I learned a new lesson today.
Even on message boards, I don’t talk enough and I’m still too negative.
I am not one to spend a lot of time with people, in real life or online, who are not in my family nucleus. In an effort to better understand myself, I took a personality test and found a forum that had people similar to me in their thinking.
“Great!” I think to myself. “Finally, people who understand that I don’t always have fully prepared thesis for every comment that gets made.”
I was wrong.
It makes me sad though, that even in a community of people who are different, I still managed to piss off someone because I didn’t meet their expectations of me. I didn’t engage in the conversation enough or profess enough gratitude for their response to my question.
I know I shouldn’t let someone I don’t know, who doesn’t know me, who lives halfway across the world from me, dictate my feelings. It bothers me that I feel it necessary now to start each of my comments with a disclaimer:
<—- this poster may not engage in conversation. She may read your comments and post nothing. Or she may read your comments, think they are awesome and post a one line reply, usually ill-attempted and nowhere near conveying the proper response you may or may not require. She has a dark & dry sense of humor. Any and/or all comments may be ill suited to your expectations. However, that doesn’t mean your comment did not provoke thought or a warm feeling of fuzziness, though her response may not (probably won’t) evoke both responses in you.
Maybe I truly don’t know how to interact with people on any level?
Or maybe I don’t take things as seriously as I should?
Maybe I’m taking this message board thing too seriously?
I’m going to do my laundry and wait for the snow to melt. Read a book. Cook my dinner. All things I know I can do without hurting someone’s feelings. I’m beginning to understand why some people leave society and are never heard from again.
Still sad, though. Sorry (you know who you are).
Exploring Tangents 