How Much Appreciaton is Enough?

Remember those story questions in math? Those always used to drive me batty. Still do. This is kinda like those math story problems. I'm gonna put it to all y'all, and see what ya come up with.

A social network acquaintance did something very nice for me, as I would not be able to attend a personal appearance featuring a favorite celebrity. This acquaintance was going to attend the appearance, and because I could not, obtained an autograph from that celeb for me, postin' picture of same on my social network wall. I wrote a thank you to that acquaintance the minute my eyes beheld the picture and then sent an email to that acquaintance as to how to get the item to me.

In the meantime, this same person did something I did not agree with, and could not condone. I cried foul on it, and because it bothered me so much, blogged about it right here, but was careful to keep names out of it. No names were mentioned. You can read it for yourself.

I was pretty blunt in describing the person's behavior. The adjective fits. i don't apologize for usin' it. The behavior has the potential to cause harm to a lot of innocent people thanks to guilt by association. I'd like to hope not, but one never knows.

Well, the miscreant who irked me with the misbehavior took the adjective and the blog personally. They felt hurt and betrayed that after goin' out of their way to do this nice thing for me, I had turned on them. Obviously the person read the blog, but they got the wrong message from the blog.

A series of private messages on FB flowed. The PMs were along the same vein, justifying their persepctive and the behavior itself. As the PMs progressed, I was called harsh, uncaring, mean spirited, and the SOA/Twitter police. I was told by this person I need to mind my own business and not read what they post on the WWW (I'm still scratchin' my head on that one!).

The most galling thing was for the person to state several times that they weren't bein' properly/appropriately thanked for their gesture. This after being shown gratitude on my own FB page, on this very blog, and in all subsequent PMs! How much gratitude does a person need, for cryin' out loud?

See, where I come from, sayin' a sincere 'thank you' was usually enough. Same thing with writing a thank you note for a present. Once was enough. Even if you had a dispute with the giver, a simple, sincere, single thank you often bridged the gap.

Nowadays, it seems that people expect you to take out a billboard and/or prime drive time teevee/radio ad space to proclaim your humble appreciation for their thoughtfulness.

I don't know about you, but it just doesn't add up to me.