Before I start…<\/p>\n
<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\nYeah… That. (-_-)<\/p>\nSilly video.\u00a0 Good for a laugh.\u00a0 But, it’s here for a reason. (>_<)<\/p>\nI sort of wonder what introverts did before the internet.\u00a0 Actually, not really.\u00a0 I remember.\u00a0 When I was a kid, my days rotated around listening to music, fixing the old radio, watching movies, fixing the old VCR, video games, fixing the old console, and sorting out what can be built from the computer junk that I pick up.\u00a0 (._.)<\/p>\nActually… I still have a few.\u00a0 A PCjr, 386, and 486… All still functional.\u00a0 All suffering the Y2K bug. (>_<)<\/p>\nI picked up the guitar somewhere around 15 or 16.\u00a0 That got fun for a while.\u00a0 I still have my first.\u00a0 Picked up more instruments over time, as money and space allowed.\u00a0 (-_-)<\/p>\nAnyway, yeah… Self occupation.\u00a0 The demonspawn of an introvert and time. (._.)<\/p>\nThat’s been okay for a while.\u00a0 Actually for quite a long time.<\/p>\nEven my marriage involved introversion as a catalyst.\u00a0 Someone who pitied me due to my very consistent and routine under-eating and far-back-distant-corner presence in the break room.\u00a0 I’m not sure if it could have happened any other way.<\/p>\nBut, now we have internet.\u00a0 I remember being on AOL chat rooms, not knowing what to say and just watching the words scroll by.\u00a0 Wasn’t very good there.\u00a0 I never had an image of who would want to chat with me, so, I found it best that I didn’t interfere.<\/p>\nEmail helped a lot.\u00a0 Both of my jobs involved communication with Email.\u00a0 If I had to make a phone call… I’d probably still be unemployed.<\/p>\nTelephone… My nemesis.<\/p>\nTelephones are in our pockets now.\u00a0 For any minute of any given day, we’re at the beck of anyone who knows our ‘number’.\u00a0 Whatever your ringtone may be, it’s your personal indicator that you must communicate via contraption NOW!\u00a0 Even if it is only about the cat piddling in the hallway.<\/p>\nTalking is so yesterday, though.\u00a0 Now we chat.<\/p>\nBBS, newsgroups, Geocities, forums, blogs, Myspace, Twitter, Plurk, Facebook…<\/p>\nFacebook…<\/p>\n4 or 5 years ago I started coming to the realization that my life involved me never leaving my room… Except for work and groceries.\u00a0 I looked into online gaming and found whatever was available to be a stress.\u00a0 Too much hack&slash, view everyone as a threat, spawncamping, and so on.\u00a0 I found it bad for my health.\u00a0 The stress levels made me physically ill.<\/p>\nSony promised Playstation Home.\u00a0 A virtual environment where people can meet.\u00a0 Almost like a game, but, not a game.\u00a0 No levels, simulated combat, or creatures to defeat.<\/p>\nDelayed…<\/p>\nI joined Second Life for a while.\u00a0 AGP graphics at the time.\u00a0 My computer was being overwhelmed.\u00a0 I try to ride it out and meet some people inworld.\u00a0 Faced only with dislike and confrontation, I quit.\u00a0 My attempt at being social failed.<\/p>\nCome back a half year later and forgot my password.\u00a0 Made a new account and got along with people better.\u00a0 It seemed to work out just fine.\u00a0 Particularly compared to before.<\/p>\nI’ve made quite a few friends.\u00a0 Good, supportive, and close friends.\u00a0 A far better claim than I can make about my RL counterpart.\u00a0 But, nearly everyone I’ve met so far has no intereset in meeting me.\u00a0 What happens behind avatars, stays behind avatars.\u00a0 So, I can’t hear the accents I’m so deeply fascinated in.\u00a0 No faces.\u00a0 No names.\u00a0 Just attributes of an avatar and the infrequent claim that somone looks just like their avatar.<\/p>\nSo, how do I expand from here\/there?<\/p>\nI’m already blogging. Twitter.\u00a0 Plurk… So, I’m sharing quite a bit in hope that someone who matches my style can hook up with me.\u00a0 Desperate?\u00a0 Lonely?\u00a0 Sure, why not?<\/p>\nOnce in a while, I get advice about using what I’ve ‘learned’ in SL to augment my social skills in RL.\u00a0 Thing is, much of what I do in SL already reflects the flaws of my RL nature.\u00a0 So… Online RL contacts should work, no?<\/p>\nSo, I set up a Facebook profile, and it sits blank.\u00a0 I don’t actually know anybody<\/p>\nWondering what I’m doing wrong, I ask inworld… I’m not offering friendships to anyone.<\/p>\nSo, I pick a profile and click the Add As Friend button.\u00a0 I get this rather stark sounding popup asking “Do youknow this person?”… Well, no, I don’t.\u00a0 So, I can’t bring myself so go ahead with it.<\/p>\nWondering what I’m doing wrong, I ask inworld… I’m too worried about rejection.\u00a0 Just go through with adding.<\/p>\nNot wanting my adds to be total strangers, I pick out a few recognizable names from SL.<\/p>\nWhen I face little luck there, I start joining groups and sending “like”s to things.<\/p>\nI found, in the group screen, I can open up a popup that lists everyone with each profile having the “Add as friend” button to the right.