Tag Archives: rudeness

Online Friends

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Haven’t been doing much besides socializing online and sleeping this week.  Been having odd sleep patterns too.  I’ll usually go to bed shortly after midnight and sleep for a few hours.  Then I’ll wake in the middle of the night and usually spend some time reading online articles or chatting with facebook friends in different time zones as when it’s middle of the night in America it’s usually middle of the day in places like Japan and China or mid morning in England.

Been quite active socially, at least online anyway.  Participating mostly in science, tech, and futurism groups on facebook and leaving a few comments on tech sites on youtube.  Often on youtube I’ll delete a post after several minutes because I wrote the post primarily to get it off my mind.  It’s my post, so why can’t I?  It’s not community property unless I allow it to be.  As far as dealing with rude people online, if someone is rude to me the first time they talk to me, I block them.  I don’t give second chances in this regard.  I’m mentally taxed as is.  Besides, the first rule of internet ettiequte is “Do Not Feed The Trolls.”  I have better uses of my time and I’m just not in the mood anymore.

Made some pretty decent acquaintances in my interests groups.  Too bad many of them live overseas and I’ll never get to meet them in person.  I probably would be on friendly terms with many of these people if we lived in the same town or worked for the same company.  Been making friends with friends of friends some too.  We find common ground in similar interests and mutual friends.  Once again, these friends are spread all over.  But, if it’s not possible to build physical towns and settlements based around similar interests rather than single industries like farming, mining, manufacturing, finance, etc., I suppose the online friends and communities I’m part of will have to suffice.

The internet is a good thing.  Social media is a good thing, certainly for people like me who have difficulty socializing in person and who live in isolated areas.  Sure many people abuse these wonders of modern tech, but every tool and invention humans have ever come up with has been abused many times already.  But that doesn’t make those tools evil.  I am one of the few science enthusiasts I personally know where I live now and where I grew up.  I didn’t have many friends growing up because I didn’t have the same interests and priorities that most of the people in my town and school.  It was quite lonely at times.  Occasionally I’d meet like minded people at speech meets and summer camps.  I wrote to a few of these people and they wrote back during my high school years (before social media mind you).  College was more bearable as there were many people with similar interests.  Even at a small Christian college there were people with almost every interest imaginable.  I never got that back once I graduated and moved on, at least not in the physical world.

Once I figured out how to sort through the clutter and effectively deal with online rudeness, social media became fun again.  It was a dark ages cesspool for me from the years 2015 to 2017.  But this year, after figuring out how to tailor the online experience to my likes and strengths and personality, it has become an important means of socializing for me.  I guess one of the ironic things about my online interactions is that I have found that I have far more in common with strangers in places like Japan, England, Philippines, Canada, etc. than I do even people I have known my entire life.  Interests and personalities are not evenly distributed among populations.  Makes me wonder, in past generations, how many potential geniuses and difference makers our civilization lost because they had no way to channel their creativity or anyone to encourage them along.  I imagine millions of people over the centuries live sad, quiet lives of desperation and despondency because they had no one to share their interests with.  As lonely as I sometimes feel being a science enthusiast living in farming country in the 21st century, I can’t imagine how bad I would have gotten it living in medieval Europe, feudalist China, or the Stone Age.

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Social Life and Depression

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Getting out of the apartment several times a day now.  Have been for the last several days.  Catching up on the news of what’s been going on around the complex and meeting some of the new residents who moved in during the summer.  Seems like we have a few really cool people move in lately, and some of them are even in my age bracket and younger.  So I might be rebuilding some of my social safety nets that had fallen apart over the last few years.

I haven’t been as social over the last three years as I had been previously.  I think some of it started when three of my friends in my apartment complex died within six months of each other.  Then we had a few problem residents come in that gave problems to everyone.  So I started isolating to avoid the drama.  Then my grandmother died, which I think I took harder subconsciously than I realized at the time.  My car accident in late 2015 left me scared to drive and not able to trust other drivers on the road for a long time.  2016 is a lost year as far as I’m concerned.  The drama and emotions from the elections caused me so much grief and anxiety.  I also lost some good friends and lost contact with some extended family because of those emotions running hot.

