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A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

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Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#161

Post by ahoyhere »

sage_joch wrote: post #140
ahoyhere wrote: post #116

Surely I'm not the only one who read the screenshotted exchanges and thought: He just told the OP he's waiting for "answers" from the doctor. He can't make travel plans. He says it's long, gruesome, UGH. Guys. In case you have the social instinct of a cockroach, this is what they call A SIGN. Not a subtle one, either. That is when you LEAP to care for your friend. Here's what you do. You ask: Wait a minute, forget ab…

It seems wrong to say both that he has the "social instinct of a cockroach" and that he's selfish (implying his oversight was a choice). I'm inclined to believe it's the former, given that he is making a post like this. Social instinct is not easy for many programmers, myself included. Your comment almost amounts to assigning blame via the butterfly effect. edit: rewording my first sentence per comment below

Self-centered, to me, means not thinking of others, because you're preoccupied with yourself. So, it makes sense to me.

Also, I didn't say "The OP has the social skills of a cockroach." Here I was addressing the audience -- the readers of my comment -- who clearly weren't taking away the same thing from the essay that I was.

For all I know, the OP deliberately avoided the topic, which means his social skills are fine, he's just a bad friend (as he indicates a reader of his blog post will think anyway). Being a bad friend in this way doesn't make you a bad person. You don't HAVE to act like a friend to somebody -- simply don't claim friendship. There, you're absolved.

(If the post was "A guy I was once friends with and then never really cared about after that, died and I didn't know", nobody would have really cared to read it.)

But it does make it seem kinda iffy to write a blog post about it, even include screenshots of the conversation, and not (apparently?) be socially aware enough to realize that the deceased man was nearly begging his friend to express some interest and concern. And so many of the commenters, from my perspective, were not picking up on anything the OP did not explicitly lay out in the essay itself, which is to say: his friend was telegraphing his problems in every possible way, and the OP ignored it. People seem to be reading it and thinking, "Oh, just one of those things." But it's only one of those things if you don't think of, or care for, others.

"assigning blame via the butterfly effect" <-- I didn't understand this. If you mean I'm waving my hands and implying it was the OP's fault the guy was sick and died, no, that's not what I meant. His fault lay in not paying attention to his friend, and then acting surprised.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#162

Post by matznerd »

InTheSwiss wrote: post #46
noonespecial wrote: post #8

As one of the older folks on HN, I can tell you that death in the age of facebook is strange in that even when they are gone there's still a "there-ness" to them thanks to left over accounts. Its almost like at any moment, a tweet will pop up or an update to a wall... Perhaps that's the 21st century version of seeing ghosts.

When my girlfriend died I could not bring myself to remove her from my friends list. She is still there. Her beautiful smile looks at me nearly every day. Some days I am glad to see that little profile picture of hers and others it is painful. Her family could have the account closed I guess but I think they feel the same as me and closing it is like deleting a little part of what we have left of her :(

I feel you. A girl I dated passed away and her family deleted all of her social media accounts. I was already still coping with losing her in the real world and then she instantly vanished from the online world too. There were pictures of her and me that I no longer have access to, and our conversations now show up with a blank face (Facebook chat was the last way we communicated). The only remnant I could find of her online was an Etsy account. She had a wishlist on there with a few items on it and so I bought something she had picked and it is hanging on my wall right now.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#163

Post by YokoZar »

lambada wrote: post #146
evolve2k wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most important thing it does is remove them from suggest a friend requests list which can be very disturbing to receive. 'John wants to connect with you', Oh that's cool, wtf?! John's dead?!

According to [0] >Depending on the privacy settings of the deceased person's account, friends can share memories on the memorialized timeline I'd love to know which Privacy Settings control this ability, it's interesting they don't specifically call out the relevant option. [0] https://www.facebook.com/help/www/103897939701143?rdrhc

It's probably "allow friends to post on my wall" (or anyone).

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#164

Post by MichaelGG »

ahoyhere wrote: post #113
DanBC wrote: post #71

A very close friend died. I knew she died, she died while she was on the phone to me. I had my cell phone (to her) in one hand and my landline (to the police) in the other. They were saying "ask her about landmarks! Ask her for her address!" and she was saying "oh ho ho! You won't get it out of me that easily". The online stuff is a bit hard for me to deal with. She had a friendster page, but not Facebook. There's a…

I'm sorry you went through that. Of course a memorial page wouldn't help comfort you, when you know your friend was murdered, you know who the killer was, and there would never be justice, just the thought of how you failed, and how the killer was taunting you right to the end. I know how you feel.

