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Okay...
This is possibly very silly of me, but: I’m intimidated by my friend-ofs list.
If that makes any sense.
See… Periodically, I yammer on (and on and on and on) about feminism, religion, gender, sexuality, and other stuff that seems to suggest that I have a brain in my head. (At least I think it does).
However, the majority of my posts (to my knowledge) center on gardening, cooking and to-do-lists, as well as occasional (or more-than-occasional) griping about Things That Piss Me Off.
And part of me sees this and goes, well it does say Live Journal, this can’t be totally unexpected.
But another part of me looks at the list of people who read me (oh you wonderful people, the validation you give me is incredible… aren’t I the saddest thing you’ve ever encountered – don’t answer that), and I go:
“Aack!! But there’s, there’s, there’s smart people reading this! I can’t talk about stupid stuff like “Why I like MCR” or “What will I have for Dinner Tonight” or my small obsession with ‘So You Think You Can Dance’, or whatever.
Because, while the majority of you I know ‘personally’ to one degree or another – either I’ve met you in a physical-world (if you will) situations, and know damn well that you all get just as silly and tangent-y and random as I do, or else I know you ‘personally’ because we occupy the same teeny, tiny corner of fandom, and this we’ve all exchanged mutual squeeing over one thing or another and, basically, the same applies (funnily enough, I’m also writing physical-world letters to those people).
But then there are the people who *I’ve* friended because they’re just so damn smart and articulate and just blow my freaking mind out of the proverbial water with their brains and the way they can put things together – but who are, or at least were, lj-friends of lj-friends and, thus, have no discernable reason for friending *me* other than the fact that I started hanging around their journals and, thus, perhaps piqued their curiosity about “Who is this strange person who keeps talking to me as though they know me and have any right to comment”, or what-have-you[1].
There are folks who I friended who seem (and, granted, ‘seem’ is the operative word, given that I’m basing this on whether or not they reply to my prattle) to ignore me most of the time that I comment on stuff that they say, but then turn around and do things that are incredibly friendly and personable, seemingly at random (although, in one recent case at least, it was probably prompted by mutual fanishness).
And it’s people like that who make me wonder, “Why? Why are you here? What are you sticking around for? And am I delivering what you want?”
‘Cause, see, the folks that I do know… While you are all whip-smart and intelligent, and I *want* very badly to write things that are worthy of your attention, I also know (or at least am fairly certain) that you’re not going to go away (and abandon meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and all my insecurities ;-) due to just… getting bored.
But the folks I don’t… Why? :-)
I feel like I should be, like, putting more effort into what I say to you people. (Because, y’know, clearly it matters sooooooooo much… :-P) Maybe I should be, for example, writing Deep Thoughts about why the hell I put my favourite characters through such utter, utter hell[2]. Or maybe I should be writing more about my thoughts on being tall, feminine/femme and bi[3].
But all of this, of course, stems from big heaps of insecurities. Wanting people to like me. Being utterly desperate for some sort of contact, even if it’s just words on screen, written by someone else.
I did one of those online quiz things about “The Five Love Languages”[4] and, while, yes, it’s a dumb online quiz, it got me thinking.
On the one hand, it got me thinking about how I express love vs how my husband expresses it.
He tells me, many times a day, that he loves me. Just, like, random affirmations of “I love you, you’re the best”.
Which, on the one hand, is totally awesome and the best thing ever. But, on the other hand, (until I started thinking about this, at any rate), really wasn’t cutting it because a little part of my brain was always going ’Then why don’t you SHOW me???’ because, not surprisingly, I express my love/care/etc through touch. Every time he’d be, like, “Hon? I love you, but I need to do stuff and can’t be, like, hugging you *all day*” and shrug me off, I’d be, like, ’M-my love is being rejected…? <*sob*>’, which is really no good at all.
(It’s like that song in “My Fair Lady”, wherein Eliza is singing to Freddy about “Words, words, words, words! Don’t talk of stars / Burning above, / Don’t talk of love! Show me!”)
I throw these words out into the ether of Internet Land, hoping that someone will catch them and call back to me (You’re not alone!) – because, in virtual-world, all we have are our words -- <*hugs*> isn’t really the safety of someone’s arms around you, but the thought is there, right?
So… In a way (a weird way that may only be clear to me, I grant you) saying “I want to read what you have to say” is – sort of – like saying “I want to be close to you”, “I want to know you better”, and so on.
I think that a lot of me looks at the comment-threads that develop out of various posts, and goes:
“If this were ‘real’… If So-and-So were actually here, having this conversation with me in person, with our voices, we would be touching. We’d be trying to negotiate where to put our knees under one of those damn tiny café tables while drinking iced mochaccinos, or we’d be walking arm-in-arm home from my local grocery store, or be curled across from each other on my couch, with our feet overlapping one-another, or something.
