IS IT A WOMAN THING?

Each month a group of ladies that graduated from Fair Park High School, class of 1966 have lunch together at some agreed upon local location.  I have been a few times, but more often I have missed them.  However, last Friday, June 7, 2013, I attended.

Everything went pretty much as expected.  We had approximately 12 attendees.  Some of these ladies I knew better than others in high school.  And I was enjoying chatting with them after not seeing several for many years.

This group has evolved from a Facebook group that was started approximately a year ago, maybe longer, I'm not sure of the exact date.  The purpose of this group was to become re-acquainted with friends we had not seen in some time, updates on occasions of both joy and sorrow in our lives and for prayer requests when needed.  All very nice, right?

WAIT FOR IT....

I would check in on the posts in this group regularly just to see if anyone had prayer requests or if pictures of children, grandchildren or any other things of interest had been posted.

Several months ago, I did one of my routine checks of the posts and realized that a storm was brewing.  It seems that a couple of the members felt the need to share their political views with the other members of the group.  These posts ranged from mildly worded opinions to downright offensive posts relating to a variety of subjects all pertaining to politics.  

I won't bore you with all the name-calling, hateful things that were said both on the group wall and in private message over the next few months.  Call me a wimp, but I didn't comment on anything one way or the other but did watch long-time friendships be destroyed over this. The group eventually shut down and now we have two groups, two monthly luncheons and several people not speaking to each other and still throwing hurtful barbs back and forth.

That brings me to last Friday's luncheon.  At one point, there was a minor uproar at the table when one of the members brought up the subject of the split groups.  One member grabbed her purse and was ready to leave until persuaded to stay.  At that point, we ordered, visited and generally things settled down.  That is, until the very end of the lunch when one of the ladies dropped a huge bomb about herself that no one needed to know.  The event she confessed to happened in 1968 and I can safely say that not one person at the table knew anything about it.  This confession took great courage on the part of the lady.

Why did she confess?  Because certain members of the other group who knew about this devastating event, chose to reveal this long buried secret on the open wall of the other group.  Unbelievable.  I left the lunch reeling and not being able to get this off my mind.  The damage this has done is probably immeasurable for her.  And for what?  A little petty grievance.

Is this a woman thing?  I sure hope not.  Can a group of women not socialize together without some kind of scandal, argument, whatever spoiling things?

I'm still wondering.

Glenda