There’s something about working from home that can mess with your mind. For sure not going into an office is great. You can work in your pajamas and basically eschew any and all grooming. (Except I have a friend who works from home who actually gets dressed in office attire including blow drying her hair and putting on makeup so she feels more “professional.” Never mind the waste of time. It’s a huge waste of cosmetics and hair care product.) Then there’s the glory of throwing a load of laundry in whenever you feel like it and I’ve even unloaded the dishwasher while in the middle of a conference call, not easy, but doable.
These, of course, are all wonderful things that surpass being in an office setting. But, I’m telling you all that alone time can make you weird and cause you to do things you probably wouldn’t attempt if you had a couple of co-workers to shoot the breeze with.
For example, last week I went total squirrel. Part of my morning pre work ritual is to waste large quantities of time on social media and reading Bravo Real Housewives blogs (all except Real Housewives of New Jersey. I could never get into that one and I’ve lived in Jersey). Feel free to judge me all you want, but I consider The Real Housewives a sociological study of human interaction in 21st Century America and a bellwether of the upcoming presidential election. Okay, yeah you’re right I read it because I’m intellectually stunted.
All was well in my little work from home world until I noticed the latest Facebook trend called the “Love Your Spouse Challenge” which is sort of like an Amway sales pyramid where friends ask other friends who ask other friends to post one photo with their spouse each day for seven days to keep the “celebration of love and traditional marriage going.” My “news” feed was bloated with photos and cooing lovey dovey, treacle.
Most of it was from my Facebook friends in Texas who are either married to pastors or on their second marriage to a pastor and then there’s the vacation bible school co-worker, from back in the day, who had an affair with the youth pastor and then a mere year later married the head pastor. (Is that the biblical version of marrying up?)
Now some people may find very personal martial over sharing on the internet as uplifting. I think it’s silly and uncomfortable. To me love means never having to talk about your “deep passion” for your spouse online.
As luck would have it last week I received three request called “nominations” to take part in the “Love Your Spouse Challenge.” I responded each time with a thanks, but no thanks. This resulted in me getting emails asking if my “marriage was okay?” I typed back, “LOL yes it’s fine. I just don’t want to do the challenge.”
A couple of days later I find out that I’m now on two Dallas Baptist Church prayer lists regarding my marriage. Sigh. The next day I get four more Facebook private messages asking me “if I’m okay” and one saying “I’m so sorry to hear about the tough times you’re going through was it cheating?” WTH?
Apparently not partaking of the “Love Your Spouse Challenge” equals marriage in trouble. I felt I had no choice, no choice at all, but to go big (and for those that don’t know me going big is always my de facto choice, but rarely the wisest). So, I changed my Facebook personal information from “married” to “in an open relationship.”
Was that the greatest idea ever? Probably not, but I blame it on working all day without the benefit of human interaction. If I had someone to bounce the idea off of while I went to get a Diet Coke from the vending machine it most likely wouldn’t have happened.
My Facebook page, as you can imagine, blew up and because I’m a giver, yes a giver, I felt fabulous. I had enlivened and perhaps brought the joy of juicy gossip into some people’s day with my revelation. But, then, sadly, it was back to reality time so I responded to all the messages about my open relationship by telling people “Golly, I must have been hacked” and then changed by personal information back, not to “married” mind you, but to “in a relationship” just to give all the “Love Your Spouse Challenge” folks something to chew on.
The best part is that my husband didn’t notice at all. And that, right there, is why I love him.
Snarky in the Suburbs 