Which, I realize, might not be the reality at all.
(For all that I’ve been told – by one person, anyway – that I make her feel ‘small and delicate’, I imagine that having a giantess draped over you like some sort of bizarre fur coat would not be everyone’s cup of tea. ;-)
Anyway.
This got awfully ramble-y, didn’t it?
<*is not entirely sure what the actual point of all that was…*>
Time for me to wander off, I think. :-)
- TTFN,
- Amazon.
[1] And then there’s the person (possibly from north-eastern Europe, possibly not) who seems to have friended every single lj-user whose user-name starts with ‘A’… No idea what that’s about, um…
[2] Answer: To make them stronger and/or more realistic, depending on the character. Granted, given the characters I usually write (my beloved Neurotic Twosome, courtesy of PTerry) the utter utter hell (at least in terms of the vampire) is also done to… even things out a bit, strengths-wise, and to give her her reasons for joining the league, and so-on. But also – to a lesser degree – I think it’s because most of the people I know have gone through some sort of Trauma or serious Misery in their lives, and that makes it ‘normal’ for people to have gone through that garbage. Thus – to my messed up brain, at least – it makes believable sense for the characters I fic to have suffered as well.
Note: Well over a year ago, I had a chat with someone… Latin_Doll or Hyel, most likely, about how Too Much Suffering becomes non-believable, but that ‘suffering’ is also relative. A nation whose inhabitants think of ‘getting the fuck beaten out of you’ as ‘getting off lightly’ is going to have a different understanding of what ‘horrible suffering’ is compared to the inhabitants of a nation where corporal punishment is outlawed. Anyway... :-)
[3] And how ‘tall’ is seen a masculine in our society, while ‘feminine’ includes ‘small and delicate’ as a qualifier, and in what ways I *think* I am (but not necessarily actually am) screwing with gender norms and what-not because of this.
[4]
Physical Touch
with a secondary love language being
Quality Time.
Take the quiz
This is possibly very silly of me, but: I’m intimidated by my friend-ofs list.
If that makes any sense.
See… Periodically, I yammer on (and on and on and on) about feminism, religion, gender, sexuality, and other stuff that seems to suggest that I have a brain in my head. (At least I think it does).
However, the majority of my posts (to my knowledge) center on gardening, cooking and to-do-lists, as well as occasional (or more-than-occasional) griping about Things That Piss Me Off.
And part of me sees this and goes, well it does say Live Journal, this can’t be totally unexpected.
But another part of me looks at the list of people who read me (oh you wonderful people, the validation you give me is incredible… aren’t I the saddest thing you’ve ever encountered – don’t answer that), and I go:
“Aack!! But there’s, there’s, there’s smart people reading this! I can’t talk about stupid stuff like “Why I like MCR” or “What will I have for Dinner Tonight” or my small obsession with ‘So You Think You Can Dance’, or whatever.
Because, while the majority of you I know ‘personally’ to one degree or another – either I’ve met you in a physical-world (if you will) situations, and know damn well that you all get just as silly and tangent-y and random as I do, or else I know you ‘personally’ because we occupy the same teeny, tiny corner of fandom, and this we’ve all exchanged mutual squeeing over one thing or another and, basically, the same applies (funnily enough, I’m also writing physical-world letters to those people).
But then there are the people who *I’ve* friended because they’re just so damn smart and articulate and just blow my freaking mind out of the proverbial water with their brains and the way they can put things together – but who are, or at least were, lj-friends of lj-friends and, thus, have no discernable reason for friending *me* other than the fact that I started hanging around their journals and, thus, perhaps piqued their curiosity about “Who is this strange person who keeps talking to me as though they know me and have any right to comment”, or what-have-you[1].
There are folks who I friended who seem (and, granted, ‘seem’ is the operative word, given that I’m basing this on whether or not they reply to my prattle) to ignore me most of the time that I comment on stuff that they say, but then turn around and do things that are incredibly friendly and personable, seemingly at random (although, in one recent case at least, it was probably prompted by mutual fanishness).
And it’s people like that who make me wonder, “Why? Why are you here? What are you sticking around for? And am I delivering what you want?”
‘Cause, see, the folks that I do know… While you are all whip-smart and intelligent, and I *want* very badly to write things that are worthy of your attention, I also know (or at least am fairly certain) that you’re not going to go away (and abandon meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and all my insecurities ;-) due to just… getting bored.
