My Life as a Social-Antisocial Being

Like most people with the audacity to hop on the internet and share their writing every day, I get my fair share of comments from complete trolls -- especially if something I put out there starts doing really well. I've had people call me sexist (and even imply I'm queerphobic) for writing articles targeted at men who don't understand why women won't date them. I've had people tell me I'm shallow and fatphobic for talking about my ongoing fitness journey and singing the praises of an active lifestyle in general. I've even been shat on for so much as mentioning that my family was dysfunctional growing up. 

None of that actually bothers me. I've got a thicker skin than most people would figure just looking at my tarty little face. Plus, I've come to feel that trolls are a sign that whatever I wrote must have hit home on some level. Random folks only get that freaking mad at people they don't know when writing touches a nerve. I will never understand what inspires people to completely ignore the writing and comment on the writer's appearance, though.

This morning, a random reader felt the need to mention what a pretty girl they thought I was, but they really wished I showed my teeth when I smile. After reading an article I wrote about racial identity. And I genuinely don't understand what makes a person crack their knuckles and type something like that all the way out. Like, what means? What am I expected to do in response to that sort of feedback? Scramble to change my avatar to a photo of me showing every tooth in my head like a God damned donkey? Who knows anymore.

Many Departures

I never feel like I have that much going on in my life until I actually sit down to blog when it's been a while. It really makes me realize the extent to which time flies. My cat died not long after my last post. She was on the older side and hadn't been doing that well for a while, so it wasn't completely unexpected. It managed to be wholly devastating anyway though. 

I'm not the sort of person that supports wallowing in emotions like grief or disappointment -- or at least not to the point where it starts to feel like it's doing you more harm than good -- but I can't lie. This has been really hard for me. I've had many pets over the years, but Ched was just special. She's pretty much the only living being I've ever known that I can honestly say never seemed to feel anything toward me but love. It's done me so much good to know that any living thing could really embrace me unconditionally like that because it's certainly more than I can say for even the best humans in my life.

And as tough as it can be to feel sad for the loss of both big and little souls that touch lives, I've realized there's a positive side to grief. It's your proof that you experienced someone and something worth missing. I've literally had whole-ass family members and so-called good friends exit this planet without eliciting so much as a tear from me, let alone full-force grief, but looking back on those relationships, I'm not surprised. They were never there for me. They never laughed with me or cried with me. They never actually acted like they loved me or cared about being part of my life. And to be honest, the feeling was mutual. 

I know a lot of animals are unconditionally loving and loyal -- one reason I've always preferred them to people -- but Ched was that to an unusual degree. She did nothing but love me, even when I got frustrated, irritated, or downright angry with her. I worry that I wasn't always as nice to her as she deserved, but I'm sure she had to have known how loved she was regardless. I tried to show her as much as I could and to the extent that I know how. 

On Life in Lockdown and Stimulus Checks

At this point, we've all been doing the lockdown thing so long, I think a lot of us have forgotten what life was like before. Or at least I have. At this point, I'm used to this virus being a thing. I'm used to having to plan ahead more when buying groceries to make sure we have the things we need when we need them. I'm used to thinking twice before I consider going out in public (on the rare occasion it even crosses my mind).

I stay home all the time as a rule. I work at home for myself, I entertain myself at home, I pay other people to do all my shopping for me, and my social life starts and stops at social media, so the whole social distancing thing hasn't been hard for me at all. My life as a whole is largely unchanged from what it was. In fact, I could do this whole social distancing thing indefinitely, to be really honest.

Other people are another story though. They don't know how to cope with not being able to see their friends in person, go out for drinks, or spend time in public whenever they feel like it. Most of them are going stir-crazy, half from cabin fever and the other half from genuine stress over coronavirus and the very real risk of serious illness it brings with it. Some are deeply depressed and others are climbing the walls like little children.

