Open Letters.
This popular trend of our generation passive aggressively hashing out their feelings, good or bad, in an article or blog post. If you know me I am a huge advocate of talking about your feelings, getting it all out and dealing with it. Talking about how you feel is the best way to cope and move on with a situation in my opinion. However, I am not the biggest advocate of all these passive aggressive “Open Letters” we are seeing on our Facebook feeds.
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Among the most popular are the open letters to ex lovers that are normally titled with something like “An Open Letter To The Boy Who Broke My Heart” or “An Open Letter To The One That Walked Away”. Other popular titles I have seen are “An Open Letter To My Ex Best Friend” or “An Open Letter To My Best Friend’s New Best Friend”.
Don’t get me wrong there are some open letters that are completely acceptable. For example, the open letter to Santa Claus was pretty solid and the open letters to loved ones who have passed away are extremely heart wrenching and meaningful.
However, these passive aggressive, 500 word feel fests are not the cure to our problems. If we can all get honest with ourselves for a second, we can admit that we either have written or shared a passive aggressive open letter on Facebook simply because we knew the person that we felt this way towards would read it and possibly feel bad or even sorry for what they have done or did to us in the past. Maybe that specific person does read all of our open letters that we share, who knows. But I have a pretty solid feeling that they don’t.
Typing things out on a computer screen can be way easier than actually saying those words to someone’s face. There are so many words that go unsaid unless they are written down. I understand the importance of sharing our feelings and for some written word is the only way those feelings can be dealt with. With all of that being said, I wonder what the percentage of people is that actually share these open letters to ex lovers because that is the only way they can possibly handle those feelings. I wonder how many ex-best friends have reached out to their old “bestie” after reading one of these articles that the ex best friend had shared and asked them to go grab a cup of coffee. As I said earlier I feel like that percentage might be kind of low. As a generation that loves to hide behind a computer screen, we share these open letters to ex lovers, ex best friends, ex teammates and all the other exes because we could never actually say those words to their face. We do not even entertain the thought of walking up to someone’s door and laying down how we feel because we are too comfortable in our own beds and because hitting share just seems a little easier.
It may be a little far-fetched or crazy even, but I challenge you to think before you hit the share button on that next open letter. Think about why you are sharing it. If you cannot come up with any other reasons for sharing other than to make someone who may or may not see it on your Facebook feed feel bad, that probably is not the best reason. If there are words you left unsaid, write them down, send a letter or I don’t know actually call someone up and ask to have a real conversation. Honesty and transparency can go a long way if you have the courage to let them.
