The story of the muslim grandmother gets more bizarre as I tell you HOW she came to be muslim.
About a year ago my in-laws were over at our house for a family get together. We were talking about myspace and my MIL wanted to know what all the fuss over myspace was.
My sis-in-law was over as well. She and my daughter were busy fixing up their myspace pages. I mentioned that I have a myspace. I mostly have one to keep up with some friends from my old job and more importantly, to check up on my daughter.
Anyway, my sis-in-law showed my MIL her myspace and my MIL asked if we could help her make one. AS A JOKE (ha ha, turns out the joke is on us) we decided to make her a myspace page. At the time, she didn't really know much about the internet.
After making her a cool looking page we laughed about it, and then we all made her friends. (For those that don't know about myspace, you have a friends list and you have to accept people to be your friend.)
So, after we had our fun, she asked us what she does with it now. I told her to check it every couple of days and see if anyone left her a message. We all figured that she would just leave us silly messages and we would leave silly messages for her.
Well, we underestimated my MIL. Because she doesn't work outside the home, she has a lot of time home alone. She started spending more and more time on myspace. She started looking at other peoples pages and she actually started making friends.
After a while she felt the need to have a reason for her website. So she got on the bandwagon of peace, love and harmony. Sounds good right? Her website is all about everyone getting along and choosing to love one another. As of today, she has more than 4000 people on her site as friends.
I guess through all these people she met a muslim friend. She told us that she was witnessing to him and they were learning a lot from each other. Turns out, he talked her into being muslim. Don't get me wrong, I believe she is studying up on it now. I've seen the books and so I know that she is studying it.
So, that's how she became muslim. My father-in-law is NOT muslim. He told her she can do what she wants, but she can't try and change him.
There is soooo much more to this, I can't possibly type it all out here. She has always been a difficult person to get along with. I could tell you stories of the way she treats people in the outside world and her own husband.
Frankly at this point, I just don't know WHAT we will do!
Geez-louise, Grace.
ReplyDeleteWell, she's not the first nor the last to let someone over the net influence her.
Making friends through the internet can be incredibly powerful for the novice and even for people who have been online for a long time.
Years ago when I first got online, (1995?94?96? can't remember) I joined a fan club. Three of the women on there especially became good "friends" and we chatted over email and IRC for a year or so.
Their friendship was so powerful that I let go of other face-to-face friendships in my life at that time.
We even flew out and met each other a couple of times. All well and good, right?
Okay, except one day I realized the one I was closest to was not really the kind of person she'd portrayed herself as. Now, I don't believe she did this on purpose; she just wanted everyone to like her. But she blew up at me on day over nothing and said some really scary and evil shit. Stuff I'd never dreamed anyone would say to anyone, much less this sweet and kind friend that she always came off as before.
Absolutely floored by a side of her personality I'd never seen before, I backed off and then she started being all sweetness again. But I soooo wasn't buying it. Then when I still wasn't answering her emails or phone calls, she turned into psycho bitch again and said some really scary ugly hurtful stuff.
At the time, I had just started counseling over my marriage and when I came into my session after reading some of the things she'd said, I was crying. I felt stupid that I'd let this person I'd met online make me cry so I didn't want to tell the therapist why I was crying but she got it out of me.
That's when she told me something I've never forgotten.
That the reason why reading others, strangers, can be so powerful is that when you read, their thoughts echo in *your* mind. What they say become *your* thoughts, *your* feelings, to a certain extent.
Especially if what they write is close to what you already believe in; like your MIL's Muslim friend probably talked about their belief system. Which is in many ways similar to her own belief system.
So you start to project yourself upon this faceless person, you project upon them all your own emotions and your own fears and joys. You assume that since they share so many things in common with YOU that they share almost everything in common with you.
Couple this with the fact that you are only writing or at the most, using a webcam and therefore cut off from all the many non-verbal cues we humans use to get to really know another person and it's easy to see how quickly you can "bond" with someone you barely really know.
So they become *you*, in a certain way. Like reading a book you love; the author's "voice" becomes *your* voice.
Now, a lot of the time, this can be a good thing. Dan and I fell in love this way. :) I read his books and we started up a friendship and then fell in love. All through written words in the beginning. :)
But bonding this way through written words only can also be very dangerous if you allow yourself to become lost in what *they* write about.
Eventually there is usually a "wake-up" call like with my fan-club friend from 95 I thought I was so close to and then all hell breaks loose because again, you've invested all this effort and emotion onto someone you really don't know after all.
I don't have any tips for you about your MIL or anything. Just that it's a common a hazard of being online and I'm glad you are monitoring your daughter's My Space.
Okay, done now. Thanks for the comment space! LOL! ;-P
I can't use my own computer so I'm only half working today from the kitchen. There is a small rat locked in my office with traps and I cannot go in there until it is caught. Argh!
Your MIL is probably going to be fine. She'll figure it out. Might take a while. :)
Grace, Amber talks a lot of sense.
ReplyDeleteIf you can manage it, have family discussions, get someone to play devils advocate.
When your children go out into the world there will be many different and opposing ideas they are going to have to deal with that, getting them started isn't a bad thing.
Give MIL a little time things may cool down.
Warm hugs,
Paul.
Ok Ok you have been told over and over again we will even read your grocery list! The laundry post was my all time fav....well except for the BJ post! Anyway, I never lurked here. I always felt right at home.
ReplyDeleteLove and Huggs
Theresa