Phases

[chocolatepot]

Ugh, I hate how I always seem to go through the same phases on social media (all of them, all at the same time). I'm sick of them. Nobody else seems to do this.

Phase 1: Tentatively comment when nobody else is saying the thing; make apologies, hedge politely, and keep a dry, academic tone.

Phase 2: Gain confidence as people compliment responses - post more frequently and more casually.

Phase 3: Post very frequently and sometimes quickly; most posts are disputed or corrected and sometimes result in people being pissed off.

Phase 4: Renounce Facebook/Reddit/Tumblr/whatever else for several days. Repeat.

I mean, I know what the underlying issue is. I completely miss out on the innocuous conversations everyone else manages (I'm just very rarely inspired that way!) that adjust your dumb thing:normal thing ratio so it doesn't seem like everything you're saying is met with scorn, and then I way over-internalize the disagreement whether it legitimately is scorn or just a contradiction and then project it onto everyone else. Okay. But it is a terrible cycle and I need to stop doing it.

Comments

[lliira]

If you figure out how to stop doing it, let me know so I can also stop doing it :P. I've tried to make myself say more innocuous things, but people tend to ignore those... unless, randomly, they don't, and I have no idea what makes people not ignore some of them.

[chocolatepot]

I'll let you know when I figure it out! Unfortunately the best lead seems to be that I'm just bitchy and not as nice as I'd like to think I am.

[lliira]

Nah. I think it's just that there are a lot of (loud) people online who expect everyone -- especially women -- to always behave with completely perfect manners and never ruffle any feathers. And, like Anne Elliot, I don't trust people who always behave with completely perfect manners. People who go out of their way to ruffle feathers all the time are obviously not trustworthy, but imo people who go out of their way to never ruffle feathers aren't trustworthy either.

[chocolatepot]

That's true. But I think another aspect is my sometime inability to read the room, because I do genuinely put my foot in my mouth a decent amount of the time.

[lliira]

Yeah, I do that too. Tbh, I think part of it might be being used to discussions in history classes, where things can get heated and highly critical but at the same time there's this odd sense of humor that keeps things going, and everyone chugs along? And some groups just have different communication styles. Like, I do great in NYC, I do okay in Michigan, and in Florida I am completely and utterly lost and seem to shock people consistently. I think communities online can be the same. I wouldn't dare Reddit, and I feel like Jane Goodall on Tumblr.