twitter. Not only has she un-followed me, she has blocked me.

What did I do wrong? Do I have an annoying internet persona? Did I write something that was offensive?

The beauty and the curse of the internet is the anonymity it allows its users. If these were people I knew in real life, I would know almost immediately if they were trying to shut me out of their lives. If these were people I knew in real life, I might try to hunt them down to see where the relationship turned sour. If these were people I knew in real life, I would at least have mutual acquaintances who could give their objective views.

Perhaps these people do have valid reasons for de-friending/un-following me. I only wish I knew the reason why. I feel like they took the cowardly route by choosing to ignore my existence with a few clicks of the button with no prior warning, with no way of getting in touch with them without the involvement of third parties (aka mutual friends/followers).

…Or maybe they weren’t my friends to start with.

Have you ever gotten upset over losing an internet friend?

xkcd is another web comic I enjoy. I think that the fact that the comic is drawn entirely in stick figures forces the reader to really concentrate on the content, which mainly consists of very geeky humor.

Today’s xkcd was probably one of the best, because as an avid Facebook user (I signed up way back when it first started and Johns Hopkins was one of the beta schools) I can understand the hilarity of the “relationship status” concept.

Enjoy!