After months of hot emotions and people going insane over the pettiest things, 2017 was another tough year.  I spent most of that year alone.  I rarely visited friends or family.  I went entire days without leaving my apartment.  I more or less lost my ability to see anything decent in other humans, especially people in my immediate life.  I devoted most of 2017 to my writing and self directed scholarly endeavors.  Seeing some of the advances that were rapidly being developed was one of the few things that gave me hope in those dark years.  Like a fool I tried to share this information with people, but almost no one took me seriously.  I had some jerks tell me I was “fake news” and a liar.  “Fake news” is another stupid phrase I despise.  After a few episodes of this, I became real despondent.  I lost myself in computer games and youtube videos and just became annoyed and irritated with people in general.  The less I had to deal with flesh and bone people, the better as far as I was concerned.

But after almost three years of depression imposed exile and hermitage, I am slowly becoming more social.  I actually want to socialize now.  I truly believe that the type of people one surrounds themselves with can effect your mental and even physical health.  I have believed this for years.  But since most people I knew and ran into on a daily basis were in foul and angry moods, it just seemed better to just isolate, stay out of sight, and hope to God that people eventually came back to their senses.  I’m thinking that people, at least the ones I associate with, are starting to come back to their senses.  I certainly hope so.  The last three years were lonely years.  The only years I would rather relive less is my late teens and early twenties before I was being treated for mental illness.

Rant on “Quit Whining and Man Up” and observations about socializing

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Been kind of depressed and irritable for the last several days.  Haven’t been sleeping well either.  About the only thing going really well for me is my renewed diet.  I am eating less than I normally do and getting more activity.  I get my activity in the afternoons even though I’m in the habit of sleeping until noon again.

I also no longer want to socialize.  And this time I don’t feel guilty for it.  I am tired of people who are in foul and angry moods trying to drag me down into their own mindlessness and petty vendettas.  Unfortunately, anymore, if it weren’t for negativity and fighting, there would be few conversations and certainly no social media.  I hate how I just can’t have a civilized conversation with even people I partly agree with anymore.  And good luck trying to talk to anyone who doesn’t view the world the same way you do.  I’m beginning to think that many people have mental health problems just because of the way we treat each other and the stress of modern living.  Granted, a person doesn’t have to be chronic like those of us on disability to have problems.  I have had a mental illness for almost twenty years now.  And only recently are people starting to talk about the effects of stress, anxiety, and chronic mental illnesses.  For the first several years of my diagnosis I didn’t talk about my mental health to anybody.  And I think I lost several good friendships because my friends didn’t understand that my depression and anger were nothing personal, they were manifestations of the sickness.

For the first several years of my illness I just didn’t talk about it, not even to friends or employers.  Back in those days mental illness was shrouded in more mystery and ridicule than even now.  I have no idea how many times I was told to ‘suck it up’ or ‘man up’ in those early years.  ‘Man up’. Now there is a stupid phrase I can’t figure out.  What does it even mean?  Is there really only one type of manliness?  And why is it the only type of virtues in a man we appreciate are those that involve the John Wayne frontier mentality that violence is the only way to solve all problems?  I think this is stupid, very stupid.  A mentality like that will make our species extinct.  And quite honestly, I enjoy living too much to sit idle while this type of barbarian behavior is honored and encouraged.  I would rather not go back to the Stone Age.  I hated all the ‘Mad Max’ movies and I definately don’t want to experience them in real life.

