Jun. 21st, 2005

3307dream

Jun. 21st, 2005 06:22 pm
evile: (clutter)

    Jun. 21, 2005

     

     

    another indiana one. I was a DJ at WGRE, staying at Mom &  dad/G's.
    There was some elaborate sink with a kind of altar setup around it, I
    used it and got stuff wet.

    I was going to go out walking after my show in the dark and find
    someone to have the great rite with for Midsummer. Apparently in
    Alternate Reality Dream Depauw, people just kind of lurk around in
    bushes waiting for sex.

    And then there was a cute young guy who admired me and wanted to
    celebrate it with me...(Peglegasus' friend Dan?)

    Anyway...it was sort of positive.

evile: (clutter)

    Jun. 21, 2005

     

     

    http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html

    Opinion
    Five Geek Social Fallacies (Dec. 2, 2003) Five Geek Social Fallacies

    Within the constellation of allied hobbies and subcultures
    collectively known as geekdom, one finds many social groups bent
    under a crushing burden of dysfunction, social drama, and general
    interpersonal wack-ness. It is my opinion that many of these never-
    ending crises are sparked off by an assortment of pernicious social
    fallacies -- ideas about human interaction which spur their holders
    to do terrible and stupid things to themselves and to each other.

    Social fallacies are particularly insidious because they tend to be
    exaggerated versions of notions that are themselves entirely
    reasonable and unobjectionable. It's difficult to debunk the
    pathological fallacy without seeming to argue against its reasonable
    form; therefore, once it establishes itself, a social fallacy is
    extremely difficult to dislodge. It's my hope that drawing attention
    to some of them may be a step in the right direction.

    I want to note that I'm not trying to say that every geek subscribes
    to every one of the fallacies I outline here; every individual
    subscribes to a different set of ideas, and adheres to any given idea
    with a different amount of zeal.

    In any event, here are five geek social fallacies I've identified.
    There are likely more.

    Geek Social Fallacy #1: Ostracizers Are Evil
    GSF1 is one of the most common fallacies, and one of the most deeply
    held. Many geeks have had horrible, humiliating, and formative
    experiences with ostracism, and the notion of being on the other side
    of the transaction is repugnant to them.

    In its non-pathological form, GSF1 is benign, and even commendable:
    it is long past time we all grew up and stopped with the junior high
    popularity games. However, in its pathological form, GSF1 prevents
    its carrier from participating in -- or tolerating -- the exclusion
    of anyone from anything, be it a party, a comic book store, or a web
    forum, and no matter how obnoxious, offensive, or aromatic the
    prospective excludee may be.

    As a result, nearly every geek social group of significant size has
    at least one member that 80% of the members hate, and the remaining
    20% merely tolerate. If GSF1 exists in sufficient concentration --
    and it usually does -- it is impossible to expel a person who
    actively detracts from every social event. GSF1 protocol permits you
    not to invite someone you don't like to a given event, but if someone
    spills the beans and our hypothetical Cat Piss Man invites himself,
    there is no recourse. You must put up with him, or you will be an
    Evil Ostracizer and might as well go out for the football team.

    This phenomenon has a number of unpleasant consequences. For one
    thing, it actively hinders the wider acceptance of geek-related
    activities: I don't know that RPGs and comics would be more popular
    if there were fewer trolls who smell of cheese hassling the new
    blood, but I'm sure it couldn't hurt. For another, when nothing
    smacking of social selectiveness can be discussed in public, people
    inevitably begin to organize activities in secret. These conspiracies
    often lead to more problems down the line, and the end result is as
    juvenile as anything a seventh-grader ever dreamed of.

    Geek Social Fallacy #2: Friends Accept Me As I Am
    The origins of GSF2 are closely allied to the origins of GSF1. After
    being victimized by social exclusion, many geeks experience
    their "tribe" as a non-judgmental haven where they can take refuge
    from the cruel world outside.

    This seems straightforward and reasonable. It's important for people
    to have a space where they feel safe and accepted. Ideally,
    everyone's social group would be a safe haven. When people who rely
    too heavily upon that refuge feel insecure in that haven, however, a
    commendable ideal mutates into its pathological form, GSF2.

    Carriers of GSF2 believe that since a friend accepts them as they
    are, anyone who criticizes them is not their friend. Thus, they can't
    take criticism from friends -- criticism is experienced as a
    treacherous betrayal of the friendship, no matter how inappropriate
    the criticized behavior may be.

    Conversely, most carriers will never criticize a friend under any
    circumstances; the duty to be supportive trumps any impulse to point
    out unacceptable behavior.