I have to confess that the snob in me isn't impressed. As an extreme introvert and long-time voluntary recluse, I've always had people telling me how weird I am for finding it hard to fit into the rest of the world as easily as everyone else always has. It's nice (not to mention interesting) to be the one who's handling everything fine for the change. It's been very nice to be in a position to tell others to just suck it up and do what's necessary for a change.

It's not exactly earning me any friends though. In fact, it's lost me a few so far -- no one noteworthy or important so far, just more hopeless loser types leftover from my LiveJournal days whom I won't miss.

On the Departure of a Former Friend and Continued Writing Success

The passage of time is a really weird thing, especially when it comes to other people that are part of your life to varying degrees. The older I become and the more I change with the years, the less connected I feel to the people I used to know on whatever level. I've never been the most social person in my offline life, but I was relatively communicative and friendly online for a long while. Probably why changes in my online social life spark more reflection on this front.

I'm especially confused by a lot of my friendships with other women, both online and off. Most women are socialized to be a lot less direct and straightforward than men, so I'm never quite sure where I stand with a lot of them. There have always been at least a few who seem really conflicted as far as how they feel about me. I'll pick up on definite interest and admiration, but also an undercurrent of something darker. Jealousy or resentment, maybe. Something competitive gone completely sour.

I often feel like such acquaintances are secretly rooting for me to fail, especially if their goals and dreams for themselves intersect with mine at all, as if there's a limited amount of success to go around and they feel I'm getting more than my share. I never know what to do about people that give off that vibe -- that they don't root for me to win or cheer for me when I do. I don't like feeling like people I know are sitting around wishing evil or misfortune into my life, but I also feel like I'm not patient enough with people and cut others off way too quickly. I'm trying to be less like that, especially as I get older, so more often than not, I just let people hang around, but distance myself to stay off of their radar as much as possible.

This morning, I noticed that one of these women apparently unfriended me on Facebook over the weekend. I haven't been posting anything inflammatory lately, nor have I been leaving ambiguous comments on her posts, so I don't think the reason was anything like that. She was in the habit of leaving odd comments on some of my posts that made me feel like she resents a lot of the personal progress I've been making though -- especially when it comes to things like selfies, beauty posts, or workout/health updates. This person had been on the wagon for a while herself with all of that stuff, but she started backsliding badly around the time my own progress was becoming really visible, and I think she resents that.

The Good and the Bad of Being 40-Something

I don't know if this is just part of what comes with being in my 40's now or what, but I'm morphing into one hell of a fucking grouch as I age. I've never been much of a social animal, but I'm becoming ever more reclusive and antisocial by the day, it seems. I really fucking hate people anymore, and I don't feel like I have the emotional bandwidth to deal with anyone else's bullshit at this phase in my life. It's showing in some of the decisions I've been making about my social media presence lately.

To name just one example, I just got done fiddling with my settings here to reflect my increasingly shitty attitude toward humanity in general and discarded people from my past in particular. Although I still am allowing this blog to be listed in Blogger's databases, I've decided I no longer wish to allow the search engines to index it. I've also locked down the Facebook settings on my link section -- the only place online I even list this blog -- so only non-family acquaintances and friends can even access it in the first place. 

It just occurs to me that the only people out there actively Googling for blogs I might be writing these days are people that already know damn well I want nothing to do with them. I still don't care to go back to keeping a completely locked blog like I used to on LiveJournal, as I like having something personal that Facebook friends can check out if they're interested in getting to know me better. I still don't ultimately care if any of the sad-ass stalkers I have actually find or read any of my writings here, but I figure there's no need to make it easy on them. 

Things That Make Me Squint

There are two types of occurrences that pretty much never fail to remind me that a Mercury retrograde period is imminent. The first is the collection of technical snafus and miscommunications that most people associate with Mercury retrograde. The other has to do with people from my past getting it into their heads to reach out to me for whatever reason.

