Not Really Important Save for a Few Curious Individuals

Update: Em and I talked it over, and she decided that she was going to give my judgement a chance. However, I have to try it her way one more time first [ends 10/11/09] before I can try it my way. We did come to a consensus about the individual, and I do not have to deal with them at all if I don't want to. Which is good because that was the main problem I had with our previous arrangement. /Update

Get ready. I wrote one of my trademark "book posts." If you don't know what this post is about already, you -probably- don't need to bother reading it.

So...oddly enough I got asked why I hadn't been in the Shoutbox [wtf, it was only like two days!?]. Unfortunately, the reason for that requires a bit of background knowledge. Rather than send the same thing to several different people, I'd rather just do it once, and then link people over as it comes up.

First things first: Yes, as of last night, I did answer someone that I was back in the Shoutbox because Emma was once again buying me AP. That is one of the stipulations of our agreement. The money has to be used for activities that are both "social" and "entertainment." In order to use it on AP for Aeria Games, I have to be active on both the website and in-game [thus, my sudden appearance out of nowhere despite having been around since CB]. However, as of a few minutes ago, and as the result of a rather heated argument I'd much rather have avoided, this arrangement is no longer the case. I've asked Em not to buy me AP in exchange for me being free to return more-or-less to the way things were before. So there's the "what" of this post. If that's all you want to know, you can stop here. Following that will be a lengthy explanation of "why."

First off, I'm not really good with individuals in a "friendship" model. As a counselor or advisor, I'm apparently great--or so I've been told. In the customer service field? I know I excel at making angry people happy. BUT. For some reason, I cannot translate this well into my own relationships with others. I see too much, and I have an uncanny knack for guessing when someone is about to do something mean, and it causes problems. After all, nobody likes to have it suggested that they're going to be a jerk before they even get around to it.

So basically, what we have is someone who's not good with dealing with individuals. Now, the new question becomes--how do I respond to it? Well, being online helps. I have time to focus my thoughts and write out what I -want- to say, instead of impulsively blurting something out. It also helps that there is a barrier between myself and others. When someone makes me cry, they can't actually SEE that they made me cry. That's both an advantage and a downfall. It can be hard to tell you've upset someone when you can only see their words and not their visual reactions. Ultimately though, I end up doing similar to what I do in real life. I mimic.

Yes, that's right. I mimic. If someone is loud and rambunctious [Fiona, Indi], I respond with the same. If someone is quiet and shy or middle-of-the-road [Demy, Jadis, Justin, Eushie], I respond with either of those behaviors interchangeably. If someone "gives me cookies," all the time, I'll probably "give them cookies" back at others. Things of that nature. However, being social is something I taught myself -not- to do over the years. I still struggle with it from time-to-time [AD/HD ftw], but for the most part, I just kinda like to go along with whatever is going on around me.

So now you've got someone who struggles with social interactions, isn't so good at knowing when they should do what actions, and basically just relies on copying what's around them. What could go wrong? Well, for starters, you could suddenly completely change the dynamics of a friendship.

Dynamics? It's how you interact with others. I rely on these things to help me understand how I should act. For example, I have an irl friend who I refer to as "Psychosomatic." Now, Psycho and I have a very unique relationship in that she is usually rather quiet, but *needs* to have background noise constantly. I have the same situation, but I prefer to fill it by endless rambling. End result: we solve the same problem. But what happens if, say, she needs to concentrate and I'm prattling away? Then the dynamics get changed. -I- can't catch this by myself. Thankfully, Psycho knows that all she has to do is tell me how she needs me to act at any given time, and I can easily do so. I just have to -know- what I should be doing.

Sound annoying for the other person? Yeah, maybe. But not so much when you think about it. All it really boils down to is a "hey, shut up, I'm trying to concentrate here." No feelings are hurt, wins all around.

