It takes only a few seconds of Facebook to throw off my equilibrium. I believe this is exactly what it was designed to do.

Even if I went there for a specific purpose, I come away feeling discontented and uncomfortable, as though I accidentally read a friend’s diary. In a sense, that’s what I’ve done.

As a kid growing up, I didn’t know what parties I was missing due to my relative social awkwardness or what opportunities I was losing out on due to my family’s relative lack of wealth. I wasn’t even privy to conversations in which these things were hinted at. I existed in a small world, focused on the people and pastimes that mattered most to me.

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When my nephew was about three, he interrupted dinner to make a pronouncement.

“All of da gwonups!” he said, emphatically addressing his grandparents, parents, and me. “We have a ploblem!”

The “ploblem” turned out to be that he wanted someone to play cars with, and he didn’t have too much trouble solving it.

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There were a number of years where I dreaded opening my email inbox.

I just never knew who was going to have a problem that was my fault.

The fear went away — but the emails demanding my attention didn’t. There is almost always someone upset with me now, and I’ve learned to live with it.

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This week, author Emily Giffin (who just happens to have a book coming out) told the AP that her comments last month about Meghan Markle were “mean” and that she “need[s] to be more careful about the impact of [her] words.”

Back in May, Giffin called Markle phony and unmaternal, picking apart (apparently with friends) a short video of Markle and her son reading together. She even criticized the choice to allow the baby to appear on video in a onesie. However, she was quick to assert that her comments weren’t racist.

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When I first started my email list for Eclectic Music, I was self-conscious about writing to so many people at once.

I was terrified that I would make a mistake — even a typo — that would cause people to roll their eyes and assume that I didn’t know what I was doing. I worried that I would share an idea that people would think was stupid.

What’s more, I was concerned that I was bothering people every time I sent an email out. I imagined that my relationship with these people was so tenuous and fragile that one false move would crush it. “Now she’s gone too far!” they’d say grimly, deleting the offending missive. “Who does she think she is?”

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