Still finding time to blather on endlessly! :oD
Diary: Week of 02/06: Kay a-visiting
Work still sucks :o(
Friday I spent in with the lovely Lacuna_Raze however :o)
My description of what we spent our weekend doing might start to get a bit repetitive though. Much drinking, much DVD watching, and a trip to Dungeon :oP
Doctor Who on Saturday was fantastic. Could almost be cheesy the way that they kept trying to introduce new sad bits every few moments, but it worked :oD
Dungeon on Saturday was good, although way too dead. Littlecyberalex, thepussykat and Bert were there though, and I got to lecture Bert when he though that Gaunts Ghosts gave a positive portrayal of women because it portrayed them as capable soldiers :oP
Most of the appeal of the weekend was spending time with Lacuna_Raze though *nods*
Thoughts: Things about me
Just because I fancied some self-obsessed rambling mixed in with some lecturing of fools silly enough to read my blog :o)
Touching
I would imagine that touching is a fairly significant social act to most people. It definitely is to me.
As a child I was probably the most squicked out by relatives kissing me and all that sort of thing. As a teenager I pretty much never hugged anyone I wasn't dating. Even now my standard way of greeting someone is to stand at a distance and wave. That's changed a little bit as I got older; I do hug people now, albeit it usually more a case of patting people with the palms of hands on their back rather than actual body contact. Point is generally that I'm a fairly physically distant person.
It's not that I don't enjoy touch of course, in fact I'd almost be inclined to say that it had a special importance to me and that's probably why I'm not so quick to touch acquaintances or even friends much.
It does mean that I have wider boundaries than some people are apparently used to.
Of course, sometimes people just seem to lack an appreciation of boundaries in general.
For me, the mere decision to stand close to someone is a significant act of communication, and I've often found myself feeling like someone is standing too close, so you might appreciate what it means for me to touch someone.
But it's not just my own reservations because even if it would be comfortable for me to touch someone, I'd like to be fairly sure of the belief that it's comfortable for them for me to touch them, hence another reason why I'm often physically distant.
I can't stand outside of myself to judge properly but I'm fairly cautious about making physical advances on anyone. A rather special girl that has come into my life has repeatedly described what felt like to me as me being almost letchy as being rather 'subtle', so maybe my self-assessment isn't too far off.
But that over the top reservation is born of a more basic kind of respect that I'd like everyone to have, that being that a person should feel fairly confident that the other person wants to be touched before they touch them. To this end I need fairly strong non-verbal queues in order to 'hit on' someone to the point of physical contact.
Of course, should I ever make a misjudgement and make someone feel uncomfortable then I'd feel rather rubbish about it and back away quickly. As mentioned, I feel enough like a letch in various circumstances where the people involved have been very clear that they don't feel like I'm being creepy.
Which is probably why I get annoyed so quickly by unwanted touching by other people.
As far as I'm concerned, if there's no pre-existing physical relationship or no indication from me that I'd be interested than someone ought not be touching me. I can appreciate that mistakes can happen, someone might misjudge the line between appropriate touching and non-appropriate touching or might misread my body language, but a decent person would be sorry afterwards for their erroneous judgement, whilst others don't even seem to bother checking in the first place.
In short, if you act like you have a right to grope, grab at or kiss me then we won't get along very well. I don't really want to scare anyone off, but just use a bit of common sense for Christ's sake. In fact, I'm not even sure this whole thing can't just be summed up in a 'test the water before you dive in' type sentiment.
Dancing
I suspect people understand dancing in various ways, or enjoy it for different reasons.
A lot of people who don't dance seem to unable to shake of the feeling that it's somehow a 'performance art'. For some people it's exactly that of course, but if I ever thought of it that way I would never dance again. I'm usually vaguely aware that people can see me, and might be watching me, and occasionally I'm very aware that someone is watching me, but the only way I carry on dancing is to carry on under the delusion that they're not.
In fact, if it wasn't for the lack of atmosphere, I'd probably be better of dancing with no one about.
That might be why I spend a fair amount of time dancing alone, which some people seem to find strange. If I'm 'dancing with people' it generally doesn't mean more than 'there are people I know within sight', which is fun in it's own way, but it's hardly 'group dancing', it's just me doing my own thing and happening to be near-ish someone else.