Now here's where the other part comes into play. I divvy people into several categories: there are friends and acquaintances, but the levels vary. My "friends" number less than a handful [three to be precise], and they are individuals who have proved themselves over the years to be reliable and trustworthy. That's not to say I won't refer to, say, Demy as my friend. My definitions are confusing. It's easier to just lump all my variations of "friend" into one group and work from there. My FRIENDS however, are people that took both the time and patience to work with me and help me develop further. They're people I can fully trust--maybe not with my life, but with my reputation and my thoughts, feelings, and desires. Everyone else gets varying degrees of trust; never the whole picture. Why is that? Well, wouldn't you know it, that ties into my argument with Em and -final- departure from the ShoutBox.

Now, you have to understand, one of the reasons I did not bother with the forums or Shoutbox much to begin with was because I really, truly like anonymity. I like to help others from the background, to be that random player that "gave me this awesome thing once, but I can't remember who they are." I like to stay in the shadows. Why? Admittedly, not for altruistic reasons. Staying in the shadows is, to me at least, the safer course of action. If no one knows who you are, then they can't be mean to you. And that's what leads into my argument with Em.

You see, a certain someone approached me recently. I asked why, of course, as I'm highly unaccustomed to people approaching me specifically with the goal of getting to know me better. I was told that I was "interesting." That caught my attention. Physical compliments get no one anywhere with me, but when someone bothers to comment on an aspect of personality, or even just to note abject curiosity, that -does- get my attention. Especially the latter because it's honest. So how did I respond? If you guessed that I acted towards them the same as they did to me, then congratulations, you just won a cookie*. But yes, unfamiliar situation, requiring social interaction, I resulted with default copycat mode with the idea that if they were interesting enough to me as well, I could just revert back to my default reclusive mode.

How did that turn out? Well enough, until they apparently decided they no longer found me interesting. Which would be fine in and of itself, except that they never -said- as much. So I continued to react the same as they had acted, completely unaware at first that the dynamics had changed, allowing myself to continue making a fool out of myself from things that were left unresponded in kind. Until one day while browsing the forums, I happened to notice what I guess might be a reason they changed. I'm still not entirely sure on this. As I said, I fail at this aspect of relationships. So I asked about it. No real answer. Asked if I should just poof. No real answer. In fact, no real answer for anything. Sure, I eventually got some stats questions that went through, but everything else, no real response. Maybe I'm just paranoid. Okay, I know I'm paranoid, but to me and my fail senses, that suggests that at some point I did something wrong, something to anger or upset this other person. And me being me, I like to know what that something is--in order to remedy that situation or, failing that, at the least so I can avoid commiting the same error in the future with others. Every new friendship is a learning experience to me. And if I don't know what the problems are, how can I fix them?

Em's solution: continue making these new relationships until you figure it out. Well that's all fine and dandy until you consider that I've been trying to do so all my life and failing miserably. If it's not pointed out to me, I CAN'T FIND THE SOLUTION. My solution: Avoid any and all new relationships with others that don't already match up with existing friendships. In other words, if it's a new relationship you don't already have a similar existing one that it matches up to, avoid it. I've been sitting here doing as Em has asked, keeping lines of communication open, etc, etc. That's something I try to do anyway. But all that has done is give me more grief than anything else. I'm getting tired of seeing the same situation I was just in paraded right in front of me every time I'm logged on. I guess Em's a stronger person than me because I don't really like it. And I really don't like trying to keep those lines up all by myself, without any give from the other person.

So, once again, I am removing myself from the Shoutbox and the forums; and since I've literally cut myself off from my source of AP funding and the stipulations it entails, that's pretty definitive. The best thing about Em, as opposed to this other person? Even when she's pissed to hell at a decision I'm making, she still won't string me along like a pathetic little puppet and then toss me to the wayside as soon as something more "interesting" comes along. And as history has written time and again, our disagreements tend to be resolved rather quickly [she just has to realize that I'm right ;)].

*See your local grocery store for this purchase.

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