This time around it's the latter -- honestly the more irritating of those two phenomena. I can prepare for technical foul-ups or miscommunications and often prevent them from happening in the first place. However, there's little to nothing I can do to stop exes, estranged family members, or old friends I've outgrown from tracking my ass down and contacting me if they're really determined to get back in touch. I absolutely hate how intrusive stuff like that feels when it actually happens.

Contrary to popular belief, ending a relationship with another person is never something I do lightly. There is literally always a good reason why I did it, and I'm not the sort of person that will get over whatever that reason was given enough time. It's almost always a choice I'd been thinking of making for some time as well, even if it appears to be a snap decision on the surface. My handing you your walking papers means I never want to see or hear from you again. Not in a few weeks. Not in a year. Not in twenty years. I will do what I can to learn from the mistake I made by letting you into my life in the first place, but that is what I will forever consider my relationship with you going forward  -- a mistake that I want to avoid repeating in the future. I won't miss you. I won't think back fondly on "the good times". I'll just be glad you're gone along with whatever brand of toxicity you were bringing into my life while you were still part of it.

New Year, Same Me (But Better)

Our Wonderful New Year's Day Dinner

So I guess it's official. Another year has been and gone, but it's different this time. This past year was perhaps the first year of my entire life that saw me truly and deliberately growing toward being the person I actually want to be. I have twelve months to look back on that I spent being determined, responsible, and dedicated to self-improvement and I like the way it feels. I definitely plan on continuing along that path in 2019 so that I can feel that way again next New Year's and hopefully every New Year's to follow.

Speaking of New Year's, I had a wonderful relaxing holiday yesterday. For dinner, I made us this delicious ham I got from ButcherBox with black-eyed peas, country greens, and mac on the side. I took the day off and spent the great majority of it relaxing. The latest and last season of A Series of Unfortunate Events went up on Netflix, so Seth and I started that, as well as continued with our rewatch of Mad Men. I spent some time working on my language lessons. The ColourPop palettes I ordered during their after-Christmas sale arrived on New Year's Eve, so I created a very pretty (and contemporary)  look with those after my morning workout as well. It was a great day and a terrific way to start a brand new year.

........

The more I continue to work on my health and my looks, the more I'm getting back to being my old self again. Part of that has actually meant being more social (at least online) and actually talking to people again the way I used to. In many ways, that's been great. I've found some great groups online where I can talk to other people that are into things I'm really interested in at this point in my life (e.g. fitness, beauty, tarot, or astrology).

Of Eclipses, Loss, and Transformation

This month has been a tad rough, spiritually speaking. We've got this massive blood moon lunar eclipse coming up in a couple of days here on the 27th and it's had me feeling some kind of way. I've definitely been having one of those months where staying upbeat and excited about life in general seems a bit harder than usual. The same sticking points and problems I always have in my life have seemed more daunting somehow and the things that normally make it better have been less effective for no real reason. Typical me when something odd is going on with the moon.

It hardly helps that a friend of mine died in a truly horrific way last Thursday night. Her name was Angela Coleman and she lived in Indianapolis. She and pretty much her entire family were involved in the Branson, Missouri duck boat accident that's been in the news lately and the great majority of them died -- 9 out of the 11 Colemans that were on the boat.

Angela was an online friend of mine, so I only knew her but so well, but we talked relatively often. I converse with so few people these days, so I think it's fair to say she was one of my closer social media friends. We shared a lot of interests, particularly food and cooking. She signed up for ButcherBox because of how excited I'd always get about receiving and cooking with the things they sent. We traded recipe ideas often and even her son, Donovan, was getting into cooking. She was also a total "take no shit" type of person just like I am, so we bonded over general life stuff a lot too. She was most certainly someone I was always excited to hear from and talk to. She'd even gotten to know Seth over the years, so he knew her as well.

On Royal Weddings, Birds, and Shifting Social Tides

Last Friday, Seth and I stayed up late to watch CNN's live footage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle getting married. I'm so very glad we did. I've casually followed the lives of the British royals since I first saw Diana and Charles get married as a little girl, so naturally I was interested in seeing their boys get married too. I watched them be born and grow up, after all, so -- like many people -- I guess I feel like I know them a little bit. Plus, Seth and I already watched the live footage of Prince William and Kate Middleton getting married years ago and had a wonderful time.

