Third, Briefly in BookThree: Flight Log 2016

I titled this third because my primary hasn’t been published yet.

I admit I can be a petty petty person. Especially when it comes to moral disagreements. WAAAAY back in college… so a good 10 years or so… one of my female friends had recently broken up with her boyfriend. They weren’t a good fit anyway, but that isn’t the point. The point is that several weeks after they had broken up, I walked into her room and she and her roommate were giggling at the computer. They had accessed the ex-boyfriend’s e-mail and were reading all of his shit. I was… disturbed, furious, upset, etcetera. This was a gigantic breach. I mean… I know it was 10 years ago but even back then… people used E-Mail for everything from Family Communication to Business Communication.

Her response was to say I was over reacting, blowing something way out of proportion because, “If he gave me his password when we were dating and didn’t change it after we broke up; I’m not doing anything wrong!” Which… you can disagree with me, but I don’t agree with that logic.

I responded that perhaps he had forgotten he’d given her the password or (more likely) trusted that she was a respectable and honorable person who wouldn’t do something like that. She and her roomie laughed and kept going, giggling to each other about the things this boy had been up to, who he had been communicating with, and what he had been saying. I thought it was in extremely poor taste, showed a disrespect for the boy and for herself, and established that she didn’t see boundaries where they should certainly exist.

FAST FORWARD TO TODAY.

I have a case with a fairly stable ex-Con Father and a very unstable Meth Using Mom. The Father has no attorney, so I e-mail him court notices (because I need him present to continue with the case regarding his own children). Mom? Hacks his e-mail. Continually. Allegedly even deleted a notice to appear to court (I sent it e-mail and snail mail for safety so it didn’t create a problem). His mother-in-law E-Mailed me the new e-mail address he created to get around Mom’s bullshit and the mother in law said, “Clearly she shows that she has no boundaries!”

GRANTED… the comparison is the difference between looking at apples and eating an orchard. VASTLY different. But as all this was going on? I still flashed back to that moment in college. The idea that “It isn’t wrong” to go into someone else’s communications for personal reasons. And I wonder if I was seeing then the beginnings of what is discussed today? The “no privacy and that’s just fine” some of my generation believe.