    GSF2 has extensive consequences within a group. Its presence in
    substantial quantity within a social group vastly increases the
    group's conflict-averseness. People spend hours debating how to deal
    with conflicts, because they know (or sometimes merely fear) that the
    other person involved is a GSF2 carrier, and any attempt to confront
    them directly will only make things worse. As a result, people let
    grudges brew much longer than is healthy, and they spend absurd
    amounts of time deconstructing their interpersonal dramas in search
    of a back way out of a dilemma.

    Ironically, GSF2 carriers often take criticism from coworkers,
    supervisors, and mentors quite well; those individuals aren't
    friends, and aren't expected to accept the carrier unconditionally.

    Geek Social Fallacy #3: Friendship Before All
    Valuing friendships is a fine and worthy thing. When taken to an
    unhealthy extreme, however, GSF3 can manifest itself.

    Like GSF2, GSF3 is a "friendship test" fallacy: in this case, the
    carrier believes that any failure by a friend to put the interests of
    the friendship above all else means that they aren't really a friend
    at all. It should be obvious that there are a million ways that this
    can be a problem for the carrier's friends, but the most common one
    is a situation where friends' interests conflict -- if, for example,
    one friend asks you to keep a secret from another friend. If both
    friends are GSF3 carriers, you're screwed -- the first one will feel
    betrayed if you reveal the secret, and the other will feel betrayed
    if you don't. Your only hope is to keep the second friend from
    finding out, which is difficult if the secret in question was a party
    that a lot of people went to.

    GSF3 can be costly for the carrier as well. They often sacrifice
    work, family, and romantic obligations at the altar of friendship. In
    the end, the carrier has a great circle of friends, but not a lot
    else to show for their life. This is one reason why so many geek
    circles include people whose sole redeeming quality is loyalty: it's
    hard not to honor someone who goes to such lengths to be there for a
    friend, however destructive they may be in other respects.

    Individual carriers sometimes have exceptions to GSF3, which allow
    friends to place a certain protected class of people or things above
    friendship in a pinch: "significant others" is a common protected
    class, as is "work".

    Geek Social Fallacy #4: Friendship Is Transitive
    Every carrier of GSF4 has, at some point, said:

    "Wouldn't it be great to get all my groups of friends into one place
    for one big happy party?!"

    If you groaned at that last paragraph, you may be a recovering GSF4
    carrier.

    GSF4 is the belief that any two of your friends ought to be friends
    with each other, and if they're not, something is Very Wrong.

    The milder form of GSF4 merely prevents the carrier from perceiving
    evidence to contradict it; a carrier will refuse to comprehend that
    two of their friends (or two groups of friends) don't much care for
    each other, and will continue to try to bring them together at social
    events. They may even maintain that a full-scale vendetta is just a
    misunderstanding between friends that could easily be resolved if the
    principals would just sit down to talk it out.

    A more serious form of GSF4 becomes another "friendship test"
    fallacy: if you have a friend A, and a friend B, but A & B are not
    friends, then one of them must not really be your friend at all. It
    is surprisingly common for a carrier, when faced with two friends who
    don't get along, to simply drop one of them.

    On the other side of the equation, a carrier who doesn't like a
    friend of a friend will often get very passive-aggressive and
    covertly hostile to the friend of a friend, while vigorously
    maintaining that we're one big happy family and everyone is friends.

    GSF4 can also lead carriers to make inappropriate requests of people
    they barely know -- asking a friend's roommate's ex if they can crash
    on their couch, asking a college acquaintance from eight years ago
    for a letter of recommendation at their workplace, and so on. If
    something is appropriate to ask of a friend, it's appropriate to ask
    of a friend of a friend.

    Arguably, Friendster was designed by a GSF4 carrier.

    Geek Social Fallacy #5: Friends Do Everything Together
    GSF5, put simply, maintains that every friend in a circle should be
    included in every activity to the full extent possible. This is
    subtly different from GSF1; GSF1 requires that no one, friend or not,
    be excluded, while GSF5 requires that every friend be invited. This
    means that to a GSF5 carrier, not being invited to something is
    intrinsically a snub, and will be responded to as such.

    This is perhaps the least destructive of the five, being at worst
    inconvenient. In a small circle, this is incestuous but basically
    harmless. In larger groups, it can make certain social events very
    difficult: parties which are way too large for their spaces and
    restaurant expeditions that include twenty people and no reservation
    are far from unusual.

