I did kind of a twitter faux pas. One late night, I noticed @WineLovingMums had followed me on twitter. Their bio reads "A community for mums who love wine, food, family .. and fun!"
It annoyed the hell out of me. I like food, family and fun ... but alas, I do not drink wine. Anymore. I have had my share - it is done. Why would @WineLovingMums follow a recovering alcoholic? This will not do.
You know how, parenting is 'tricky.' So, there's often jokes about "Is it wine-o-clock yet?" Heh heh - those funny mummybloggers!
I don't use wine to take any parenting edges off. I would use crack cocaine, but it doesn't really sound the same does it? "Hey guys - what a hard day. Hey is it cocaine-o-clock yet? *snigger*"
Or smack-o-clock. What about @cracklovingmums ... there is no account for them on twitter. Oversight?
Look what I just found:
@AmylSnortinMums
@PetrolSniffinMums
@HashCookieMums
All of these accounts are available on twitter. I don't understand!
So, as it was very late at night when I noticed Wine Loving Mums following me, I did what comes naturally. I knocked them mercilessly on twitter without checking to see if they were actual real people instead of just some faceless company.
Turns out, Wine Loving Mums are real people. And they seemed really nice, and I publicly shamed them with tweets about pooping my pants from alcohol. I felt that kind of uneasy feeling running up my spine. It's what Sister Louise would have called, "conscience."
GREAT.
Cecily wrote a great post on Mom Crunch the other day about the etiquette of twitter. She calls it, "How to use twitter without being a douchebag" ... I love her description of it as being a non-stop cocktail party. It is - and it appears that I had behaved like a tool to some guests. So, as I publicly shamed them, I publicly apologised to them to. Something about how sorry I am, for being such a tool.
They ignored me, and tweeted to other people gaily. So I hated them again and stewed on it - THEN they publicly accepted my public twitter apology. Phew! Social media is hard.
If you follow Wine Loving Mums, tell them Edenland sent you. I won't begrudge them their wine, if they don't begrudge me ridiculously inappropriate tweets at midnight.
No hard feelings, WLM, okay?
(But I'm still not following you.)
.
Monday, 19 September 2011
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I would follow the WLM but alas I cannot, I love the wine, but I am not a mum.
ReplyDeleteTwitter, is it ironic that the first part of that word is twit? It often makes me feel like one.
maybe they should do some more research before just randomly following people...although I have things like computergeeksrus following me...so it appears that they are not the only ones not doing research.
ReplyDeleteOh GOD, more reasons why i avoid Twitter & i'll lump FB in there too, i would possibly do the same thing, i don't know, maybe my situation would be something like "Jihad loving mums" & i'd be wondering why they'd be following me, an Army wife with a deployed husband??!!
ReplyDeleteI am actually the other end of the spectrum where i'm allergic to alcohol & haven't drunk since i was a teen, maybe 18 years ago, so when i say no to drinks, people assume i'm a recovering alcoholic. It's quite hard to explain that i really just don't drink, i don't like it, can't metabolise it, i spend most of my time alone with my children so if something happened, i'd have to sober to drive them wherever or sort out the issue. I'm a pharmacologist so don't get me started on drugs - on now there is another group who could follow me, the HashCookieMummies, love Posie
No way, dude. That shit was hilarious. Porn & Playskool might be my best weet ever. Don't undervalue the awesomeness that happened as a result of your wine loving moms saga :)
ReplyDeleteI believe the phrase is plopping not pooping your pants!
ReplyDeleteTwitter can be a bi-atch, only last night I mis-typed a tweet to a lovely fellow tweeter and felt sick to my stomach when I re-read and realised my massive error.
ReplyDeleteMan, cyber space hurts my head sometimes and somedays its best to "retreat" instead of "RT"
Obviously, I am missing all the excitement over there on twitter. I signed up, but can't remember my password when I click on a "follow me on twitter" link. Sure I can look up the darn password in my old email, but put it off every time.
ReplyDeleteI love your humor. It is what gets us through, you know.
