Started a new chapter

[ShawnaLeigh]

I have been fulltime for a mere two weeks now.  I am absolutely loving life and what it has been for me lately.

Even with the divorce slowing rolling forward I am truly happy being who I am.

A couple days ago I decided to let go of a big piece of Shawn.

I wrote a lovely farewell post on my Facebook page and stopped going to it.  I did not close it down because there may be others distant from me that I need or want to contact, or for them contact me, but for all intents and purposes I do not use that account anymore.  Shawn has been put away.

 

So I started a new Facebook page as Shawna Leigh with the intent to just adding family and a few close friends.  Even my mom (and those who know should see that is huge for me to do)  I did not want to huge friends list and was sadly caught up in seeing how big I could get it in the early days of Facebook.  I friended anyone I possible think of or could of known or their family members too.  Stupid I now.  Fast forward and I was getting sick of all the politics and now the Corvid virus And the stupid toilet paper crisis! I have had enough of getting pics of what every one ate that night or about things going on in their lives that I had no clue about.  I barely knew these people no less decades after the fact.  I was always nice but -Puke!   Sorry it was just all to much.

So I wanted to start fresh and keep it simple.

Yea right!

I was blown up with a huge amount of people from my past sending me friend requests!  I was overwhelmed with the love and support from people I have not seen nor talked to in over 30 years!  How the heck did they know about me?  Literally well over a hundred people have been blowing up my page to be my friend and message me to tell me how brave I am, or proud of me, or whatever.  From as far back as my toddler days, to high school, to all my military friends and a ton of past coworkers.  It has been wonderful and terrifying all at the same time!

Now I am wondering if I did the right thing.

I'm right back where I was but at least I am "me" now and not using "his" account anymore.  

 

I am also getting a fairly large influx of creeps trying to friend me as well.  Both male and female whom I do not know but might be in someone's friends list whom I had just accepted.  I don't know these folks at all but I ask the people I do know who are "mutual friends" with these creeps and if they know the person, and I have gotten some pretty stern warnings about a few of them.  (Yikes!) 

A couple folks I received good reports on but I still did not know them.  

One creep lives very close to me and I frequent a hardware store he works at. Yea not going there anymore...  Another women says I saved her life when we were kids and has loved me her entire life and she would do anything for me.  She went on and on quite a bit.  (Can you say stocker!  Double Yikes.)

 

So yea it has been an interesting couple of days.  

Sorry for the rant I just needed to vent about this.  

 

 

 

[KathyLauren]

Yeah, the whole Facebook thing!  I ran two pages for a while: old me and new me.  Keeping them separate was hard work, because Facebook's default settings are for maximum promiscuity.  If the two pages have even a single friend in common, then all that person's friends will be notified of your new page ("People you might like to know").

 

I recommend adjusting your settings.  I have the default privacy setting for my own posts set to "friends only".  The general public can't see any of my posts unless I manually override the default for a specific post.  I also have friend requests limited so that only friends of friends can send me a friend request.  The general public can't.  That way, I have at least one friend in common with anyone asking to friend me, and I can ask that person what they are like.

 

I used to get friend requests from chasers (typically claiming to be soldiers serving in the Middle East), but tightening up my security settings has eliminated them.

[ShawnaLeigh]

I'm not super Facebook savvy so I will have to check on my settings.  I know I did not chose "open to the public" but from there not sure.  

[Jani]

2 hours ago, KathyLauren said:

Facebook's default settings are for maximum promiscuity. 

This is why I have never used FB.  My mother had one for a while and I would get "messages" from her that were obviously sent by FB.  They access the users contact list.  It was creepy.    

[Susan R]

2 hours ago, Jani said:

This is why I have never used FB.

I have never used FB either. The idea of having to choose which people to accept and decline was a turn off for me right from the start.  In the early days, I would get email ...email spam really, from FB asking if I knew this person. My wife, who has an account told me, it’s likely happening because the person may have done a search on my name or was a friend of hers on her friends list.  Either way, it sounded too invasive for my taste. FB works for many but I’m living just fine without it.

 

Susan R?

[ShawnaLeigh]

I originally just signed up to keep up with my family who was spread all over the dang country.  Three of which are my kids I have not seen since they were toddlers.  Who now have kids of their own.  So yea I am a grandma.  LOL

Then I got sucked into the friend list count crap shortly after that and it went crazy from there.

 I enjoy cruising it from time to time and getting in touch with old friends or military "buddies" but I do not go crazy on it.  

Starting fresh with my new name and identity was nice and I do feel I have decent control over who I let in or not.  Its the internet though so if you use it, for anything, it will spy on you some way some how.  

JMO

[Jani]

My family uses Instagram (I know another FB company) but limit it to just family.  We share photos and brief updates.  Its enough although I find the notifications to be annoying as they still come after I've viewed a new post.   

[ToniTone]

I always said I would keep it small but... My fb is a dumpster fire ? I have had the same one since pretty much the beginning, no alts or anything. The few family members I still talk to (ma mainly), old punk rock and college friends, tons of close online friends from my meme groups (we're like a big family, it's crazy), and now my lovely co-workers. I'm in over a thousand meme groups. And that's all I really do, make and share memes. 

 

When I came out almost a year ago, one of the first things I did was change my name socially to Toni. Only a subtle difference from my "deadname" (Tony), but it was very empowering for me. 

 

I hardly have any photos from before I started transitioning. But ever since I take them all the time. To see how I'm transforming. But, despite being quite shy still, I feel like I'm getting prettier and it compels me in front of the camera lol. 

 

My name on there is Toni Tonicide. It's my punk name, my real last name is very common in the midwest and is dull. Feel free to friend me on there or Insta (don't use much) if any of y'all want! 

 

~Toni

[Lexi C]

well if FB don't kill and drive you nuts, then I am sure Alexa will. Good Luck. Sorry to hear about the marriage, but that's a good thing. Be safe, BE Proud, and KICK ASS