Harry has always been my favorite of the two princes though, so I was especially interested in seeing him sort of find someone eventually and settle down. Imagine how thrilled I was when he chose someone not only smart and poised, but biracial as well. Being biracial myself, that really means something to me. I was born in the 70's, so I very definitely grew up with the message that girls like me don't get to be princesses. We certainly were never considered pretty, or desirable, or noteworthy, so it's been quietly blowing my mind a little bit that I can actually recognize myself in the face of one of the British royals -- something I really didn't think would ever happen. Yes, there are still plenty of bigots out there that think we mixed girls (Meghan Markle included) ain't shit, but they can't change the fact that this is just huge.

At any rate, watching that wedding was just what I needed, so haters be damned. Some people really seem to get something out of feeling miserable all the time and focusing on everything that's wrong with the world we live in, but I don't. As melancholy and depressed as I can get from time to time, I always choose happiness, and cheer, and optimism as often as it makes sense to, so it was really nice to spend an entire evening thinking about gorgeous white flowers, and crazy English church hats, and a beautiful mixed girl marrying the best prince for a change. 

Out with the Old, In with the New

Every so often in life, I appear to arrive at a kind of... social crossroads, for lack of a better way to describe it. At first, I just find I have trouble relating to my friends groups to the same extent I once did. Then I start noticing myself becoming actively irritated with individual members of those groups, usually because something they do, say, or think seems immature or unreasonable on one level or another. Then one day I just wake up in a state of active disgust with nearly everyone I know from that group and just want to be permanently rid of most of them.

That gradual process of disillusionment is what eventually caused me to realize I'd outgrown the friends I'd had throughout my teenage years, as well as most of my core family. It's what made me want to jettison myself from the online art community years ago, not to mention cut ties with almost everyone that even remembered I used to make digital art. Now it's officially happened with that group of LiveJournal people I used to be so tight with. I'm just sick to death of how petty, and gossipy, and childish they all are.

These are feelings I'd been aware of for quite some time. However, the whole David incident was what really dragged them out into the open. I'm not the sort of person that takes kindly to another person's decision to ignore my wishes and just hop right over any boundaries I might have set, but that's exactly what David eventually decided to do. Right after I removed and blocked him on every social media platform I could think of, he went out of his way to track me down and tweet me on Twitter, the one place I'd forgotten he had an account and failed to enforce a block. Then at some point yesterday, I got another message from him basically begging for another chance at friendship. I had previously responded to the tweet with a brief explanation as to why I didn't want to be friends anymore, but I didn't dignify yesterday's follow-up message with a response at all. I'm only going to tell you once.

On Growing Up and Its Consequences

So I cut ties with a couple of friends this week. Sadly, it seems that the more of my own issues I resolve and the more growing up I do, the more I start to see some of my so-called friends for the losers, eternal victims, and rotting garbage people that they are. As far as how I feel about that? On the one hand, I'm really pleased to realize I've grown enough as a person to finally assess such situations accurately. But for someone that really hasn't had many close friendships to begin with, growing up can also be a really lonely process. I definitely feel like I lose friends these days at a much faster rate than I make new ones.

This time, the people in question were a middle-aged male friend I'd known online for years and his female partner of about a year whom I was only just getting to know. (We can call them David and Terri for the sake of this post.) David is of the age where people that haven't really taken very good care of themselves over the course of their lives start having serious health scares and something to that exact tune finally happened to him maybe a month or two ago. He's also been struggling with some pretty serious depression and anxiety lately, some of it probably related to the health scare and some of it not.

