Bad lj friend! Bad! *smacks own wrist*

[coffeesnob318]

Sorry I haven't been keeping up with everyone lately. I just ran through as much of the flist as I could in the measley 20 minutes I have between classes. I'll be a good lj friend and start commenting again soon, I promise.

The Move is still going smoothly. Or, more accurately (is that how you spell it..I've retyped it so many times I can't tell anymore), The Move's Aftermath is going smoothly. I still haven't had time to switch over my phone or cable (so if you tried to call me at home, that's why you didn't get me). Or my mail. Where is the time going?!?

I did figure out (with the help of Mel) which mailbox is mine yesterday. One might think they'd be labeled with the apartment number. But one would be wrong.

I miss my cable most of all. It's weird - as long as I know it's there, I can go for days without ever even opening up the entertainment center. But just because I can't watch, I want to. I wake up thinking about TV. This is what being without cable has reduced me to.

I shall post the whole moving drama, including a very, very large section on just how awesome my friends are, later. I'll be sure to hide it behind a cut tag so that those of you who would rather chew gravel than read it can scroll more easily.

Comments

[wingsonwind.livejournal.com]

Hey, you've been busy! It happens! Hope the new home is turning out to be a happy one for you.

[coffeesnob.livejournal.com]

It really is. I wake up all giddy. I just wish I had internet connection within walking distance. It may be hard to keep up with my online friends now.

[ishtar127a.livejournal.com]

"Sorry I haven't been keeping up with everyone lately."

You and everyone under the terran sky, or so it seems. :) (I suppose I'd better say at the outset I'm not swinging again at anyone in particular. Not you or anyone else. It's just that I find in it yet another destructive contradiction. We're so hyped on appearances in our culture, and yet we don't think about what our actions look like to others, regardless of what we mean.) There's always stuff to occupy your time, without even trying. When anyone asks if I ever get bored... I laugh. Me going all soapbox-y was mostly , per my usual, to make a point. Actions take effort, and so they speak louder than mere words. And it's easier to lie with words than with your body. Even the most optimistically generous person can only make so many excuses to themselves and believe it.

Take, for example, our DLF Chuckles, aka MR. He used to put up letters to his fans. Now he doesn't. And I saw a few break out with comments reflecting that negatively. Well, he's busy! We know that he's busy. It's blatantly obvious that he's busy! But still the comments are made, and at least they are honest about it.

Or, if someone spends a lot of time with you and asks for your time and help "as a friend." Fine; we spend time; we make time in our busy schedules to meet their needs. But if the last word we hear from them is that they are happy now and they never bother to get in contact with you again, what is the most likely conclusion? That we were used. We were a means to an end, and nothing more. They got what they wanted; we can go back in the box now like the good little puppet we were.

That's sarcasm, by the way. They may be busy. They may be hiding some terrible trouble that they're too embarrassed or ashamed to share. Hell! They may even be dead for all we know. But that's the point; we don't.Keeping back hurtful information may be felt to be a kindness, but sometimes I feel it's the greatest cruelty we possess. People do not need all of the truth all of the time, but they often need more than we are willing to give.

And since I'm going off on another tangent, I'll shut up now. At least I got most of the machine in a functional state, so that I can hook in online now! (Hope it stays that way...)


Personally, I can't determine the reasons behind people's actions without information. I can guess; I can try to piece it together

[coffeesnob.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you brought this up. Now I get to vent to people who understand about a complaint that one of my ftf friends has been making about me (not to me, mind you. No, actually addressing it to me would require some level of maturity beyond that of a fourth grader). She called a mutual friend the other day to complain that I don't seem to have time for her since I moved (it hasn't even been a week, and I've spent no less time with her than I usually do). Apparently, my silence is deafening. So I called her to soothe her hurt feelings, and was bombarded with a 30-minute spiel on how I don't ever think of anyone but myself. Of course I don't. That's why I was late to work because I took time to call her to make sure she was ok with something that wasn't even important enough for her to address to me personally. Grr....I hate projection.

He used to put up letters to his fans. Now he doesn't. And I saw a few break out with comments reflecting that negatively.

I noticed that, too. I think that was my final straw in being fed up with the message board. Sure, sure, honesty. But wow, what a bunch of whiners! What are they - five years old? I think it was remarkable (not expected - not something he owed us) when he wrote letters to the fans. That he doesn't anymore does not affect my perception of him. It's not about me, or any of us. It was a nice thing he did, not just once but at least twice that I recall; why can't we just be satisfied and leave it at that?

I've found that it's a good idea to keep in mind that, 90% of the time, what other people do is about them, not me. It's saved me a lot of time, wondering what is wrong, or what I did, or how I can make it better, or how I can be more a part of their lives. And, since I'm one of those people who doesn't talk a lot (hard to believe, I know, since I teach speech and I can't seem to shut up once I get on here, but true nonetheless), I realize that my silence can be misleading, especially to people I've just met or those who don't think a lot of themselves (so they always assume others share their low opinions of themselves). But I'm pretty easy (heh, heh. Not that way). If I'm mad, I say so. If I'm happy, I say so. If I have something to say, I say it. If I don't, I say nothing. I guess that's not enough for some people, but I do not operate according to others' perceptions - no one does - that would be impossible, and even if it were possible, unneccesarily exhausting.

It is especially exhausting to try to make sense of someone's perceptions when they are really nothing but paranoid delusions, as in the case of the previously mentioned friend. My behavior toward her had not changed; it was just her perception. I actually had to explain to her that, if I'm in a new apartment, and I have stuff in a kajillion boxes to unpack and put to place before I have guests (of whom she is a part, don't ya know) on Friday morning, that's what I'm going to spend my time doing, and it doesn't mean anything other than I want to unpack and get settled as soon as possible. Then I called her self-absorbed and said goodbye. Probably not my highest, shining moment of conflict management, but I think I got my point across.