\u00a0 So, click-click-click, sure, yeah, whatever… I’ll say I know the person since I’m risking it anyway.<\/p>\nAfter a minute or so of that I start getting “Blocking to avoid abuse” popups.\u00a0 So, I click to go to my profile, but, I don’t… I find I’ve been logged out by an admin.\u00a0 While logging back in, I’m stuck with answering a few questions asking me if I understand how to properly use the service.<\/p>\nDay goes by with a couple acceptances and some additional offers.\u00a0 Flying though things.\u00a0 Seems to be productive… But, I was playing it like a button mashing game.<\/p>\nLike that video I embedded above.\u00a0 I made a lot of noise, sort of accomplished what I was after, but in the flow of it all I made a mess of things and the end result was far from what was expected.<\/p>\nI dove into murky and unfamiliar waters head-first.\u00a0 There was shrapnel just beneath the surface.\u00a0 This is going to leave permanent scars.<\/p>\nI looked at the situation a bit and see what I had missed and where I went wrong.\u00a0 What ever my hopes were for in this endeavor, I wound up going a whole other direction.\u00a0 Being a failed experiment, I simply killed the subject.\u00a0 I deleted my account.\u00a0 I don’t know what inertia the situation had, so, cutting things completely seemed the most reasonable thing to do.<\/p>\nBut, that’s just it… Extreme socialization.\u00a0 When online, things can move at the speed of light.\u00a0 Far beyond what our logic and apprehension can manage.<\/p>\nI’m left wondering; how social should I really try to be?<\/p>\nHave I done enough in SL to occupy myself along with others?<\/p>\nDoes it really matter if I have RL friends or not?<\/p>\nIs it healthy for me to stay in this room?<\/p>\nIs socialization worth the risks at all?<\/p>\nAre there people who simply shouldn’t socialize?<\/p>\nAm I one of them?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before I start… Yeah… That. (-_-) Silly video.\u00a0 Good for a laugh.\u00a0 But, it’s here for a reason. (>_<) I sort of wonder what introverts did before the internet.\u00a0 Actually, not really.\u00a0 I remember.\u00a0 When I was a kid, my … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[37,36],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":332,"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions\/332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Yeah… That. (-_-)<\/p>\n
Silly video.\u00a0 Good for a laugh.\u00a0 But, it’s here for a reason. (>_<)<\/p>\n
I sort of wonder what introverts did before the internet.\u00a0 Actually, not really.\u00a0 I remember.\u00a0 When I was a kid, my days rotated around listening to music, fixing the old radio, watching movies, fixing the old VCR, video games, fixing the old console, and sorting out what can be built from the computer junk that I pick up.\u00a0 (._.)<\/p>\n
Actually… I still have a few.\u00a0 A PCjr, 386, and 486… All still functional.\u00a0 All suffering the Y2K bug. (>_<)<\/p>\n
I picked up the guitar somewhere around 15 or 16.\u00a0 That got fun for a while.\u00a0 I still have my first.\u00a0 Picked up more instruments over time, as money and space allowed.\u00a0 (-_-)<\/p>\n
Anyway, yeah… Self occupation.\u00a0 The demonspawn of an introvert and time. (._.)<\/p>\n
That’s been okay for a while.\u00a0 Actually for quite a long time.<\/p>\n
Even my marriage involved introversion as a catalyst.\u00a0 Someone who pitied me due to my very consistent and routine under-eating and far-back-distant-corner presence in the break room.\u00a0 I’m not sure if it could have happened any other way.<\/p>\n
But, now we have internet.\u00a0 I remember being on AOL chat rooms, not knowing what to say and just watching the words scroll by.\u00a0 Wasn’t very good there.\u00a0 I never had an image of who would want to chat with me, so, I found it best that I didn’t interfere.<\/p>\n
Email helped a lot.\u00a0 Both of my jobs involved communication with Email.\u00a0 If I had to make a phone call… I’d probably still be unemployed.<\/p>\n
Telephone… My nemesis.<\/p>\n
Telephones are in our pockets now.\u00a0 For any minute of any given day, we’re at the beck of anyone who knows our ‘number’.\u00a0 Whatever your ringtone may be, it’s your personal indicator that you must communicate via contraption NOW!\u00a0 Even if it is only about the cat piddling in the hallway.<\/p>\n
Talking is so yesterday, though.\u00a0 Now we chat.<\/p>\n
BBS, newsgroups, Geocities, forums, blogs, Myspace, Twitter, Plurk, Facebook…<\/p>\n
Facebook…<\/p>\n
4 or 5 years ago I started coming to the realization that my life involved me never leaving my room… Except for work and groceries.\u00a0 I looked into online gaming and found whatever was available to be a stress.\u00a0 Too much hack&slash, view everyone as a threat, spawncamping, and so on.\u00a0 I found it bad for my health.\u00a0 The stress levels made me physically ill.<\/p>\n
