April’s Fool

i am not a big fan of April Fool’s Day. i know, i know, shoot me down.

And i’m not sure i can say what i want to say here without being labelled judgmental, so go ahead if you need to.

But it was brought to light to me why i am such a big fan of not being a fan of April Fool’s Day when i read my friend James’ description of it as ‘Happy International Being Deceived Day’ or something like that.

i mean there is the trick side to it right? i am typing this with blue fingers because someone in my house (and  won’t mention Aaron’s name) stuck blue food coloring in the tap somehow and i found that pretty funny. And i believe there is a line as to what is okay and what is not in terms of ‘being tricked’ and i have a fair number of friend who i love dearly who have a completely different idea of where that line might be. And that’s okay.

But then there is the deception side of it, which is really just the pretty word for lying, right?

PLEASE KEEP YOUR FAKE BABY CHILD TO YOURSELF

We are pregnant. Ha ha no we’re not. We just deceived you. That moment of happiness and celebration you shared with me, all just a joke. Ha ha you fell for it.

Yes, i did. Well done you. You successfully deceived me.

Ah, there you go with the judging. And I’m pretty much judging you for judging me, so if one of us doesn’t pull out of this soon somebody is going to start disappearing from their family photo ‘Back to the Future’ style if you don’t know what i mean (because you’re under 33 or something).

The pregnant one is a specific area of pain for me. And i saw it when I saw just who was liking the similar statement i made on the book of faces. Some friends of mine who have really been struggling to have a baby for a number of years. For some reason they didn’t find people pretending to be pregnant all that humorous.

But beyond that, for me honesty is one of the most important things there is. It’s something i place a high value on. And so well done on deceiving me, but you also broke trust with me. And that is a difficult one to earn back. Not because i’m going to hold a grudge and choose not to forgive you for April Fooling me. But because you broke trust. It’s broken. Broken things take some time to be put back together.

SORRY FOR YOU ME!

i got taken by one person on Facebook who posted an achievement or happening in their life that seemed legit and so i wrote a short message of celebration. A minute later someone who knew them better commented on how it must have been a joke because they would never do this thing. And i quickly snuck back in and deleted my comment. i was embarrassed. Wait a second? i was embarrassed for celebrating someone? For getting excited about their joy? Such a small insignificant moment of my day and yet it felt pretty huge.

my friend Steve Heineman summed it up nicely in his very clever status: ‘Man, I can’t wait until April Fools Day is over so we can announce some huge news…’

cos that’s it really, hey? you can’t trust anything today. any announcement has to be treated with caution, any news has to be really dissected to see if it is in fact real.

WE HAVE CREATED A WHOLE DAY WHEN WE CANNOT TRUST EACH OTHER

Well, that feels like a win. And i’m sure it does to a lot of you. And good for you. But for me it feels like we’ve lost something and so i look forward to tomorrow when everything is right with the world again. Well, this thing at least… Happy International Day of deception everybody!