Laugh it out. :-)
I'm still finding my feet with twitter. I found it all very loud at first, like about 4 million people speaking all at once - having 3 kids 6 & under at home is loud enough most days!
ReplyDeleteBut I'm getting there - don't worry about your perceived faux par, misunderstandings happen all the time, whether you're writing or talking to someone. I'd have felt the same in your shoes though & most likely would've done the same too - it's not like it's hard to find out even a little bit about the people to follow on twitter.
Wine Loving Mums unfollowed me. I'm not sure if it's because I don't drink, or they think I'm not fun enough. I'm not sure.
ReplyDeleteWe need a twitter account and a slogan "is it sit down with a nice cup of tea and drink it while it's actually hot time yet?"
I would follow @cupcakeaddictmums because some days, cupcakes were what got me through.
ReplyDeleteI love the sound of Wine Loving Mums and would also appreciate Yum Cha Loving Mums and Ploppy Shoot Out Your Butt Mums. x
ReplyDeleteAlso, Why Have I still got Zits and I am 38 Mums x
ReplyDeleteI don't drink wine. My taste buds aren't mature enough for anything beyond alco-pops.
ReplyDeleteI always view "wine-o-clock" as a play on words for "whine" because fuck yes I love to whine.
I am pretty sure I probably break all the twitter rules, but meh, no one has to follow me.
I'm with the cup of tea brigade. Also the Yum Cha lot. The Ploppy mums can have my teenage boys. They're good value with that.
ReplyDeleteI am writing this while 2 out of 4 of mine are either crying or whining...and the other 2 are watching Ben 10 at 100 decibels.....I wonder if there is a twitter account i can follow called @absynthesuckingmums ????
ReplyDeleteEven at my advanced age, my peers are still offering me alcohol at every turn. When I smile and say no thanks, I STILL get the middle school pressure of "c'mon, just one, join the rest of us--have fun". I have pissed off more than one person telling them that the next morning I will feel great and they will feel like shit. Most assume at some point I was a raging alcoholic, which I wasn't. (Unless you count a couple years of college when I have no idea how I got home-DRIVING from the bar....it's a miracle really).
ReplyDeleteI really resent it when people try to coerce me or make a judgment about me because I won't tip a few with them. There is no response I give that appeases the look, or taunting. It's so stupid.
I prefer to drink whine, but I've been known to down the odd glass of wine from time to time. I used to drink about 2 bottles more than I needed but these days I do not use it as a crutch. But every time I get on it I am reminded of just how close I am to drowning.
ReplyDeleteTo be brutally honest (and I hope the Wine Loving Mums are not listening) I'm sick to the top of my wazoo at listening to mothers bleat on about all the wine they are drinking. Is it supposed to make them radical rebels or something? It is boring me.
Oh, and while I am venting on your blog (I am considering changing my name to Anonymous at this point) I would also like to point out that those Wine Sucking and Then Spitting it Out Like Total Wanker Mums also get my goat. Just drink the fermented grapes and stop rabbiting on about legs and noses forchristsakeandfortheloveofgod. Please. x
LOL! Now that I'm sober, I'm a Diet Coke loving mom.
ReplyDeleteI need to go back and read those tweets. Too funny.
ReplyDeleteYa, I get the same alky touchiness mixed in occasionally letting the infertility bitch show. I often find myself taking a deep breath now and hoping that I get a flurry of new followers so they aren't on the top of my follow lists anymore, because otherwise I'm just not nice to be around...and what does it say about me that I never bothered to check to see if the followers were real? Maybe I need to go read that douchebag post now.
ReplyDeleteAs a weekend beer drinker, I know, very unlady like. My cousin's wife is always talking about having to get home to have some wine so she can try to deal with her kids after work... It drives me nuts!!
ReplyDeleteOn a friday we usually light the pit fire, have a cold one or two, share some chips with the kids and enjoy the start of the weekend together. mmmm I sound like such a hick.
Heroin o'clock x
ReplyDeletei wonder though, through that connection, if any wine loving mum followers found you and started to question their love of wine? Because its all fun and harmless until suddenly it isn't. It must be tough being an alcoholic in this world of boozers.
ReplyDelete