One day when I was about 12 and had still to work out that I had no sense of smell, my parents left me alone to go out shopping with my sisters. Playing around in my parents bedroom I came across my mothers perfume. Or should I say completely odorless slightly coloured water in what I still consider to be a cool “old-fashioned pump spray” bottle, something like this:
That spray bottle was so very interesting. I had to examine it, and test it, and see how it worked before I could have lots of fun spraying a fine mist all over the place. I watched the tiny droplets land on a variety surfaces then hid all the evidence.
I denied it, of course, but I’m still slightly confused about how I managed to get away with this, and how it still wasn’t the incident that made me (or anyone else) realize that I had anosmia.
A long time ago there was a deceptively bad period in my life. I was convinced that things were going well, when in fact they were not, and I couldn’t admit that to myself for a long time. I kept giving the other person in my life more and more chances, and told myself I could forgive them for anything. I couldn’t.
I got lucky in the period that followed, because I very nearly tipped over to the other side and never gave anyone a second chance again. I really believe things would have been much darker if I had gone down this path, perhaps leading to destruction, perhaps eventually leading to me learning some balance.
I got lucky because at that time one person gave me a second chance, and another person didn’t. I suppose it just happened at the right time for me to notice, just enough pressure to tip the scales and keep them balanced.
I’m not sure why this popped into my head today, but it’s a good excuse for me to step back and try to evaluate if things are still balanced, and if there’s anything else which seems to be skewed. Perhaps you’d like to join me.
All the serious stuff I post? It’s far easier to say than do, and I post it because I need to learn it.
srslainey:
livejamie:
It feels good to post this, I hope it’s not cliche or anything, but this is kinda how I’ve felt lately.
[…] I can relate and I wish I couldn’t. I wish you couldn’t. I wish we never had to feel this way. […]
This concerns me but, in my opinion, if these are the numbers of people you follow that could be part of the problem.
Most people maintain a reasonably small social circle. Apparently this applies online too, despite the potential to follow huge numbers of people. Following a large number of people is only going to dilute contact with the inner circle, so I think that drastically reducing the numbers should improve contact with that circle, allowing better friendships to be fostered.
Personally, I feel alone a lot but I’d rather try to grow a smaller number of closer friendships than a huge number of acquaintances. So I try to keep my numbers pruned. Yes, it means I’m missing out on a huge number of wonderful and awesome people, and I wish I could follow you all—but because I can’t keep up, the reality is if I do that I’m not really paying attention to any of you.
There are hundreds of potential reasons why someone didn’t heart, star, compliment, or follow you. The majority of those reasons have absolutely nothing to do with you.
All you know is when someone hearts, stars, follows, or compliments you: it’s a compliment. Relax. Smile. Enjoy.
stuffparty:
I absolutely sucked, and still do, at sports as a child. I got my share of being picked last. I wasn’t thrilled about it but I can’t remember it stinging. I wasn’t on the bottom rung socially in school but pretty close to it.
As I recall being picked last didn’t bother me much because I expected it. What did bother me was when I was about 17 and one of the really cool kids asked how I always managed to be so cool. I’m not cool, is this a trap? People are about to start laughing… any second now… This doesn’t make sense! WTF!?
Sometimes, you just can’t win.
Way back in the dim recesses before May 2008, I found @communicatrix who happened to follow fine folks such as @scottsimpson—she would star tweets she liked, but as far as I know, Favrd did not exist. I used to read her favourites for the funnies and even made a crappy tweet about wishing you could get an RSS feed of someone’s favs.
Sometime in May Favrd either sprung into existence, or came to my attention, probably both. I know @communicatrix starred this tweet, because I recall squeeeeing about it, but I don’t recall it being on Favrd:
The earliest tweet I made that I know for sure was on Favrd was this:
which was starred by @texism himself (and I think, only him). This was so early on that you only needed one star to get on favrd and there was no leaderboard. He didn’t follow me, and thus was clearly doing some searches to see what was being said on the subject.
srslainey:
Every time I open up to someone I’m worried they won’t know what I’m trying to say. Then I over-explain everything. To the point where I wish I’d just never said anything.
:Sigh:
Oh, Internet, tell me I’m not alone. Won’t you? Why is my question option not showing up?
I do that too. One of the things I’ve started realizing is that you can’t control how someone else will react. You can’t control if you’ve caught the other person at a good time or a bad time. You can’t control if they’ll understand what you mean or not. You can’t control how they’ll feel about what you mean. You can’t control how they’ll feel about what they think you mean.
You can try to be clear and hope for the best.
The more I over analyse the more likely I am to either screw up, or think I have. It’s not easy to deal with, but that seems to be the way it is.