I don't know if that had anything to do with your comment, but it felt good to vent anyway. :)

[ishtar127a.livejournal.com]

Vent! Please do! You are at least constructively venting and with a set topic in mind. Me, I head so far out into abstraction that the therapeutic venting gets drowned in a sea of philosophical musings. Instead of letting off steam and getting sympathy, I just confuse, annoy, or scare everyone in the vicinity.

Projection. Yes. It's too slippery a danger for us all. It's ... what's the word? Pharmeceutical term, where it build up in the system. (Sorry, tired. Doesn't help, nyet?) Anyway, it does that. and it's not like stacking blocks in a pile. More like a rubbery see-saw, where you take it off one side and put it on the other. Or (showing off her schooling) like the gravity field or population curves! Not linear but exponential. So one person goes quiet; you go, "That's odd." A second goes quiet and you say, "Mmm... strange; there's another." A third, and you start to worry, "Did I do something?" And on...

Well I work with stats, and I know all about how suggestive trends can grab hold and accelerate. But even I start to go a little berk when people drop through little black holes in droves. Normal, because we always want to explain things in terms we ourselves understand. It makes us feel safer, like if we name and label it, we can control it. Hence all sorts of screw-ball cults and mysticisms and circular-reasoning ideologies, born of our minds trying to color between the blank lines and fill the empty spaces. It's the same drive for all forms of genius, so I don't quite knock it. But it's also tiring for you to hear it from someone. On a certain level, she was right to complain. But part of that right of hers includes the option for you to react as reasonably as you did, and tell her she was wrong. I get the same way. When I'm tired, and sick, and cranky, and upset and worried and overloaded--if someone hits me broadside with any little weapon I did not expect or prepare for, there's nothing left of the cultural brakes I place on myself, and instead I go into heavy-duty annihilator mode, my last-ditch defensive reflex. Hit me bad enough and all the switches kick in, and I get more than a little unfair to people who are not the direct problem. That's also normal. Plus I'm pretty elemental. Maybe that's your friend's problem. On the other hand, if she's simply to childish to get past her thumb-sucking reflex to your past care, a forcible weaning may be your only option. Some people will never learn until they get punched in the face. Some won't even learn then!

I'd say much more, but I'm dropping steadily. And as lilmouse1073 has been coaching me, it's time I took care of myself. Else I'll never have a foundation to stand out and lend a hand to anyone else. **nods off**

[coffeesnob.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, if she's simply to childish to get past her thumb-sucking reflex to your past care,

Yes, that's most likely it. She tends to jump into poor-me mode a little too quickly for my taste. I'm not ready to give up on her, though - she's gotten a lot better since I've known her - we have a pretty strong group of friends, and we all give her as much attention as we can. She's had a rough past, and I can accept that some people need more attention than others. I'm fine with that. But this particular situation is nothing more than her testing the people who love her by being bitchy to see if they'll still love her or if they'll detach and run away, giving her more reason to play the victim (and I say that with a touch of sarcasm, because if others' behavior is nothing more than a result of her own bad behavior, she's not really a victim). It's mean; it's manipulative; there's nothing right about it. There are better, less destructive, and more edifying ways to get attention. Maybe she calls to say hello. That would be nice. She doesn't have to make up a grievance to be heard. That's what I told her, and she didn't disagree. She's just so used to having to trick people into spending time with her that she doesn't quite get that we want to! Maybe someday... *shrugs*

[ishtar127a.livejournal.com]

I know. It's a tough one to handle. It constantly freaks me out, too, that practically all the descriptions we each put out can be applied to almost anyone. Yep! Even me. :) Because we all go through tough phases, and we all need a little lovin', and we ALL need company, and attention, and that cliche helping hand. And when we don't get it in the manner that we need it, that makes it even worse and the desperation gets carried on to our next contact, who because of the increased need may be all the quicker to back away, and... standard cascade effect.

But you are right too. There are people who take advantage of good natured individuals, and take more than there share, and demand more even after that! I had my own personal version of the same quite recently, as I measure time. First they solicited attention and cited bonds of friendship, and even "love"; that was the word they used. Then they went and deliberately abused the trust I put in them, in a way I had already told them I would find totally repugnant as a hypothetical argument. And then they admitted their own actions, but told me that it was all my fault because I wasn't paying them enough attention, they "needed me" and I "let [them] down." Was I neglecting them? Well not totally, but it's obvious that somewhere in there the supply and demand did not meet in the middle. So who was the injured party, and who was in the wrong?

And since I've already made several recent broken up posts in others' LJs for excessive length, and because you're talking about a phenomenon which, yet again I'm seeing more people express immediate trouble with and I myself am trying as I always do to pin the source of the issue to the ground so we can all see it, I'll take the rest of this discussion back home. But I may add a link to this page, if that's alright. Let me know if it's not.

[coffeesnob.livejournal.com]

That's fine. Link away. :)

[nonnierms.livejournal.com]

heh. we cannot for the life of us figure out how they came up with the numbering system of our mailbox--doesn't have anything to do with our apt number, as far as we can tell :p

{{{huggles}}}

[coffeesnob.livejournal.com]

Must be a Texas thing. Although my last apartment had the number on the box....

[nonnierms.livejournal.com]

hee--in Ohio my box number was my apt number. come to think of it, it was that way in Michigan, too. :p