There is this guy I used to date, way back when I when I was an impressional silly young thing. This guy? He was full of scorn + sacasm. If he didn’t agree with something, he’d make some horrible sarcastic retort while implying that he knew better. That whatever you were doing was the stupidist, most idiotic thing you could do.

I see people all over twitter + facebook blacking out their profile picture protesting the New Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill that the New Zealand government snuck in with new laws to help Christchurch after their earthquake. In 2009 the bill was overturned (because it was so incredibly idiotic) and it appears that the new bill is just as atrocious.

So I’ve blacked out my twitter profile pic, because I disagree with what the NZ government is doing. Because I’d like everyone else to know that this is what I think, and because everytime I come across another blacked out profile pic? I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one who feels this way.

It’s a harmless, small thing to do. It doesn’t hurt anyone. It quietly says that I disagree, and that’s enough.

This guy that I used to date? This is exactly something his sarcasm would kick up a notch over. Things like “Oh yeah, you can change the world with a blacked out image” or “black out, stab at the very heart of ‘the man’”.

He never saw the point. He would say that it doesn’t acheive anything, that changing your profile image has no bearing on the outcome. That it was a complete waste of time. The scorn + sarcasm would come out in bucket loads.

Here’s what I think: it’s not a feeble attempt to change a law with an image change. I think its a show of support + encouragement. And it’s this kind of supprt that get things changed. It’s the kind of support that got the bill thrown out last time.

So sure, I’m not personally marching down to the beehive with pickets, causing chaos and mayhem as I go (I was in Rome when those riots happened in December. I’m good on avoiding anything like that, thanks). But for the people that are enacting change? Who are looking for a referendum? For all the MPs who will debate against the change? I support them. Quietly, without causing much fuss, I can add my support to them while also spreading awareness.

Here’s what I don’t get about this boy who is all full of sarcasm: It doesn’t hurt him in the slightest if I, or the many other kiwis doing it blackout a profile image. It doesn’t affect his life one tiny iota. So why does he feel the need to get down on other people who are quietly showing their support against a cause they disagree with? If he had a better way to fight ‘the man’ then fair enough, but in all the time I knew him, he preferred to get down on other peoples ideas instead of finding a solution. He didn’t want to join the game, he wanted to boo from the sideline.

So then, to all the people who have blacked out their profiles? I’m with you. To the people who will hopefully enact change to bring about smart and senisble laws, I’m with you too.

To the idiots all across the internet who use sarcasm + scorn to make people feel horrible about themselves? Fuck you. Find something helpful to be scornful about. Because doing something (no matter how minor) in favour of what you believe in is better than doing nothing.

The other day I was talking with a friend about boys that were a bit too keen. She said “He’ll get over it, or I’ll break his heart. Either way, he’ll live.” I laughed, and agreed, knowing exactly what she was talking about. But afterwards it made me wonder. Why is it that when a boy is overly keen that you want to step back? Why is this? And what is it about a boy being so keen that we look down on?

I left a something months + months ago. I left it behind in New Zealand, and pretty much wiped my hands of it. It was a nothing where the boy was more than keen. He made it clear that he loved me. That if I asked, he’d move across the world for me. That he valued what he felt for me. And I made it clear that sadly, I did not return his feelings. I was not looking for what he was. I did not want a forever with him. That in no uncertain terms was he to show up over this side of the world in the hopes of wooing me. It was a difficult nothing to be in.

Here, where I sit right now, the boy who is keen on my friend is being mocked. His facebook page is being stalked, and he is being judged. He is being judged because he is who he is, and he’s been a little too open with his appreciation of my friend.

I feel a bit sick, really. I never once let the nothing I left behind be openly mocked like this. I never belittled what he felt, and I never once bragged about it. I remember what it’s like to love someone and have it be unrequited. It’s hard, and it hurts.

It’s hard on this side too, though. I call what I left behind a nothing. It wasn’t a relationship, and it definitely had no future, but there was something about it that meant it went on longer than perhaps it should of. It was complicated. A lot of that was because of this imbalance of feelings, all the power was in my court and I knew it. I was careful, as much as I could be to be honest about how I felt. But because he felt as strongly as he did, I felt I had to be careful not to encourage him. I was careful about praise, or displays of affection, or anything that might raise his hopes in a way that might be untrue.

And even now, I do it. While I’m careful to ignore him on various social networks, I suspect he reads my twitter feed. It’s entirely possible he’ll read this (in which case: please don’t. Let it go, hey.). So sometimes when I tweet something or post something, if it reminds me of him, or makes me feel in anyway that he’ll read into it, I delete it. Tweets, posts, whatever. Even now, I don’t want to give him hope where there is none.

Then there are the drunken, late at night moments. It’s lonely when your travelling. Even if you’re surrounded by lovely people, these are lovely people who don’t know me, yet. And it’s in these drunken lonely lying in the dark moments where I wonder why I turned away from something that could have been simple. I even went as far, once, to send him a drunken text (something I abhore receiving myself). No reply. I imagined he’d given up. What a dark lonely night that was.

But sure enough when it was bright and I was hydrated I’d remembered what kind of person he was: how young he was, what he was into and what he wanted out of life. These things were different to what I was into, and what I wanted in my life. I didn’t step out because he was keen. I stepped out because as a person, he was in a different place to where I was. And only when I realised this did I think to ask my friend about what kind of person her too-keen guy was. What he did, and what he was like, and what he was into. As a person, rather than a boy that was too keen.

I think sometimes it’s easy to reduce a person down to a single, driving feature. I think that sometimes, if a boy is keen and with all the power in your court, it’s easy to judge him and it’s easy to dismiss his feelings. I think that if you’re in a stable and happy relationship, and have been for a long time, it’s easy to judge those that are putting themselves out there.

And I think that the people sitting over there, right now, judging this poor boy who is keen on my friend have completely forgotten this. How hard it is to put yourself out there, and say to someone that you like them.

I think that from this point forward, I won’t mock people who are brave and are keen. I won’t dismiss them as easily, or judge as harshly as I once did.

* I wrote this a few months ago, but didn’t post it in the hope that with a little bit of time + breathing space, perhaps a little bit of perspective, that the nothing in question would have grown up a little, and out of his habit of watching what I do. I hope that he has, but *shrug* I thought waiting a little couldn’t hurt.