Now David has always been a little bit stunted as a person. Like many people I've known online, he sees and presents himself as one thing when actually he's another. (No real judgment on that front. We've all been there, including me. Hell, especially me.) Like many people in that boat though, he claims to tell it like it is and to be all about brutal honesty, but only when he's the one dishing it out. When someone else is serving it up -- even if it's someone he claims to respect -- he handles it with all the grace and dignity of a toddler. That's not actually the reason I cut ties with him though. That happened because I decided I could no longer tolerate the way he treats people, particularly his partners. 

Writing Lab: On Meeting New People

Prompt: "Do you like meeting new people, or do you prefer to hang out with people you already know?"

I'm more introverted even than most other introverts I know, so I'm generally not a fan of meeting new people. I have to have a very good reason to go out of my way, like actual loneliness because my existing relationships have ended or deteriorated for whatever reason. Otherwise, I'd far prefer continuing to develop deeper relationships with the people I already know.

I like not having to wear my "social face" around others. I like feeling like I don't have to watch my language or tiptoe around certain topics because they might offend whomever I'm talking to. I don't actually enjoy interacting with others for its own sake unless I can also be free, unedited, and unfiltered around them.

That said, the only time I even kind of like meeting new folks is when I'm doing it online. It seems to be more acceptable not to beat around the bush when it comes to telling other people whatever it is you want them to know about you. I haven't met a lot of people online that expected me to engage in small talk or tone down my real feelings about anything the way they might if we met in Meat World. They're usually in my vicinity because they saw me expressing something real about myself somewhere else anyway, so they already know what they're getting themselves into.

Writing Lab: That Very First Blog

Prompt: "What was the first blog you read online?"

Weirdly enough, I still remember stumbling across someone else's blog for the first time. I didn't know it then, but that discovery would change my life, how I communicate, and how I relate to other people forever.

It happened sometime in the early 2000's -- maybe 2002 or 2003. My ex-husband and I had just gotten a computer and Internet access, the very first experience with such things for either of us. He mostly used it to email his mother and download pirated music, but I had other ideas. I was far more interested in using the Internet to learn new things and possibly to connect to new people that actually thought like me or shared my interests.

As is the case with many people that don't feel like they relate to anyone else, one of my strongest interests at the time was music. Tori Amos was my absolute favorite artist back then, but I knew almost no one in my offline life that had even heard of her. Naturally, it made sense to me to use the Internet to seek out other Tori fans that were as obsessed with her music as I was. That's how I found this wonderful fan site called A Dent in the Tori Amos Net Universe (or "The Dent" for short). At first, I just came to The Dent to keep up on Tori-related news. Eventually though, I felt compelled to start contributing to it as well. I started submitting reviews of some of the concerts I'd gone to -- my first ever experience with sharing any of my writing online.

Writing Lab: Good Old Black-and-White

Prompt: "Have you ever had another blogger write about you? How did you feel reading the post?"

It hasn't happened at all recently, as most of my social circle has long ago forsaken blogging for Facebook or Twitter, but yes. Looking back, I'm realizing that I've seen myself show up in other people's posts quite a lot over the years. However, the context varies, as does the tone.

I'm not even going to sit here and pretend I don't know why some people find me hard to stomach. I don't get up in people's faces or force them to listen to my critiques of who they are or what they're into. (If you approach me and ask though, it's another story.) I really do keep to myself for the most part, but people nevertheless can tell when I don't really return their interest in me or don't see them as being in the same league. I'm told it makes people feel dismissed, invisible, or otherwise unworthy of notice. Apparently that's much tougher to deal with than it would be if I were just... like... a hater. People can usually deal with being hated on, but they don't like being dismissed or ignored, so I've inadvertently made my enemies over the years.

Sometimes those enemies eventually decided they were going to let it all out in writing, usually someplace they know I'm likely to see it or eventually find out about it. They were too chickenshit to say what they wanted to say to my face and most never dared use my name, but it was nevertheless pretty obvious they were talking about me. I'm thinking of ex-friends mostly... and maybe a few acquaintances that wanted to be friends, but that I wasn't really interested in for whatever reason.