My partner never had an interest in politics or protests. Lately he's been jumping into online fights with people on social media. He seems to get a kick out of riling people up but it's bringing out a new side of him that I don't like. How do I tell him to lay low and stop being a shit disturber?
How was he spending his time before? Sounds like he’s replaced a previous activity or hobby with online trolling.
When I see tweets of people clapping back at whatever the original post was, I always go to their profile to see how much they’ve been doing that in the past hour. More often than not, it’s just tweet after tweet after tweet – dozens of replies, one after the other. That’s when I shake my head and think those people have no life. Sounds like I’m talking about your partner, am I right?
There’s nothing wrong with staying up to speed on current events. In fact, discussing what’s happening in the world is great for healthy debate and to understand people and their thoughts. When it happens in that anonymous world of social media, that’s when it goes to the extreme.
Is he having challenging debate or just slamming people with his responses? If he’s simply having dialogue (read that as arguments, too) there’s nothing wrong with that. If he’s trolling in the sense of the internet term, I can see why you’d be concerned and maybe a little embarrassed for him if his name is attached to each of his posts.
Have you thought about having those types of debates with him? I’m not saying challenging him on his behavior, I’m saying bring up some of the topics that interest him and discuss them. Maybe he’s just looking for an outlet to have some back and forth. Then again, it sounds like he enjoys doing battle and I wouldn’t recommend you start getting into current events or political fights with him. Although, maybe that'll spice up the relationship and bring some heat to it!