posted
Thanks. You see another symptom of my problem. At the time I learned that Daedelus was not Dagonee, John L and Lalo were not quite distinct personalities in my mind. That has changed since then.
Posts: 1002 | Registered: Feb 2005
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And I have no knowledge about posting on hatrack as a couple. No knowledge at all of bickering with your spouse online when they're sitting across the living room from you playing Halo 2. No idea what that's like.
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote: Honestly, I can't think of any Hatrackers who have been around less time than me who make me feel more insecure about thw worth of my contributions that mph and ElJay.
Not to ridicule other's insecurities, as I know mine are just as silly, but dude... You're like, my Hatrack Hero. So that just made my jaw drop.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I usually keep my posts on serious subjects to a minimum because I suffer the same insecurities as some have mentioned. I can't remember how many times a thread has shriveled up after I tried to make some sense. I am always impressed with the folks that can logically and rationally state their case with passion and wit. I wish I was as lucid in my writing as so many here are but, I'm not and I've learned to just enjoy those that are gifted writers.
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posted
I think Jon Boy has only posted once or twice since he swore of Hatrack, and both times under old pseudonyms. Not to say he wouldn't post again, but yeah.
Also, ElJay, if I paid more attention to you after having seen your picture, it's because I'm a visually oriented person, and having a face equals being real in my mind. I pay more attention to any person who has a photo on Foobonic, regardless of whether I find them attractive at all.
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posted
OK, I just looked for ElJay's photos on foobonic. I cannot find them. Can anybody point me toward them?
Posts: 1002 | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Wow, all these people confessing their insecurities about posting at Hatrack makes me feel like I am in high school again.
In 12th grade I made this belated discovery:
The reason other students in class didn't ask the questions that were on my mind wasn't as I had always assumed, because they already knew the answers.
See, I had always assumed that everyone else got it, and that I was just too stupid to understand what was going on. Turns out no one asked the questions for the same reason I didn't - they were afraid of appearing stupid in front of the rest of the class. (And sometimes, they didn't ask because they didn't even understand the material well enough to ask the question.)
It was the first time in my life that I realized I was smart.
And it broke my fear of asking questions.
Just for the record, I am very surprised at the number of people posting here who think they don't write or express their thoughts "well enough." Because I have never found their posts to be "sub-standard."
[ February 17, 2005, 04:04 PM: Message edited by: Ela ]
Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
Except that in high school no one expressed their insecurities. We were all far too insecure for that! Instead we tried our best to fake it.
I am convinced that everyone has insecurities. Everyone. And the fact that we are mature enough to be open about it with each other is highly commendable and speaks volumes.
Would that high school was anything remotely resembling Hatrack. Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
The point, bev, is that no one admitted their insecurities before. Those expressing insecurities have continued to be members of Hatrack, some for quite some time, and they have this fear that their posts might somehow be viewed as "inferior." Some even restrain from posting, or limit their posting for that reason.
It is analogous with what was happening to me in high school classes. How did I find out that other people didn't know the answer, either? I started asking my classmates if they understood what the teacher was saying. And they admitted that, no they didn't understand it any better than I did.
I am not making a generalization about all high school experiences, but from my specific experience cited above.
[ February 17, 2005, 04:18 PM: Message edited by: Ela ]
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posted
OK, I understand. I guess in my mind, ever since I have been at Hatrack people have seemed pretty open about sharing these exact kinds of insecurities. They may not do it all the time, but when the subject is brought up, people seem willing to open up about it. So this thread doesn't surprise me at all.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:I guess in my mind, ever since I have been at Hatrack people have seemed pretty open about sharing these exact kinds of insecurities. They may not do it all the time, but when the subject is brought up, people seem willing to open up about it. So this thread doesn't surprise me at all.
Some have been open about it, it's true. But some of the people who expressed such insecurities in this thread surprised me, cause it's not people I would have expected to have such feelings.
Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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quote: I am convinced that everyone has insecurities. Everyone.
You know, I would have said two days ago that I wasn't particularly insecure about posting on Hatrack. But then I had a genuinely hard time admitting to being ticked off at OSC for a personal slight, and realized that, hey, I AM. *laugh*
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posted
Despite having been here for three years, I still have a case of newb-insecurity. No matter what I tell myself, I can't quite get past it. Oh well. Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I am convinced that everyone has insecurities. Everyone.
You know, I would have said two days ago that I wasn't particularly insecure about posting on Hatrack. But then I had a genuinely hard time admitting to being ticked off at OSC for a personal slight, and realized that, hey, I AM. *laugh*
Okay, now I really AM shocked.
[ February 17, 2005, 04:38 PM: Message edited by: Ela ]
Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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quote: But some of the people who expressed such insecurities in this thread surprised me, cause it's not people I would have expected to have such feelings.
