Text-Mess

Cell phones. Emails. Text-messaging. Facebook. Myspace (RIP). Twitter.
The blessed gifts of today's technology.
While initial intentions were surely to bring people closer together, I truly believe that technology has torn us all apart. Better yet, it doesn't even allow us to create real relationships that are worth holding together.
These easy, false friendships.
When someone doesn't respond to a text or comment on a status update or reply to us on twitter, our actual loneliness behind the computer screen/cell phone/tablet turns into cyber-resentment.

Here's the thing about text: In texting, tweeting or just plain old typing, very few people have the ability to imbue sub-text. Even fewer people have the ability to glean the sub-text within the context of a text.
We are all guilty. If not by assuming the meaning of an ambiguous message to mean more - or less - than what is actually intended, then by being the person who sends said message. We have all sent the "I'm tired of talking to you but I would rather you stop texting me first so I'm going to send ambiguous non-committal responses to whatever you're saying until you leave me alone" message. These messages include, but are not limited to, 'words' such as "smh", "K", "dunno" and the all-encompassing "LOL". Let's be real, you are not really laughing out loud. It was not that funny.
What I have seen, more often than than not, is that outside of text (AKA real-life), some folks just don't know how to act. The natural evolution of a 'comfort-zone' between two people who are getting to know each other is stunted. Uncomfortable, even if necessary, conversations are halted abruptly - because they can be. All of a sudden the person normally responding at record text speed is leaving hour-long gaps between responses. No non-smiley facial expressions. No natural emotional reactions. No real connection.
What's worse is that we are generally more forgiving of a non-responsive texter than a non-responsive talker. The excuse is almost always that we don't know what the other person is doing while we were waiting for their text. Imaginary emergency situations are always the first to pop up in your mind. There's always the possibility of them being in transport or having a conversation with their grandmother who lives in a foreign country on the phone. But honestly, nine times out of ten, they've seen your message, chosen not to respond to it and have likely texted, tweeted or commented on someone else's new Facebook profile picture while you're waiting for a response.
As someone who knows someone (read: me) who has built a 'relationship', broken down over the lack of relating in said 'relationship' and broken up said 'relationship' via text, I can only advise against this being the primary mode of communication. I beg of you, masses: Call, meet up, go out and create connections with people in real time. Allow for emotional responses in person. Learn how someone actually lives their life instead of just how they tell you they do. Convenience is NOT always key. Real relationships are built on commitment and compromise. 'Love' is indeed an action word and it requires actions, not just text, to be sustained. So think twice the next time you meet someone on Facebook, email them your phone number and start a textual relationship. You might start something that easily transforms from flirty text messages to dinner, movies and matrimony but, more likely than not, you might get stuck in a cyber faux-mance.

Why Are You Still Talking To Me

I have always thought that the way people show interest in what someone else is saying was universal. You respond to what someone is saying and/or ask questions. You become visibly engaged in what this person is saying. You interact. I like to think of myself as the type of person who knows when to shut up in response to the lack of interest I feel coming from the other side of a 'conversation' and I like to think that other people would know when to do the same.
It would seem that this is not the case.
Being the stony, anti-social loner I believe myself to be, I feel that I have mastered my uninterested face as well as my steely 'Why the hell are you even looking at me?' glare. While I do believe that no one is immune to the silencing effects of them (usually paired with the simple act of walking away), some are just stupidly oblivious.
How is it that someone can be so self-involved to continue talking to someone, WITH ENTHUSIASM, who is so clearly not giving a damn about what you are talking about?
As my current beef is in the workplace, I can't pull the stunt usually reserved for strangers: Either walking away from someone I don't care about at the pivotal moment in the middle of their sentence, or stating, "I didn't come here to talk to you" and then walking away. My goal is to leave the other party with a sense of hollow abandonment.
To deal with this particular person, I've developed a 'staggered response and ignore' tactic which seems to be breaking them down. As this person is known to emotionally purge on everyone they come into contact with, I can't simply cut them cold turkey. I don't want any tearful, lengthy emails sent to me on an hourly basis and I really don't want to be named in anyone's open suicide poem to the world. That would just make me look bad for not being a coddling enabler.

Two Thoughts

In the past few days, I've come to a few realizations.

One: As a newly self-proclaimed 'writer', I think I'm going to have to write something that would make it possible to be publicly acknowledged as a writer...and might, you know, generate some actual income.

Two: I need to know whatever the name of the phobia is when you're paranoid that someone is trying to do something to you or your personal stuff when you're not around, or playing some kind of secret joke on you that everyone in the world is in on...and against you.
My reasoning is that this fear comes from either or both of two things. One is the fact that I'm the youngest of 5 children with a mother who felt that you just didn't need to know. About anything (as opposed to now when she feels the need to describe everything, from what she had to lunch and how her co-workers reacted to her meal and what she said to them and how she said it to them to her trip to the doctor and how she couldn't find parking and how she had to tell the doctor why she was late and who she saw on the street and how she had to avoid them in order to get to her doctor's appointment...). I always felt left out of the loop and that continued with my social life as I grew older (sheltered, naive and shy child syndrome). Every time I see a piece of stray lint on my washcloth or a cup of my coffee that I'm SURE has mysteriously rotated 45 degrees clockwise in Starbucks when I look away for two seconds, I'm convinced that someone has been doing something salacious with my property as some kind of practical joke. The other, of course is the influx of stupid reality shows where you can either see the actions of everyone in the show behind the backs of everyone else on the show or the ones that are intentionally setting people up for comedy and ratings like Disaster date or Girls Behaving Badly.
I just can't shake the feeling that someone is out to get me and expose my idiocy on National Television.

Yes, I have trust issues.

The Lonelies

Here's the thing about being a loner...
It's lonely.
It's not that I don't like to be by myself...I do.
But a loner's loneliness, when they get lonely, is like lonely times ten.
It's not understanding why you suddenly want to be around someone but not wanting to be bothered and snapping at everyone who asks you what's wrong...only further isolating yourself.
It's a vicious cycle.
It's not that I don't have friends, I do. I just, for some reason, don't really want to be around them. Friends will either hold your hand in silence or try to psycho-analyze you so that THEY can understand what you're not talking about and I really don't want to risk the latter.

I don't know.