On the social skillz
Now I'm not the most positive person in the world. I'm not the most negative either. I operate generally on a "hope for the best but prepare for the worst" attitude in my own affairs, and I'm usually the token optimist in whatever circle of friends I'm with at the time. This may not be because I actually feel optimistic, but because someone's gotta be positive or we'll all kill ourselves.
And yeah, I have moments where I get depressed. And in those moments I often turn to my friends, in the real world and on the internet, for some sympathy bitching or a pat on the head. I know I sometimes might bring people down when I have one of those "ashes, all is ashes" moments...
Now a lot of Miyazaki JET's and a fair number of JET acquaintences belong to a ken-list thing through which we can send mass emails out to the community. Usually the emails are things like, "Festival in Saito this weekend" or "I'm selling a gas range, who wants it?" There's a couple a day, so they don't really clog the inbox or anything. Usually.
Enter this guy whom I think I shall call Iggins. Iggins and I have met on a couple occasions but the only time I matched him to his face was at the pillow fight last week. He showed up in a Kuroneko-sama hat, and proceeded to immediately bash the event and wonder if someone organized it as a joke while loudly asking, "So who's in charge here?"
Yeah, that'd be the guy he was explaining all his theories to...
Iggins proceeds to get on everyone's nerves with his otaku-Japanese and general whining. He speaks Japanese with lots of little cat noises and "de gojaru's" and weird things interspersed that no grown man should be reciting. And he whines about his town and how he has no one to talk to and how he hasn't taken any pictures in Japan except the time his neighbor's house caught fire. I am not exaggerating.
Now he's gotten in trouble for ken-list abuse in the past. He's written long "save it for your blog" posts about his feelings and opinions. This generally annoys the hell out of the rest of us who don't care and don't want to delete a million emails about how lonely he is. So today I get an email from him saying, "Who wants to join me for a kanji study group for the upcoming JLPT test."
Ok, good. Proper use of the ken-list. No one will say yes because no one likes him, but this is fine.
Then he caveats with all the reasons he needs to pass this test because he has nothing in America, nothing. And everyone in Missouri just cares about baseball and Jesus and nothing else... yeah, this is a way to get people to join your study group. Add to that the fact another person replies with some websites, and Iggins immediately emails back bashing those websites. Just... he wonders why he's so lonely?
Now all this is annoying and a little disturbing. But not as disturbing as the email we get from another ken-list member. His reply is this: "Or you could just move to Nichinan where there's no need to study Japanese because no one will talk to you."
Just... woah. How depressed do you have to be to email this statement to a hundred or so near complete strangers! Also I've been to Nichinan. I have several acquaintances in Nichinan. It's a beautiful city, gorgeous beaches, and badass archery.
And Iggins replied to this with whining about his hometown!
All this leads to about 12 emails cluttering up my mailbox. Course I did skim them all in an open-eyed train wreck kind of way. I have to learn to just instantly delete anything from these two people.
The moral is that I'm really grateful for people who listen to my rants, and who are comfortable ranting to me. And I'm extra grateful that no one on my list rants 100% of the time. We all need a listening ear, but I just can't imagine forcing a stranger to be that ear for me.
I love you flist
And yeah, I have moments where I get depressed. And in those moments I often turn to my friends, in the real world and on the internet, for some sympathy bitching or a pat on the head. I know I sometimes might bring people down when I have one of those "ashes, all is ashes" moments...
Now a lot of Miyazaki JET's and a fair number of JET acquaintences belong to a ken-list thing through which we can send mass emails out to the community. Usually the emails are things like, "Festival in Saito this weekend" or "I'm selling a gas range, who wants it?" There's a couple a day, so they don't really clog the inbox or anything. Usually.
Enter this guy whom I think I shall call Iggins. Iggins and I have met on a couple occasions but the only time I matched him to his face was at the pillow fight last week. He showed up in a Kuroneko-sama hat, and proceeded to immediately bash the event and wonder if someone organized it as a joke while loudly asking, "So who's in charge here?"
Yeah, that'd be the guy he was explaining all his theories to...
Iggins proceeds to get on everyone's nerves with his otaku-Japanese and general whining. He speaks Japanese with lots of little cat noises and "de gojaru's" and weird things interspersed that no grown man should be reciting. And he whines about his town and how he has no one to talk to and how he hasn't taken any pictures in Japan except the time his neighbor's house caught fire. I am not exaggerating.
Now he's gotten in trouble for ken-list abuse in the past. He's written long "save it for your blog" posts about his feelings and opinions. This generally annoys the hell out of the rest of us who don't care and don't want to delete a million emails about how lonely he is. So today I get an email from him saying, "Who wants to join me for a kanji study group for the upcoming JLPT test."
Ok, good. Proper use of the ken-list. No one will say yes because no one likes him, but this is fine.
Then he caveats with all the reasons he needs to pass this test because he has nothing in America, nothing. And everyone in Missouri just cares about baseball and Jesus and nothing else... yeah, this is a way to get people to join your study group. Add to that the fact another person replies with some websites, and Iggins immediately emails back bashing those websites. Just... he wonders why he's so lonely?
Now all this is annoying and a little disturbing. But not as disturbing as the email we get from another ken-list member. His reply is this: "Or you could just move to Nichinan where there's no need to study Japanese because no one will talk to you."
Just... woah. How depressed do you have to be to email this statement to a hundred or so near complete strangers! Also I've been to Nichinan. I have several acquaintances in Nichinan. It's a beautiful city, gorgeous beaches, and badass archery.
And Iggins replied to this with whining about his hometown!
All this leads to about 12 emails cluttering up my mailbox. Course I did skim them all in an open-eyed train wreck kind of way. I have to learn to just instantly delete anything from these two people.
The moral is that I'm really grateful for people who listen to my rants, and who are comfortable ranting to me. And I'm extra grateful that no one on my list rants 100% of the time. We all need a listening ear, but I just can't imagine forcing a stranger to be that ear for me.
I love you flist