Well, the exception with that is if I'm 'dancing at someone', which I don't do unoften. I suspect a significant amount of the times I've pulled has been on the dancefloor. There's something nice about bypassing the 'awkward talking bit' and just working on non-verbal queues, although in the case of complete strangers that can leave a person in awkwarder situations when they do start talking and end up disappointing...
Hence I have a strange love/hate relationship with being close to people on the dance floor.
I've certainly experienced being chased around a dance floor by people enough times to know I don't like it, and to hope to God that I've never done it and not realised (I do try to be careful on that score). Again, it's not that I don't like dancing in the same area as other people (including partners) just that I don't like people getting right up in my face unless it's out of mutual physical interest.
Problem is that if people get too close then I can't dance, not properly anyway. If I can't step about, or move my arms, and generally just lose freedom of movement, then the amount of dancing I can practically do is rather reduced, hence it's kind of like deciding whether I want to snog someone or dance. Nothing wrong with snogging people (depending on the people...) but sometimes I really do just want to dance... (other times I just want to snog, but if that goes on too long it's only polite to leave the dance floor) :oP
Over-qualification
A friend at work has told me that I'd be a good politician because I rarely give a straight answer. I often avoid saying outright 'yes' or 'no' all-together, and am rather fond of words like 'probably' and 'possibly'.
I'm not sure when that started, but it might have something to do with three years of studying philosophy. Plain fact is that the weaker the statement the easier it is to justify; saying something is the case requires more evidence and argument than saying something could be, might be, possibly is or probably is the case.
Makes sense really. Plenty of room for back-tracking *nods* Insisting on strongly phrased can be understandable, but arguably arrogant.
The Unfortunate part is that this bleeds over to a lot of places I wouldn't want it to and I end up qualifying statements that I don't mean to.
It's been pointed out to me that I'm not particularly good with complements, partly because I insert the word 'quite' into inappropriate places, which is rather silly on my part as it often ruins the complement entirely. :oP
Arrogance
Some people sometimes think I'm full of myself and very arrogant, but it's only really true in certain senses; it has to be done the right way.
I find self-flattery rather pompous and annoying for instance, except when done in a self-mocking/tongue-in-cheek/absurd manner, in which case it's fine because it's more satirical than anything. I mean, seriously, what sort of pompous person would use academic suffixes on their journal? It's like putting your IQ on a tshirt and wearing it everywhere (which is a funny enough idea that I'd almost be tempted to do just that) :o)
Putting aside that boasting tends to just lack any style or class, it just also seems pointless and silly. If you're everything you say you are then you should be able to demonstrate it rather than merely brag about it. If you really want to make people aware that you're x, y and z then don't tell them, but show them.
That ought to be obvious in cases like whether someone is beautiful, or whether someone is funny; I don't need someone to inform me whether they have those traits... I'll judge it for myself. Meanwhile, if it's something I'm not interested in judging for myself then I don't really need to know... (I'm sure you can imagine yourselves a few examples of such things)
I try to stick to that sentiment really.
Okay, so I'm fairly intellectually confident, but if I'm really all that intelligent I want it to come through in the way I discuss and think through things, the way I discuss and debate things, the ideas and beliefs I form, et cetera. If it's true the right people will see it ('right people' as defined by me of course *nods*)
It's also just setting yourself up to fail really. It's going to take a really gullible person to just accept your word for it that you're intelligent. That means that either you can live up to it, in which case your boasting was pointless, or you can't, in which case you just make yourself seem silly.
That's probably part of why I'm not good with accepting complements either. Even with my intellect, my first response to someone telling me how amazingly smart I am is to downplay the complement; I don't really want to be put on a wobbly pedestal just to fall off. Humility offers a certain extra grace... okay, so maybe I did seem so very sure of myself, but it's not like I ever screaming out to the world that I was a genius so that I could ever be proven otherwise.