    When everyone in a group is a GSF5 carrier, this isn't really a
    problem. If, however, there are members who aren't carriers, they may
    want occasionally to have smaller outings, and these can be hard to
    arrange without causing hurt feelings and social drama. It's hard to
    explain to a GSF5 carrier that just because you only wanted to have
    dinner with five other people tonight, it doesn't mean that your
    friendship is in terrible danger.

    For some reason, many GSF5 carriers are willing to make an exception
    for gender-segregated events. I don't know why.

    Interactions
    Each fallacy has its own set of unfortunate consequences, but
    frequently they become worse in interaction. GSF4 often develops into
    its more extreme form when paired with GSF5; if everyone does
    everything together, it's much harder to maintain two friends who
    don't get along. One will usually fall by the wayside.

    Similarly, GSF1 and GSF5 can combine regrettably: when a failure to
    invite someone is equivalent to excluding them, you can't even get
    away with not inviting Captain Halitosis along on the road trip. GSF3
    can combine disastrously with the other "friendship test" fallacies;
    carriers may insist that their friends join them in snubbing someone
    who fails the test, which occasionally leads to a chain reaction
    which causes the carrier to eventually reject all of their friends.
    This is not healthy; fortunately, severe versions of GSF3 are rare.

    Consequences
    Dealing with the effects of social fallacies is an essential part of
    managing one's social life among geeks, and this is much easier when
    one is aware of them and can identify which of your friends carry
    which fallacies. In the absence of this kind of awareness, three
    situations tend to arise when people come into contact with fallacies
    they don't hold themselves.

    Most common is simple conflict and hurt feelings. It's hard for
    people to talk through these conflicts because they usually stem from
    fairly primal value clashes; a GSF3 carrier may not even be able to
    articulate why it was such a big deal that their non-carrier friend
    blew off their movie night.

    Alternately, people often take on fallacies that are dominant in
    their social circle. If you join a group of GSF5 carriers, doing
    everything together is going to become a habit; if you spend enough
    time around GSF1 carriers, putting up with trolls is going to seem
    normal.

    Less commonly, people form a sort of counter-fallacy which I
    call "Your Feelings, Your Problem". YFYP carriers deal with other
    people's fallacies by ignoring them entirely, in the process
    acquiring a reputation for being charmingly tactless. Carriers tend
    to receive a sort of exemption from the usual standards: "that's just
    Dana", and so on. YFYP has its own problems, but if you would rather
    be an asshole than angstful, it may be the way to go. It's also
    remarkably easy to pull off in a GSF1-rich environment.

    What Can I Do?
    As I've said, I think that the best way to deal with social fallacies
    is to be aware of them, in yourself and in others. In yourself, you
    can try to deal with them; in others, understanding their behavior
    usually makes it less aggravating.

    Social fallacies don't make someone a bad person; on the contrary,
    they usually spring from the purest motives. But I believe they are
    worth deconstructing; in the long run, social fallacies cost a lot of
    stress and drama, to no real benefit. You can be tolerant without
    being indiscriminate, and you can be loyal to friends without being
    compulsive about it.

    Hey, Are You Talking About Me?
    If I know you, yeah, probably I am. It doesn't mean I don't love you;
    most of us carry a few fallacies. Myself, I struggle with GSF 1 and
    2, and I used to have a bad case of 4 until a series of disastrous
    parties dispelled it.
    I haven't used any examples that refer to specific situations, if it
    has you worried. Any resemblances to geeks living or dead are
    coincidental.

    Back to Main Page © 2003 Michael Suileabhain-Wilson. All rights
    reserved.

evile: (declutter)

    Jun. 21, 2005

     

     

