But you used to be cool when I was imagining you in my own cracked mind!

[sarahtheboring]

The first thing I did this morning after hitting the snooze button was to flip off the alarm clock. It can only get better from there. [edit, that evening: this statement is incorrect. but that's another story.]

Dear Cary, my terrific online friend is terrible in person! Oh...dear. Mr. Tennis, true to form, takes it as an opportunity to wax poetic

Comments

[mistressrenet]

I'm not a perceptive person. At all. I am an idiot when it comes to reading people generally. And for some weird reason, I've never been surprised by someone I've met IRL that I met first online. Maybe because I haven't gotten as deeply involved as being in a wedding, maybe because I'm a good reader, I don't know. But it always surprises me when people are shocked, shocked that the person they knew 'so well' online isn't the person they expected. Of course they aren't exactly as they came off when they were typing words into a screen. Duh.

[sarahtheboring]

True. And I have to wonder whether people who think they are good at reading people are more likely to make assumptions that might not be accurate.

It's a natural tendency to fill in gaps in information, I think, and make a cohesive whole out of the partial information we get - but it really isn't fair in this case. Even if everything a person says online is true, it's still not everything about them. Filling in the rest, even if it matches what you do know, isn't very accurate.

If you're more likely to just accept what you see and assume that there's more there that you don't know, without playing the psychic game, I think you are much less likely to set yourself up for disappointment.

[mistressrenet]

That's an excellent point. For once, the social retards win!

The RealDoll article was disturbing on many levels.

[sarahtheboring]

Yay!

Yeah, I'm still weirded out by parts of it. They covered so many angles (normally a good thing), but some were...yeah.

[stace_s]

I think that it'd be an exceptionally rare thing to meet someone IRL who acted exactly the same as they do online. Online personnas can either be a lie, to make yourself look better... not so much a lie, as what you would like the truth to be.... or sometimes they can be a lot worse than a person acts in real life because they have the safety barrier of being online to keep them from otherwise restraining themselves.

But yeah, it's probably not good to get expectations from how someone acts online. I don't think that I act IRL like I do online so I understand your point. But I'm sure that you're not as awful as you crack yourself up to be (online you're awesome ^_^), but I know what you mean.

[sarahtheboring]

True. I think a lot of people don't mean to throw up false personas; it's just a filter, by nature. We choose everything we say, and decide more directly where to interact and who to interact with. (With whom to interact. Whatever.)

Tch, I gravitate toward places that suit my style, without thinking about it. On AIM I'm totally useless, and IRC terrifies me. So this is a very limited situation. ;)

[fadedstarx]

Hmm... I'm practically your opposite, I suppose. I freeze up in groups, but ramble insistently* in one-on-one. (Though, I'm somehow a good listener.) I think it's because I'm 99% certain that there's always someone more interesting than me in a group and every second I spend in a conversation is a second I keep them from entertaining the group. In one-on-one socializing, I feel obligated to be better company. For instance: A month ago was the first time ever I had time alone with my best friend's ex in the eight years I've known her, and my best friend insists I told her things about myself during that time that he didn't even know

[sarahtheboring]

Well, one-on-one I just listen to the other person talk and add "hm," "yeah," "right" at pauses. Sincerely, I mean. But generally that's what people do. They talk nonstop. If I somehow land with another introvert, a sort of unbreakable silence settles that I hope they don't mind. Since I usually don't if they don't.

And thanks, but I'm on the other end of PA. ^_^; It's a 5-hour drive, thereabouts.

[fadedstarx]

Well, I have to drive 12 hours to get to South Jersey anyway. Another five-six hours is nothing to me (as I like road trips), but I wouldn't drive from South Jersey to Pittsburgh in the same day I drove from SC to NJ.

I'm familiar with the "silence." I use it to change subjects. :) And, I'll do what I can to relieve us of needless conversation.