Meanwhile, anyone who can actually do the 'I'm so clever' dance without a heavy dose of self-insult intended is just begging to be knocked down a peg :oP
Link: Gay-lien threat to the nation (Torchwood) - linky
Link: Positive review of race in Doctor Who - linky
Link: Negative discussions of race in Doctor Who - linky and linky
Link: Inner-City Snail - linky
Link: Holes in the ground - linky
Link: Darvas: Door to hell - linky
Link: Rainbow Innuendo Episode - linky
Plans: This weekend is me going to London on Friday to visit wildeabandon. Any smigeon of interest from anyone will result in me going to Slimelight with them on the Saturday :o)
Work still sucks :o(
Friday I spent in with the lovely Lacuna_Raze however :o)
My description of what we spent our weekend doing might start to get a bit repetitive though. Much drinking, much DVD watching, and a trip to Dungeon :oP
Doctor Who on Saturday was fantastic. Could almost be cheesy the way that they kept trying to introduce new sad bits every few moments, but it worked :oD
Dungeon on Saturday was good, although way too dead. Littlecyberalex, thepussykat and Bert were there though, and I got to lecture Bert when he though that Gaunts Ghosts gave a positive portrayal of women because it portrayed them as capable soldiers :oP
Most of the appeal of the weekend was spending time with Lacuna_Raze though *nods*
Thoughts: Things about me
Just because I fancied some self-obsessed rambling mixed in with some lecturing of fools silly enough to read my blog :o)
Touching
I would imagine that touching is a fairly significant social act to most people. It definitely is to me.
As a child I was probably the most squicked out by relatives kissing me and all that sort of thing. As a teenager I pretty much never hugged anyone I wasn't dating. Even now my standard way of greeting someone is to stand at a distance and wave. That's changed a little bit as I got older; I do hug people now, albeit it usually more a case of patting people with the palms of hands on their back rather than actual body contact. Point is generally that I'm a fairly physically distant person.
It's not that I don't enjoy touch of course, in fact I'd almost be inclined to say that it had a special importance to me and that's probably why I'm not so quick to touch acquaintances or even friends much.
It does mean that I have wider boundaries than some people are apparently used to.
Of course, sometimes people just seem to lack an appreciation of boundaries in general.
For me, the mere decision to stand close to someone is a significant act of communication, and I've often found myself feeling like someone is standing too close, so you might appreciate what it means for me to touch someone.
But it's not just my own reservations because even if it would be comfortable for me to touch someone, I'd like to be fairly sure of the belief that it's comfortable for them for me to touch them, hence another reason why I'm often physically distant.
I can't stand outside of myself to judge properly but I'm fairly cautious about making physical advances on anyone. A rather special girl that has come into my life has repeatedly described what felt like to me as me being almost letchy as being rather 'subtle', so maybe my self-assessment isn't too far off.
But that over the top reservation is born of a more basic kind of respect that I'd like everyone to have, that being that a person should feel fairly confident that the other person wants to be touched before they touch them. To this end I need fairly strong non-verbal queues in order to 'hit on' someone to the point of physical contact.
Of course, should I ever make a misjudgement and make someone feel uncomfortable then I'd feel rather rubbish about it and back away quickly. As mentioned, I feel enough like a letch in various circumstances where the people involved have been very clear that they don't feel like I'm being creepy.
Which is probably why I get annoyed so quickly by unwanted touching by other people.
As far as I'm concerned, if there's no pre-existing physical relationship or no indication from me that I'd be interested than someone ought not be touching me. I can appreciate that mistakes can happen, someone might misjudge the line between appropriate touching and non-appropriate touching or might misread my body language, but a decent person would be sorry afterwards for their erroneous judgement, whilst others don't even seem to bother checking in the first place.
In short, if you act like you have a right to grope, grab at or kiss me then we won't get along very well. I don't really want to scare anyone off, but just use a bit of common sense for Christ's sake. In fact, I'm not even sure this whole thing can't just be summed up in a 'test the water before you dive in' type sentiment.
Dancing
I suspect people understand dancing in various ways, or enjoy it for different reasons.
A lot of people who don't dance seem to unable to shake of the feeling that it's somehow a 'performance art'. For some people it's exactly that of course, but if I ever thought of it that way I would never dance again. I'm usually vaguely aware that people can see me, and might be watching me, and occasionally I'm very aware that someone is watching me, but the only way I carry on dancing is to carry on under the delusion that they're not.
In fact, if it wasn't for the lack of atmosphere, I'd probably be better of dancing with no one about.
That might be why I spend a fair amount of time dancing alone, which some people seem to find strange. If I'm 'dancing with people' it generally doesn't mean more than 'there are people I know within sight', which is fun in it's own way, but it's hardly 'group dancing', it's just me doing my own thing and happening to be near-ish someone else.