    evile: *sigh* phone duty gave me a headache!
    SkyeDS: I sorry :(
    evile: my last caller was a guy who stuttered and didn't speak
    english too well, on top of that. Finally, thank goodness, he got his
    sister on the line to help!
    evile: On the good side, it means I get to leave work early :)
    SkyeDS: nods. early is always good. I came in early yesterday and
    got to leave early.
    evile: that's a fine thing, esp iwth the longer days :)
    SkyeDS: I think those of us who have insecurity problems with
    exclusion (I'm still reading LJ) applied Ruiz #2 we might be able to
    handle our own shit better.
    evile: *nod* probably :)
    SkyeDS: I know I have no idea where all of the posts started because
    I probably wasn't there
    evile: Mostly just comments in passing, different exchanges with
    different people that finally just popped something in my head this
    morning.
    SkyeDS: it popped into roninjedi and kulilinei's head before yours
    apparently
    evile: Kind of wierd to get on that wavelength w/people.
    SkyeDS: that happens all the time between a number of my friends and
    me, so it didn't occur to me that that is weird
    evile: *shrug* Maybe it's not.
    SkyeDS: I can't imagine what the ego would have to be like not to be
    hurt by exclusion, particularly exclusion by those you respect,
    admire, love, whatever
    SkyeDS: I have no doubt that such egos are out there, I just can't
    get my head around it
    evile: yeah...
    evile: I like ladydreamtime's link. It is pretty awesome, and kind of funny,
    too.
    SkyeDS: nods.
    SkyeDS: I copied that site into my LJ and memoried it
    SkyeDS: found an ebay store with gazebo/pavilions I like
    evile: awesome :)
    SkyeDS: and will make sineater and sonar0m happier than that 200$ pavilion
    with wrought iron that I like at Home Depot
    evile: that's good!
    SkyeDS: I still love that one though - arrow valley
    SkyeDS: it's on the home depot website
    SkyeDS: if you've been out in their H&G, you've probably seen it
    evile: Yup, I remember really liking this year's patio furniture
    SkyeDS: maybe a worthwhile investment before War next year, and use
    your method of attaching canvas walls with pins
    SkyeDS: for camping privacy
    evile: yeah, if you're going to be set up for a week, might be good
    to have something durable.
    SkyeDS: I just had a thought
    SkyeDS: (OMG hold the presses!)
    SkyeDS: the tent frame is iron
    SkyeDS: probably could support curtain rods on the inside, and I
    could hang canvas from them like curtains, open during the day,
    closed at night
    SkyeDS: or for changing
    evile: *nod*
    SkyeDS: they say egyptian cotton makes nice tent material too
    SkyeDS: I could make curtains out of egyptian cotton sheets
    evile: *nod*
    SkyeDS: omg two sets of memories in one day
    SkyeDS: erinlefey's next 10 commandments
    evile: saw that, very sweet :)
    SkyeDS: I've been winning friends and influencing people again
    SkyeDS: (/sarcasm)
    evile: oh dear.
    SkyeDS: keject has the same problem with his mom that sonar0m had with
    his
    SkyeDS: and so I'm helping keject deal with it successfully, as I did
    with sonar0m
    SkyeDS: his mom doesn't know that
    evile: *nod*
    SkyeDS: she met me and liked me jsut fine
    SkyeDS: until it occurred to her to ask him why sonar0m was always
    with sineater & me (which isn't even true, he's just with us half a week
    at a time)
    SkyeDS: so keject, who doesn't have a duplicitous bone in his body,
    told her
    evile: oops.
    SkyeDS: and good upright divorced dysfunctional parent that she is,
    she freaked
    SkyeDS: I meant to add Christian in there too
    SkyeDS: she's fixing to ditch her best friend in the world because
    that friend is leaving Xianity for Buddhism
    SkyeDS: Jubilee's dad has always thought that HFS was a cult
    SkyeDS: she moved out of the house to go back to the dorm took all
    her stuff and he called the cops and said that the HFS had kidnapped
    her
    SkyeDS: Randy's parents think SCA is a cult and get mad at him for
    taking his kids
    SkyeDS: but anyway
    evile: wow...that's crazy.
    SkyeDS: so he was grilling her about me and what my intentions
    toward her were, and now he's convinced that I'm trying to convert
    her into paganism and poly-ism so I can get into her patns
    SkyeDS: then wanted all my personal contact information
    evile: hm.
    SkyeDS: I told her well, I would assume you gave that to him in
    January before you came to stay with me
    SkyeDS: which would have been the logical thing to do
    SkyeDS: but know this
    SkyeDS: after what kaleon's mother pulled, calling the OK state
    police, the TX DPS and the Travis County Sheriff on me
    SkyeDS: the Sheriff showed up at the house, leaning hard on sineater to
    search the house and dig up the yard
    SkyeDS: he told them my wife is a paralegal and if I let you do that
    without a search warrant I'd willingly give her my balls for breakfast
    evile: oh dear.
    SkyeDS: and the DPS was following me all the way home from Scarby
    SkyeDS: I got pretty mad about that
    SkyeDS: it happens again, well, I can't make any promises as to how
    I'm going to react.
