Annika L
Aug 21, 2007, 11:04 PM
For years I actively avoided internet chat rooms. I didn't think there was any way to form a meaningful friendship in a virtual environment. One day I stumbled into a chat room by accident, and this impression was almost immediately contradicted, and before long, between bisexual.com and the now defunct bisexual.org, I made many, many friends online. Each of these seemed fully as meaningful as friendships I've made in real life, many even moreso.
But lately, I have identified a disturbing trend. One by one, the people to whom I have become closest in chat rooms have betrayed and hurt me, each in their own unique (and sometimes highly imaginative) way, and some multiple times. Each time, I was devastated, but said to myself "well, but there's still ________________ -- that is a person you can trust and who is worth hanging on for." Well after this most recent ______________, I have finally reached the point where I need to start asking if there is *anybody* online I can trust.
Some of you are probably shaking your heads in disbelief and saying "well, geez, what do you expect from people?" Or perhaps "my god, girl, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen!"
Good points, both. But in real life, as of age 40 I have never had this problem. I have plenty of excellent friends (carefully chosen) and we simply do not treat one another in these ways, and there is no fear of betrayal. Is it possible that when I exercise exactly the same judgment to choose friends in chat, I just happen to get unlucky multiple times in a row? Or is it more likely that people in this setting are just more likely to betray? Are friendships here just so cheap that they can be thrown away lightly? It would seem so...and therefore, I am getting out of the kitchen.
I still consider many of you good friends, and it is difficult to face the fact that these friendships will not continue, expand, or deepen. But frankly, I'm gunshy...I would prefer to remember the rest of my friends here as good people whom I continue to love (and you know who you are!), rather than to discover slowly that some or all are capable of and willing to inflict great pain (and you know who you are). I don't have the heart for more of this, and I've never been one for keeping my friendships shallow.
I thank you all for many marvelous times, wonderful laughs, and incredible insights...for your support, sharing, and love...and for making me think!
Some may accuse me of betraying them by leaving. But everything ends and not all partings constitute betrayal. I at least have the decency to say good-bye -- I wanted people to know (for those who care or notice) why they're not seeing me around.
So I leave you with a song. I have considered contributing both to music-oriented threads and to the thread on politics...this perhaps accomplishes both. Enjoy, and may the goddess keep you all!
---------------------------------
We Can't Make It Here (James McMurtry)
There's a Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign
Sitting there by the left turn line
Flag on his wheelchair flapping in the breeze
One leg missing and both hands free
No one's paying much mind to him
The V.A.'s budget is stretched so thin
And now there's more coming back from the Mideast war
We can't make it here anymore.
That big 'ol building was a textile mill
It fed our kids and it paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
We can't make it here anymore.
See those pallets piled up on the loading dock
They're just gonna sit there 'til they rot
'Cause there's nothing to ship, nothing to pack
Just busted concrete and rusted tracks
Empty storefronts around the square
There's a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere
You don't come down here unless you're looking to score
We can't make it here anymore.
The bar's still open but man it's slow
The tip jar's light and the register's low
The bartender don't have much to say
The regular crowd gets thinner each day
Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are workin' two jobs and livin' in cars
Minimum wage won't pay for a roof, won't pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof, just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how far $5.15 an hour will go
Take a part-time job at one of your stores
Bet you can't make it here anymore.
There's a highschool girl with a bourgeois dream
Just like the pictures in the magazine
She found on the floor of the laundromat
A woman with kids can forget all that
If she comes up pregnant what'll she do
Forget the career, forget about school
Can she live on faith? Live on hope?
Hooked on Jesus or hooked on dope
When it's way too late to just say no
You can't make it here anymore.
Now I'm stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store
Just like the ones we made before
'Cept this one came from Singapore
I guess we can't make it here anymore.
Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I'm in?
Should I hate 'em for having our jobs today?
No, I hate the men who sent the jobs away
I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They've never known want, they'll never know need
Their shit don't stink and their kids won't bleed
Their kids won't bleed in their damned little war
And we can't make it here anymore.
Will work for food or will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get to fall through the cracks
So let 'em eat jellybeans, let 'em eat cake
Let 'em eat shit, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force or join the Corps
If they can't make it here anymore.
So that's how it is, that's what we got
If the president wants to admit it or not
You can read it in the paper, read it on the wall
Hear it on the wind if you're listening at all
Get out of that limo, look us in the eye
Call us on the cell phone tell us all why.
In Dayton, Ohio or Portland, Maine
Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains
That's done closed down along with the school
And the hospital and the swimming pool
Dust devils dance in the noonday heat
There's rats in the alley and trash in the streets
Gang grafitti on a boxcar door
We can't make it here anymore.