Well, the exception with that is if I'm 'dancing at someone', which I don't do unoften. I suspect a significant amount of the times I've pulled has been on the dancefloor. There's something nice about bypassing the 'awkward talking bit' and just working on non-verbal queues, although in the case of complete strangers that can leave a person in awkwarder situations when they do start talking and end up disappointing...
Hence I have a strange love/hate relationship with being close to people on the dance floor.
I've certainly experienced being chased around a dance floor by people enough times to know I don't like it, and to hope to God that I've never done it and not realised (I do try to be careful on that score). Again, it's not that I don't like dancing in the same area as other people (including partners) just that I don't like people getting right up in my face unless it's out of mutual physical interest.
Problem is that if people get too close then I can't dance, not properly anyway. If I can't step about, or move my arms, and generally just lose freedom of movement, then the amount of dancing I can practically do is rather reduced, hence it's kind of like deciding whether I want to snog someone or dance. Nothing wrong with snogging people (depending on the people...) but sometimes I really do just want to dance... (other times I just want to snog, but if that goes on too long it's only polite to leave the dance floor) :oP
Over-qualification
A friend at work has told me that I'd be a good politician because I rarely give a straight answer. I often avoid saying outright 'yes' or 'no' all-together, and am rather fond of words like 'probably' and 'possibly'.
I'm not sure when that started, but it might have something to do with three years of studying philosophy. Plain fact is that the weaker the statement the easier it is to justify; saying something is the case requires more evidence and argument than saying something could be, might be, possibly is or probably is the case.
Makes sense really. Plenty of room for back-tracking *nods* Insisting on strongly phrased can be understandable, but arguably arrogant.
The Unfortunate part is that this bleeds over to a lot of places I wouldn't want it to and I end up qualifying statements that I don't mean to.
It's been pointed out to me that I'm not particularly good with complements, partly because I insert the word 'quite' into inappropriate places, which is rather silly on my part as it often ruins the complement entirely. :oP
Arrogance
Some people sometimes think I'm full of myself and very arrogant, but it's only really true in certain senses; it has to be done the right way.
I find self-flattery rather pompous and annoying for instance, except when done in a self-mocking/tongue-in-cheek/absurd manner, in which case it's fine because it's more satirical than anything. I mean, seriously, what sort of pompous person would use academic suffixes on their journal? It's like putting your IQ on a tshirt and wearing it everywhere (which is a funny enough idea that I'd almost be tempted to do just that) :o)
Putting aside that boasting tends to just lack any style or class, it just also seems pointless and silly. If you're everything you say you are then you should be able to demonstrate it rather than merely brag about it. If you really want to make people aware that you're x, y and z then don't tell them, but show them.
That ought to be obvious in cases like whether someone is beautiful, or whether someone is funny; I don't need someone to inform me whether they have those traits... I'll judge it for myself. Meanwhile, if it's something I'm not interested in judging for myself then I don't really need to know... (I'm sure you can imagine yourselves a few examples of such things)
I try to stick to that sentiment really.
Okay, so I'm fairly intellectually confident, but if I'm really all that intelligent I want it to come through in the way I discuss and think through things, the way I discuss and debate things, the ideas and beliefs I form, et cetera. If it's true the right people will see it ('right people' as defined by me of course *nods*)
It's also just setting yourself up to fail really. It's going to take a really gullible person to just accept your word for it that you're intelligent. That means that either you can live up to it, in which case your boasting was pointless, or you can't, in which case you just make yourself seem silly.
That's probably part of why I'm not good with accepting complements either. Even with my intellect, my first response to someone telling me how amazingly smart I am is to downplay the complement; I don't really want to be put on a wobbly pedestal just to fall off. Humility offers a certain extra grace... okay, so maybe I did seem so very sure of myself, but it's not like I ever screaming out to the world that I was a genius so that I could ever be proven otherwise.
Meanwhile, anyone who can actually do the 'I'm so clever' dance without a heavy dose of self-insult intended is just begging to be knocked down a peg :oP
Link: Gay-lien threat to the nation (Torchwood) - linky
Link: Positive review of race in Doctor Who - linky
Link: Negative discussions of race in Doctor Who - linky and linky
Link: Inner-City Snail - linky
Link: Holes in the ground - linky
Link: Darvas: Door to hell - linky
Link: Rainbow Innuendo Episode - linky
Plans: This weekend is me going to London on Friday to visit wildeabandon. Any smigeon of interest from anyone will result in me going to Slimelight with them on the Saturday :o)