I believe the friend was committing suicide and did not want the police intervening.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#165

Post by statictype »

noonespecial wrote: post #8

As one of the older folks on HN, I can tell you that death in the age of facebook is strange in that even when they are gone there's still a "there-ness" to them thanks to left over accounts. Its almost like at any moment, a tweet will pop up or an update to a wall... Perhaps that's the 21st century version of seeing ghosts.

Yeah, and it's a very weird and sad feeling to delete someone's entry from your address book because they passed away.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#166

Post by dboat »

tychof wrote: post #157
shocks wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey man, hope you're doing okay. I know it's hard, but keep smiling. She'd want it that way. :) Sorry for your loss.

Please understand that something you think is helpful may not be. You should assume it isn't unless you have specific knowledge of the person involved. In general, the bereaved don't need platitudes which cheapen their loss or try to fast-forward them through the grieving process. Don't presume to know what the deceased _or_ the bereaved feel or _should_ feel, and don't assume they share/d your beliefs. Instead of 'c…

Half agree with your post, but I can see why you are downvoted.

To me, in grief, platitudes and comforting words seem like a useless distraction and annoyance, but I wouldn't then go on to suggest your way of being around the grieving is what everybody needs to be doing. He was being nice and wasn't hurting anybody doing it, and there isn't such a dearth of those posts that we need to attack them.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#167

Post by scarybootstrap »

MichaelGG wrote: post #164
ahoyhere wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry you went through that. Of course a memorial page wouldn't help comfort you, when you know your friend was murdered, you know who the killer was, and there would never be justice, just the thought of how you failed, and how the killer was taunting you right to the end. I know how you feel.

I believe the friend was committing suicide and did not want the police intervening.

Yes, me again, and that's exactly what I was saying: S/he was being taunted by his/her friend, as she murdered herself, while OP was helpless to do anything but listen.

As I said: I know how that feels.

Generally people side emotionally with the person who ended their life, but when they deliberately call you up, taunt you, laugh at you while you desperately try to help them… that's murder in my book. Maybe it's a murder under the influence, but it's awful and it's cruel in addition to desperately sad. No wonder a memorial doesn't help you feel better, because it memorializes your lost friend, and the person who viciously taunted you while killing them. "I'm going to make you listen." And you know the murderer will never be brought to justice, and it's probably awful to be angry at them (and people don't want to hear what happened anyway, and if you tell them, they act like "Oh they were just ill" and you have no right to hate the murderer, etc, etc).

You can't comfort yourself with the thought that you didn't know, that you couldn't have known. (Common suicide coping technique.)

You can't say, "S/he was in so much pain, now at peace" -- because they dragged you with them.

You can't tell yourself any of the pleasant lies. And, you can rarely if ever tell the story, because nobody wants to hear it… just about everybody sympathizes with the one person who doesn't need it any more (who's beyond sympathy now, unlike you, as you get more and more scarred).

And, in my experience, the successful suicide attempt is not the first time this scenario played out, just the unfortunate last one.

As I said: I know how that feels. I bet the poor commenter I replied to understood me.

I'm truly glad that the people who downvoted me almost surely have never had to experience it. Good. Keep it that way.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#170

Post by brandoncapecci »

matznerd wrote: post #162
InTheSwiss wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When my girlfriend died I could not bring myself to remove her from my friends list. She is still there. Her beautiful smile looks at me nearly every day. Some days I am glad to see that little profile picture of hers and others it is painful. Her family could have the account closed I guess but I think they feel the same as me and closing it is like deleting a little part of what we have left of her :(

I feel you. A girl I dated passed away and her family deleted all of her social media accounts. I was already still coping with losing her in the real world and then she instantly vanished from the online world too. There were pictures of her and me that I no longer have access to, and our conversations now show up with a blank face (Facebook chat was the last way we communicated). The only remnant I could find of he…

Christ... reading that made me feel instantly depressed. Sorry that happened to you man.
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