Imagine (with Apologies to John Lennon)

I was going to make this post before someone with whom I had (felt I had?) an adversarial online relationship with unfriended me.  Well, I had been thinking about unfriending her; I just had been too much of a wimp to do it.

The title of this post came from my pondering "suppose I just deleted all the people who make me feel bad about myself from my online reading life"?  It doesn't really matter why they make me feel bad about myself, whether it is about me or about them.  The issue is, they do.  Taking count, I see that I still have at least four voice teachers and several working singers on my friends list, all of whom are supportive and affirming, so a person being a singer or a voice teacher is not really the issue.

Some people have very sharp tongues.  Whether or not this means they also have mean hearts is debatable.  My mother had a sharp tongue and a generous heart.

I don't think I need to be around people with sharp tongues.  This is not what I want in my life.  It doesn't mean that I won't get the constructive criticism I need, or guidance, or being called up short on my character defects.  But there was an old saying "she who gossips to you will gossip about you".  And certainly you can substitute the word "snark" for the word "gossip".  Today Miss Kansas, tomorrow me.

So what's left?

Practice.  Learn new material.  Plan concerts. Stay on top of having a choir solo every season. Enjoy improving my musicianship singing with the choir. Make friends. Spend time places where I will be listened to.  Get away from the Upper West Side and hang out with some accountants, dentists, secretaries, bankers, pediatricians, anyone who isn't a musician or theater person who will make me feel small, whether that is their intention or not.  Take care of my SO.  We don't have that many years left together, most likely.

ETA: Well it turns out that now two other voice teachers, one whom I had just had a pleasant exchange with, and the other whom I scarcely knew, unfriended me as well.  I find that rather surprising.  Only one of them is a blogger and she sticks strictly to the nuts and bolts end of her craft.  I have never heard her say an unkind word about anyone.  The other is someone who puts on concerts.  I guess I just have to let it go.