Ah, so this thread has been particularly eye-opening? Maybe the one about Porter threw people for a loop, whereas I know him well. Porter *is* a very confident person. Always has been. But even confident people are insecure.
For instance, Porter doesn't participate much in self-analyzation. So when the spotlight forces him to look at himself, he is often looking into a blind-spot. It makes him uncomfortable and feel vulnerable. He cares what other people think of him to some extent, but for the most part he is very good at not letting what other's think bother him.
I, on the other hand, have always been a self-analyzer, and am fairly comfortable with it. My insecurities lie more heavily in wondering how others perceive me, too often fearing the worst.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
This is all very surreal. It was weird that this whole episode correlated so with my rather intense thread yesterday (I'm sure it was only intense to me) and current sentiment I've been garnering at Galactic Cactus. It's all kind of the same thing, some huge principle floating around and repetitively manifesting itself, but I can't quite nail it down.
Also, about insecurity and confidence: I'm the same way. I got very angry when a friend (acquaintance?) of mine described me to my roommate as "totally insecure, but with a lot of gumption. You gotta give her that." I was offended because this person rarely if ever spoke to me and didn't know a thing about me personally. He was also spot-on.
posted
Mph, I'm really glad you did that. It definitely made me realize that I do expect certain people to say certain things- I put statements in the context of the person I believe to have understood them to be, and that context probably isn't always fair. It'd be neat to cover up the left margin of the board for a day and see which posts I give credibility (or lack thereof) based on the post rather than the poster.
I have a theory that we build these unfair pictures because we have grown up in real life, a place where you always have a context that involves nonverbal clues and more rapport in less time. We attempt to build rapport here with inside jokes, smilies, etc., but until we meet IRL, we can only form pictures of people based on their words. And mph, you showed me that my pictures are far more one deminsional than they should be. In an attempt to feel closer to all of you, I've forced you into little boxes- that way, when I see you post, I can recognize you- "oh, that's the Mormon guy who lives in Utah with his wife and kids"- and it makes me feel like we have at least a little of that real life rapport, like we're real friends, and it gives me a context to place your remarks in. But it also limits you.
Thanks for showing me that.
(By the way, I have always respected you and Beverly a lot for your intelligence regarding your religious views, so while I do read you with a bias, it's a positive one. And this has only made you more interesting to me.)
Posts: 186 | Registered: Dec 2000
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posted
Sort of on topic, I have a friend who says that ever since I (involuntarily) switched usernames, I come off as much more polite. I certainly have the exact same attitude about posting, but attaching the "Lady" label to the words made them seem more genteel to her.
That's funny.
My next username is going to be "Friendly Fan."
Posts: 1163 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
I believe this was the first photo of ElJay ever linked to on Hatrack. I think it should be how you all think of her.
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posted
I've been away for...what, about three weeks now, so I missed all of this, and have no idea if I would have realized who AntiCool was or not. You know how I feel about you though, right Porter? Oh, by the way, completely off topic, but I finally started reading that Vinge novel you sent me. I'm loving it.
ElJay, for what it's worth, I first was aware of you as someone that seemed like she'd been here longer than she had, and seemed fairly cool, then found out that you were Dana's sister, thought "huh, well, that explains it, Dana's sister would *have* to be cool, wouldn't she, then got to know you better, realizing that yes, you really were that cool, and then finally saw a picture of you and thought "wow, cool and physically attractive both!"
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
I think I am rare in taking my insecurities in stride because I started up on hatrack pretty much in conjunction with being diagnosed with OCD. So I know I obsess about what others think of me and worry that the things I write are flashing neon signs about my defectiveness as a human being.
Even so, I am sometimes amazed to go back to an old post and see how far up my ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H self-absorbed my reasoning sometimes becomes.
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I have a theory that most people are insecure to some degree but they have a little inner dot-idea somewhere that says "you're fundamentally right about this!" and that is how however insecure you are you always have the strength to have opinions.
Given that, I'm not insecure. I don't think.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote: Given that, I'm not insecure. I don't think.
Seriously, I would like to point out that there is a difference between "being insecure" and "having insecurities". Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote: Give it up, Trisha. Who did you think I was?
My bad. I thought you might be AK until the :wub: thing. Then I wondered if you were my brother, briefly, only you were being a lot more civil than he ususally is on serious subjects. Like, in the men are scum thing he would have pointed out that he is always repressing a desire to kill and to make an exception for rapists... well, I don't know him well enough to continue that avenue. But he will be watching our kids while I work.
What else was I going to say? I had to pause to have a water fight with the baby (which I won) and I've lost my train of thought.
P.S. Oh yeah, I was wondering why that picture of ElJay is titled "horns", at the end of the address.
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