    evile: was that before or after you pulled the sword on the guy in
    Cracker barrel?
    SkyeDS: before
    SkyeDS: I think
    evile: hm.
    SkyeDS: that was when kaleon and I went to Scarby for my birthday
    SkyeDS: he told his mom when I was going to drop him at his Aunt's in
    Belton on my way home. There was some misunderstanding as to time,
    so when he didn't show up when SHE expected him to, she called in
    three different police forces and told them I kidnapped him
    SkyeDS: never mind that he's not a minor so it wouldn't have been
    kidnapping
    SkyeDS: and that an adult has to be missing for a much longer period
    of time before they call search
    evile: jeez. I hope the law enforcement got after her for wasting
    their manpower.
    SkyeDS: all she had to do is tell them I was a swinger and a witch to
    get them to call bloodhunt on me
    evile: *nod*
    SkyeDS: I find no shame in being "in the closet" or less than open
    with people who to quote jack nicholson "can't handle the truth"
    evile: she sounds like a real nutjob.
    SkyeDS: the white trash next door who are also revival preachers
    don't know I'm a witch because I feel it to be a matter of life and
    limb
    SkyeDS: but where my triad marriage is concerned, I can see both
    sides of the "how open are you" issue
    SkyeDS: I'm not ashamed, and I"m not going to act like I am
    evile: yup
    SkyeDS: I don't do public displays of affection in general, and I
    don't let sonar0m do in public even so much as sineater does because I
    don't want others to be uncomfortable
    SkyeDS: which arguably isn't fair to sonar0m but he understands
    SkyeDS: but since it's already public knowledge that I have a triad
    marriage, there's no point in trying to control who tells who what
    about it
    evile: *nod*
    SkyeDS: heaven forbid that I be contagious to young ADULTS and spread
    paganism or polyfidelity to them
    SkyeDS: and what they don't realize IS contagious where I'm concerned
    is that I do encourage independence in them, and honor, and other
    strengths that I personally value
    evile: *nod*
    SkyeDS: maybe one of these days if kaleon ever gets the venom out of
    his system he'll realize that good things came out of our
    relationship that will last his entire life
    SkyeDS: his relationship with his parents is better and will always
    be better because of me
    evile: hope so.
    SkyeDS: freaking the mundanes....lol, freaking the mundane parents,
    even better.
    evile: *shrug*
    SkyeDS: that's good folks, keep overreacting and eventually your
    adult kids won't tell you squat.
    evile: yup. I guess everyone's got to learn that the hard way.
    SkyeDS: I already felt sorry for keject and Jubi with regard to their
    parental situations. I feel sorry that they should bear the brunt of
    their parents narrowmindedness and blinders. But personally, as long
    as I don't get the police called on me again, find the overreactions
    pretty damn funny. Bad me, I guess.
    evile: eh. Humor is always a good shield. gotta laugh or you'd cry
    sometimes.
    SkyeDS: anno domini 200x in the US, we're still burning books (Harry
    Potter)
    SkyeDS: poor Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)
    SkyeDS: and I can just see Rowling laughing with her royalties for
    the burned books all the way to the bank
    evile: yeah..i'm sure it doesn't matter to the authors/publishers
    what you do with 'em as long as you buy 'em.
    SkyeDS: anymore than it matters to the french if we buy wine just to
    pour it out
    SkyeDS: I wonder how much longer we're going to be the greatest
    nation in the world at this rate
    evile: I give it 15-25 years.
    SkyeDS: that's within our lifetime. that sucks.
    SkyeDS: Jubilee thinks we're in the biblical end of days, I tend to
    agree, and I say that sucks too.
    SkyeDS: I don't want to live to see the collapse of my nation, much
    less the collapse of the entire world, couldn't they just like, wait
    till I'm gone?
    evile: *shrug* I have a really cool book of ancient near eastern
    texts...10000 BC Babylon, people writing about the newfangled gadgets
    and kids being disrespectful and the world is going to hell in a
    handbasket. Pretty much the same.
    SkyeDS: 2012 is an interesting year no?
    SkyeDS: Benedict said he expects to be a transitional pope for 7 or 8
    years, 2012 would be 7
    SkyeDS: that's the end of the current Mayan (I think?) cycle
    SkyeDS: and is an election year, so we'll have one coming and one
    going
    evile: yup. the world is ending on my 42nd bday.
    SkyeDS: so it might be likely that someone prominent will
    deliberately imminentize the eschaton
    evile: you should read omegabaphomet's LJ.
    evile: he was one of the Nude Yoga regulars, way back when.
    evile: My TIM buddies are so goofy. I love those guys.
    SkyeDS: :)
    evile: they are not the ones to call on when you have serious stuff
    going on...except maybe 1 on 1. *sigh* geek boys' pack behavior....I
    could write a book.
    evile: well, I've got to return a call to one of my
    lunchtime 'buddies' so I will sign off now. See ya later :)

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