Anti-social media
(Warning, lots of personal meanderings ahead.)
Well, I guess it has come down to this. At first I thought it was just a passing feeling. I tried to work around it, doing what I could to make a presence here and on the very few other social media sites I still use. Granted, the posts are of little substance, videos and failed memes, etc, but at least it was an effort. But I've come to the conclusion that my use of various "social media" outlets has left me more hollow and wanting than if I dispensed with the things entirely.
I realize there are many of you reading this that don't understand what I am feeling. I see a lot of people who absolutely rock their various online self-media outlets. Lots of dialog, on- and off-line gatherings and get-togethers, those sort of things. In my case, I only feel the "illusion" of a robust circle of friends. If I don't initiate a conversation, or join one already happening in another venue (in the case of LJ, this means posting something here or making a comments in someone else's entry), nothing will happen. No "hey, what's up" or other outside initiator will happen. Often if I send a message to someone I might not get a response, or the conversation will cease if I don't make the last entry into it. I generally chalk it up to folks' increasingly busy lives. But when the results have approached 100%, I tend to get the message, even if I am slow to realize.
I've long realized that my personality is not everyone's slice of cherry pie. But as I've found myself going through a lot of terrible things in my life with no one beside me to speak of save for maybe Jeff, I've come to some pretty indelible conclusions. The one that pertains to LJ, and by extension, any other online interpersonal sites like Facebook, etc., is do I continue to pin an increasingly false hope of actual friendship and support based in a "virtual" world? What I mean to say is it seems that doing so has only increased to disconnect and made me realized how little I have in the way of close friendships and camaraderie. Having friends halfway across the globe online is well and good in itself, but in reality it's nothing more than a circle of pen-pals. Human beings thrive on interpersonal contact, something that is sorely lacking in my life in not only recent years, but throughout my entire life. I grew up in an isolated little community where I had no local friends. People that I could call "friends" lived at minimum a few miles away. This involved a car trip or a time-consuming (and dangerous) bike ride through rural roads to get together. As time rolled on, this situation has not changed. I still live in a mostly rural-suburban setting with no neighborhood friends. The few people I counted as friends growing up are the same ones I associate with now on a somewhat regular basis, with the incidental traveling conundrum still in effect.
Throughout all of this the one aspect what bugs me the most is the near perfect record I have with meeting people in person that I have gotten to know via previous online interaction who I apparently have a good time with together, but once we've gone back to our own respective corners of the world, it rarely if ever recurs, Also in many cases the online tête-à-tête diminishes if not disappears entirely. I might not always be the sharpest crayon in the box, but for the life of me I can't figure this one out. Am I the victim of differing expectations? Do I smell bad? Did I not pick up the tip for dinner? I'm totally dumbfounded. When it happens now and then, I can chalk it up to various things that make humans incompatible with one another for whatever reason. When it occurs with nearly the same regularity as a sunset I don't know what to do. Suffice it to say, it does hurt, and I no longer want to expose myself to those kinds of situations.
Where does this leave me now? Do I keep being the one that has to initiate and carry conversations? Do I expend the most effort in trying to buoy a budding personal friendship? Do I send out repeated status queries to everyone involved to basically ask "are we still friends?" I'm no longer going to subject myself to unreturned messages on social sites and apps, no-shows to party and meeting invitations or similar. And, sad to say, I wont expect much more out of LJ other than entertainment, news and mild comment interplay. Pinning my hopes that "social media" leads to being more "social" has only reinforced my belief that the opposite is in fact what is true. It brings well-intentioned people together through often vast distances, raising hopes in people like me that there are indeed people out there that I share lots of interests and whatnot with, but in the end those vast distances remain. And in most cases when those distances were breached, the hope of lasting friendship gets quashed for whatever reason I have yet to figure out.
LJ has become a nearly unusable morass of failed entry and comment postings, delayed or nonexistent comment notifications and for some people a disgusting display of advertising and spam. The latter is not always apparent to LJ users with paid accounts, but the basic stuff is a mess, with all users being subject to all kinds of scripts and mechanisms designed to make money and track user movements and habits. The failure of the various scripts end up blocking the actual content, and people stumbling upon our journals from outside are often forced to watch an ad or video before they can even get to actual entries. I did not originally sign up to be subjected to such bullshit, and I've had enough. What little meaningful contact I do have here is interrupted by what amounts to the Russian Mafia. I'm done with it.