Sony promised Playstation Home.\u00a0 A virtual environment where people can meet.\u00a0 Almost like a game, but, not a game.\u00a0 No levels, simulated combat, or creatures to defeat.<\/p>\n
Delayed…<\/p>\n
I joined Second Life for a while.\u00a0 AGP graphics at the time.\u00a0 My computer was being overwhelmed.\u00a0 I try to ride it out and meet some people inworld.\u00a0 Faced only with dislike and confrontation, I quit.\u00a0 My attempt at being social failed.<\/p>\n
Come back a half year later and forgot my password.\u00a0 Made a new account and got along with people better.\u00a0 It seemed to work out just fine.\u00a0 Particularly compared to before.<\/p>\n
I’ve made quite a few friends.\u00a0 Good, supportive, and close friends.\u00a0 A far better claim than I can make about my RL counterpart.\u00a0 But, nearly everyone I’ve met so far has no intereset in meeting me.\u00a0 What happens behind avatars, stays behind avatars.\u00a0 So, I can’t hear the accents I’m so deeply fascinated in.\u00a0 No faces.\u00a0 No names.\u00a0 Just attributes of an avatar and the infrequent claim that somone looks just like their avatar.<\/p>\n
So, how do I expand from here\/there?<\/p>\n
I’m already blogging. Twitter.\u00a0 Plurk… So, I’m sharing quite a bit in hope that someone who matches my style can hook up with me.\u00a0 Desperate?\u00a0 Lonely?\u00a0 Sure, why not?<\/p>\n
Once in a while, I get advice about using what I’ve ‘learned’ in SL to augment my social skills in RL.\u00a0 Thing is, much of what I do in SL already reflects the flaws of my RL nature.\u00a0 So… Online RL contacts should work, no?<\/p>\n
So, I set up a Facebook profile, and it sits blank.\u00a0 I don’t actually know anybody<\/p>\n
Wondering what I’m doing wrong, I ask inworld… I’m not offering friendships to anyone.<\/p>\n
So, I pick a profile and click the Add As Friend button.\u00a0 I get this rather stark sounding popup asking “Do youknow this person?”… Well, no, I don’t.\u00a0 So, I can’t bring myself so go ahead with it.<\/p>\n
Wondering what I’m doing wrong, I ask inworld… I’m too worried about rejection.\u00a0 Just go through with adding.<\/p>\n
Not wanting my adds to be total strangers, I pick out a few recognizable names from SL.<\/p>\n
When I face little luck there, I start joining groups and sending “like”s to things.<\/p>\n
I found, in the group screen, I can open up a popup that lists everyone with each profile having the “Add as friend” button to the right.\u00a0 So, click-click-click, sure, yeah, whatever… I’ll say I know the person since I’m risking it anyway.<\/p>\n
After a minute or so of that I start getting “Blocking to avoid abuse” popups.\u00a0 So, I click to go to my profile, but, I don’t… I find I’ve been logged out by an admin.\u00a0 While logging back in, I’m stuck with answering a few questions asking me if I understand how to properly use the service.<\/p>\n
Day goes by with a couple acceptances and some additional offers.\u00a0 Flying though things.\u00a0 Seems to be productive… But, I was playing it like a button mashing game.<\/p>\n
Like that video I embedded above.\u00a0 I made a lot of noise, sort of accomplished what I was after, but in the flow of it all I made a mess of things and the end result was far from what was expected.<\/p>\n
I dove into murky and unfamiliar waters head-first.\u00a0 There was shrapnel just beneath the surface.\u00a0 This is going to leave permanent scars.<\/p>\n
I looked at the situation a bit and see what I had missed and where I went wrong.\u00a0 What ever my hopes were for in this endeavor, I wound up going a whole other direction.\u00a0 Being a failed experiment, I simply killed the subject.\u00a0 I deleted my account.\u00a0 I don’t know what inertia the situation had, so, cutting things completely seemed the most reasonable thing to do.<\/p>\n
But, that’s just it… Extreme socialization.\u00a0 When online, things can move at the speed of light.\u00a0 Far beyond what our logic and apprehension can manage.<\/p>\n
I’m left wondering; how social should I really try to be?<\/p>\n
Have I done enough in SL to occupy myself along with others?<\/p>\n
Does it really matter if I have RL friends or not?<\/p>\n
Is it healthy for me to stay in this room?<\/p>\n
Is socialization worth the risks at all?<\/p>\n
Are there people who simply shouldn’t socialize?<\/p>\n
Am I one of them?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Before I start… Yeah… That. (-_-) Silly video.\u00a0 Good for a laugh.\u00a0 But, it’s here for a reason. (>_<) I sort of wonder what introverts did before the internet.\u00a0 Actually, not really.\u00a0 I remember.\u00a0 When I was a kid, my … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[37,36],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":332,"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions\/332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/darkly-cute.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}