But the folks I don’t… Why? :-)
I feel like I should be, like, putting more effort into what I say to you people. (Because, y’know, clearly it matters sooooooooo much… :-P) Maybe I should be, for example, writing Deep Thoughts about why the hell I put my favourite characters through such utter, utter hell[2]. Or maybe I should be writing more about my thoughts on being tall, feminine/femme and bi[3].
But all of this, of course, stems from big heaps of insecurities. Wanting people to like me. Being utterly desperate for some sort of contact, even if it’s just words on screen, written by someone else.
I did one of those online quiz things about “The Five Love Languages”[4] and, while, yes, it’s a dumb online quiz, it got me thinking.
On the one hand, it got me thinking about how I express love vs how my husband expresses it.
He tells me, many times a day, that he loves me. Just, like, random affirmations of “I love you, you’re the best”.
Which, on the one hand, is totally awesome and the best thing ever. But, on the other hand, (until I started thinking about this, at any rate), really wasn’t cutting it because a little part of my brain was always going ’Then why don’t you SHOW me???’ because, not surprisingly, I express my love/care/etc through touch. Every time he’d be, like, “Hon? I love you, but I need to do stuff and can’t be, like, hugging you *all day*” and shrug me off, I’d be, like, ’M-my love is being rejected…? <*sob*>’, which is really no good at all.
(It’s like that song in “My Fair Lady”, wherein Eliza is singing to Freddy about “Words, words, words, words! Don’t talk of stars / Burning above, / Don’t talk of love! Show me!”)
I throw these words out into the ether of Internet Land, hoping that someone will catch them and call back to me (You’re not alone!) – because, in virtual-world, all we have are our words -- <*hugs*> isn’t really the safety of someone’s arms around you, but the thought is there, right?
So… In a way (a weird way that may only be clear to me, I grant you) saying “I want to read what you have to say” is – sort of – like saying “I want to be close to you”, “I want to know you better”, and so on.
I think that a lot of me looks at the comment-threads that develop out of various posts, and goes:
“If this were ‘real’… If So-and-So were actually here, having this conversation with me in person, with our voices, we would be touching. We’d be trying to negotiate where to put our knees under one of those damn tiny café tables while drinking iced mochaccinos, or we’d be walking arm-in-arm home from my local grocery store, or be curled across from each other on my couch, with our feet overlapping one-another, or something.
Which, I realize, might not be the reality at all.
(For all that I’ve been told – by one person, anyway – that I make her feel ‘small and delicate’, I imagine that having a giantess draped over you like some sort of bizarre fur coat would not be everyone’s cup of tea. ;-)
Anyway.
This got awfully ramble-y, didn’t it?
<*is not entirely sure what the actual point of all that was…*>
Time for me to wander off, I think. :-)
- TTFN,
- Amazon.
[1] And then there’s the person (possibly from north-eastern Europe, possibly not) who seems to have friended every single lj-user whose user-name starts with ‘A’… No idea what that’s about, um…
[2] Answer: To make them stronger and/or more realistic, depending on the character. Granted, given the characters I usually write (my beloved Neurotic Twosome, courtesy of PTerry) the utter utter hell (at least in terms of the vampire) is also done to… even things out a bit, strengths-wise, and to give her her reasons for joining the league, and so-on. But also – to a lesser degree – I think it’s because most of the people I know have gone through some sort of Trauma or serious Misery in their lives, and that makes it ‘normal’ for people to have gone through that garbage. Thus – to my messed up brain, at least – it makes believable sense for the characters I fic to have suffered as well.
Note: Well over a year ago, I had a chat with someone… Latin_Doll or Hyel, most likely, about how Too Much Suffering becomes non-believable, but that ‘suffering’ is also relative. A nation whose inhabitants think of ‘getting the fuck beaten out of you’ as ‘getting off lightly’ is going to have a different understanding of what ‘horrible suffering’ is compared to the inhabitants of a nation where corporal punishment is outlawed. Anyway... :-)
[3] And how ‘tall’ is seen a masculine in our society, while ‘feminine’ includes ‘small and delicate’ as a qualifier, and in what ways I *think* I am (but not necessarily actually am) screwing with gender norms and what-not because of this.
[4]
The Five Love Languages
My primary love language is probablyPhysical Touch
with a secondary love language being
Quality Time.
Complete set of results
| Physical Touch: | 12 | |
| Quality Time: | 8 | |
| Words of Affirmation: | 5 | |
| Acts of Service: | 4 | |
| Receiving Gifts: | 1 |
Information
Unhappiness in relationships, according to Dr. Gary Chapman, is often due to the fact that we speak different love languages. Sometimes we don't understand our partner's requirements, or even our own. We all have a "love tank" that needs to be filled in order for us to express love to others, but there are different means by which our tank can be filled, and there are different ways that we can express love to others.Take the quiz
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