Another thing, we don’t females to ‘woman up’ and we don’t tell senior citizens to ‘young down’ nor do we tell terminally ill people to ‘hurry up and die.’  It’s little things that normal people just take for granted that I don’t understand and that I often see the dumbness and hypocracy in.  But most people seem pretty cool with dumb things and hypocracy anyway, at least when it comes from sources they like.  Unfortunately I never understood this line of thinking.  It’s probably why I have problems socializing with the public at large.  And of course having a chronic mental illness that people are still ignorant about doesn’t help either.

In closing, as a thought experiment, I was wondering what would happen if someone (or a group of individuals) just went about their daily lives being as rude and condescending to physical people as we are to people in our online interactions.  I would love to see some psychiatrist conduct this experiment.  I think the results would be either very interesting or very disturbing.

Burned Out On Angry People

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Other than a few bad days and one really bad day, I have been doing quite well for months.  I imagine part of this has to do with avoiding angry and rude people.  Sure I may not have much of a social life, but at this point in my life I no longer want to deal with rude and irritable people.  I suppose I have hit my limit and don’t want to deal with it anymore.  This kind of scares me as I am fearful that limiting my socializing will make me jaded and mean spirited as I age.  I have known irritable and mean older people my entire life.  I promised myself a very long time ago I would not turn out to be an angry and bitter old man.  Maybe the only way I can do this is to severely limit who I socialize with anymore.  I don’t post anything to Facebook or twitter anymore besides these blog posts.  I finally became burned out on all the negativity, drama, etc.  I have enough problems in my mentally ill mind that I don’t need my friends and family adding to them.  I don’t see many of my friends online anymore either.  I suppose they became burned out too.  I hope that all this negativity and anger isn’t a new normal.

I really don’t enjoy socializing with most people anymore.  I don’t want to socialize with negative and rude people anymore.  Yet that is what all I seem to see anymore, online and in my own community.  I try to tell my friends and family about what is actually going right, but I get mostly dead silence from these people.  The few that do respond usually tell me I’m a liar.  Seems to me normal people love to be immersed in anger and negativity.  I don’t understand people.  Then again I never have.  I suppose I never will.  I’m just tired of all the anger and negativity.  From now on I’ll keep my optimism to myself.

 

Dealing With Stupid and Rude People

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I never could figure out why there were people who flaunted their ignorance, rudeness, and stupidity.  To look at some of these fools, you would think they were getting paid to be clueless and cruel.  I never understood why it is that dumb is cool, smart is lame, being a jerk gets you places, and being a humanitarian is a loser’s bet.  But then, I never could figure out why most people act the way they do.  There are times I think those who would be considered mentally stable are the ones who actively work against their best self interests.  It used to be far more frustrating than it is now.

It doesn’t bother me much now that I’ve just accepted that many people I meet are going to be stupid and mean.  I really try to keep my wisdom to myself if I sense my advice will fall on deaf ears.  It is tough as the intelligence finds ways to pop up at the worst times.  I’ve been accused of being a ‘show off’, a ‘know it all’, and even intimidating simply because the intelligence doesn’t stay hidden for long.  But it doesn’t really bother me anymore that people are going to do stupid and rude things.  The outside world is messed up but I don’t have to be.

I consciously choose not to be messed up.  The fact I consciously choose my actions and thoughts puts me far ahead of the bulk of humanity.  I’ve seen far too many people who go thorough life just drifting along and not really examining what they can do or what they want.  After much trial and error, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll never do well at a traditional type of job.  It seems anymore that my best chances of having any kind of purpose or money that a traditional job would give people will be through something internet based.  Which is fine with me as I never could stand being told what to do and how to think.  I think many people with anxiety problems and social awkwardness would do well with an internet based set up.

I try not to let stupid and rude people get to me.  I’m not perfect at it.  But I’ve gotten to where I no longer envy or resent them.  Most of the people that act stupid and rude are not interesting or thought provoking.  They are not rare.  I choose to be conscious of what I do and think.  I choose to be different.  I choose to stand out.  I choose to not be stupid and rude.