---------------------------------
* raises a glass of mead to my friends here in chat, drinks *
* tags MarieDelta * (you're it now, hon)
* dives headfirst into a hole in the ground without spilling her drink *
Bye,
-- Annika
But lately, I have identified a disturbing trend. One by one, the people to whom I have become closest in chat rooms have betrayed and hurt me, each in their own unique (and sometimes highly imaginative) way, and some multiple times. Each time, I was devastated, but said to myself "well, but there's still ________________ -- that is a person you can trust and who is worth hanging on for." Well after this most recent ______________, I have finally reached the point where I need to start asking if there is *anybody* online I can trust.
Some of you are probably shaking your heads in disbelief and saying "well, geez, what do you expect from people?" Or perhaps "my god, girl, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen!"
Good points, both. But in real life, as of age 40 I have never had this problem. I have plenty of excellent friends (carefully chosen) and we simply do not treat one another in these ways, and there is no fear of betrayal. Is it possible that when I exercise exactly the same judgment to choose friends in chat, I just happen to get unlucky multiple times in a row? Or is it more likely that people in this setting are just more likely to betray? Are friendships here just so cheap that they can be thrown away lightly? It would seem so...and therefore, I am getting out of the kitchen.
I still consider many of you good friends, and it is difficult to face the fact that these friendships will not continue, expand, or deepen. But frankly, I'm gunshy...I would prefer to remember the rest of my friends here as good people whom I continue to love (and you know who you are!), rather than to discover slowly that some or all are capable of and willing to inflict great pain (and you know who you are). I don't have the heart for more of this, and I've never been one for keeping my friendships shallow.
I thank you all for many marvelous times, wonderful laughs, and incredible insights...for your support, sharing, and love...and for making me think!
Some may accuse me of betraying them by leaving. But everything ends and not all partings constitute betrayal. I at least have the decency to say good-bye -- I wanted people to know (for those who care or notice) why they're not seeing me around.
So I leave you with a song. I have considered contributing both to music-oriented threads and to the thread on politics...this perhaps accomplishes both. Enjoy, and may the goddess keep you all!
---------------------------------
We Can't Make It Here (James McMurtry)
There's a Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign
Sitting there by the left turn line
Flag on his wheelchair flapping in the breeze
One leg missing and both hands free
No one's paying much mind to him
The V.A.'s budget is stretched so thin
And now there's more coming back from the Mideast war
We can't make it here anymore.
That big 'ol building was a textile mill
It fed our kids and it paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
We can't make it here anymore.
See those pallets piled up on the loading dock
They're just gonna sit there 'til they rot
'Cause there's nothing to ship, nothing to pack
Just busted concrete and rusted tracks
Empty storefronts around the square
There's a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere
You don't come down here unless you're looking to score
We can't make it here anymore.
The bar's still open but man it's slow
The tip jar's light and the register's low
The bartender don't have much to say
The regular crowd gets thinner each day
Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are workin' two jobs and livin' in cars
Minimum wage won't pay for a roof, won't pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof, just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how far $5.15 an hour will go
Take a part-time job at one of your stores
Bet you can't make it here anymore.
There's a highschool girl with a bourgeois dream
Just like the pictures in the magazine
She found on the floor of the laundromat
A woman with kids can forget all that
If she comes up pregnant what'll she do
Forget the career, forget about school
Can she live on faith? Live on hope?
Hooked on Jesus or hooked on dope
When it's way too late to just say no
You can't make it here anymore.
Now I'm stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store
Just like the ones we made before
'Cept this one came from Singapore
I guess we can't make it here anymore.
Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I'm in?
Should I hate 'em for having our jobs today?
No, I hate the men who sent the jobs away
I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They've never known want, they'll never know need
Their shit don't stink and their kids won't bleed
Their kids won't bleed in their damned little war
And we can't make it here anymore.
Will work for food or will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get to fall through the cracks
So let 'em eat jellybeans, let 'em eat cake
Let 'em eat shit, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force or join the Corps
If they can't make it here anymore.
So that's how it is, that's what we got
If the president wants to admit it or not
You can read it in the paper, read it on the wall
Hear it on the wind if you're listening at all
Get out of that limo, look us in the eye
Call us on the cell phone tell us all why.
In Dayton, Ohio or Portland, Maine
Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains
That's done closed down along with the school
And the hospital and the swimming pool
Dust devils dance in the noonday heat
There's rats in the alley and trash in the streets
Gang grafitti on a boxcar door
We can't make it here anymore.
---------------------------------
* raises a glass of mead to my friends here in chat, drinks *
* tags MarieDelta * (you're it now, hon)
* dives headfirst into a hole in the ground without spilling her drink *
Bye,
-- Annika