Well, I guess it has come down to this. At first I thought it was just a passing feeling. I tried to work around it, doing what I could to make a presence here and on the very few other social media sites I still use. Granted, the posts are of little substance, videos and failed memes, etc, but at least it was an effort. But I've come to the conclusion that my use of various "social media" outlets has left me more hollow and wanting than if I dispensed with the things entirely.
I realize there are many of you reading this that don't understand what I am feeling. I see a lot of people who absolutely rock their various online self-media outlets. Lots of dialog, on- and off-line gatherings and get-togethers, those sort of things. In my case, I only feel the "illusion" of a robust circle of friends. If I don't initiate a conversation, or join one already happening in another venue (in the case of LJ, this means posting something here or making a comments in someone else's entry), nothing will happen. No "hey, what's up" or other outside initiator will happen. Often if I send a message to someone I might not get a response, or the conversation will cease if I don't make the last entry into it. I generally chalk it up to folks' increasingly busy lives. But when the results have approached 100%, I tend to get the message, even if I am slow to realize.
I've long realized that my personality is not everyone's slice of cherry pie. But as I've found myself going through a lot of terrible things in my life with no one beside me to speak of save for maybe Jeff, I've come to some pretty indelible conclusions. The one that pertains to LJ, and by extension, any other online interpersonal sites like Facebook, etc., is do I continue to pin an increasingly false hope of actual friendship and support based in a "virtual" world? What I mean to say is it seems that doing so has only increased to disconnect and made me realized how little I have in the way of close friendships and camaraderie. Having friends halfway across the globe online is well and good in itself, but in reality it's nothing more than a circle of pen-pals. Human beings thrive on interpersonal contact, something that is sorely lacking in my life in not only recent years, but throughout my entire life. I grew up in an isolated little community where I had no local friends. People that I could call "friends" lived at minimum a few miles away. This involved a car trip or a time-consuming (and dangerous) bike ride through rural roads to get together. As time rolled on, this situation has not changed. I still live in a mostly rural-suburban setting with no neighborhood friends. The few people I counted as friends growing up are the same ones I associate with now on a somewhat regular basis, with the incidental traveling conundrum still in effect.
Throughout all of this the one aspect what bugs me the most is the near perfect record I have with meeting people in person that I have gotten to know via previous online interaction who I apparently have a good time with together, but once we've gone back to our own respective corners of the world, it rarely if ever recurs, Also in many cases the online tête-à-tête diminishes if not disappears entirely. I might not always be the sharpest crayon in the box, but for the life of me I can't figure this one out. Am I the victim of differing expectations? Do I smell bad? Did I not pick up the tip for dinner? I'm totally dumbfounded. When it happens now and then, I can chalk it up to various things that make humans incompatible with one another for whatever reason. When it occurs with nearly the same regularity as a sunset I don't know what to do. Suffice it to say, it does hurt, and I no longer want to expose myself to those kinds of situations.
Where does this leave me now? Do I keep being the one that has to initiate and carry conversations? Do I expend the most effort in trying to buoy a budding personal friendship? Do I send out repeated status queries to everyone involved to basically ask "are we still friends?" I'm no longer going to subject myself to unreturned messages on social sites and apps, no-shows to party and meeting invitations or similar. And, sad to say, I wont expect much more out of LJ other than entertainment, news and mild comment interplay. Pinning my hopes that "social media" leads to being more "social" has only reinforced my belief that the opposite is in fact what is true. It brings well-intentioned people together through often vast distances, raising hopes in people like me that there are indeed people out there that I share lots of interests and whatnot with, but in the end those vast distances remain. And in most cases when those distances were breached, the hope of lasting friendship gets quashed for whatever reason I have yet to figure out.
LJ has become a nearly unusable morass of failed entry and comment postings, delayed or nonexistent comment notifications and for some people a disgusting display of advertising and spam. The latter is not always apparent to LJ users with paid accounts, but the basic stuff is a mess, with all users being subject to all kinds of scripts and mechanisms designed to make money and track user movements and habits. The failure of the various scripts end up blocking the actual content, and people stumbling upon our journals from outside are often forced to watch an ad or video before they can even get to actual entries. I did not originally sign up to be subjected to such bullshit, and I've had enough. What little meaningful contact I do have here is interrupted by what amounts to the Russian Mafia. I'm done with it.