Meanwhile... Pt. 1

[Drusilla lives!]

You really need to take the Facebook "friend" concept with a large pinch of salt. All it means is that there is some (possibly very vague) relation between them - maybe they're real friends, maybe they vaguely recognise each other's name, maybe they were at school at the same time, or maybe they just accepted a friend request from someone they couldn't even remember but they accept all requests!...

Nah, they seem to all be real friends.

But what can I say really, I wasn't exactly the most outgoing person back then anyway. And although we were pretty good friends, if I recall correctly we did sorta drift apart towards the senior year. And after high school... well, as many people usually do, I pretty much went in my own direction... so who knows when or where he met all these people really.

I guess what's hard to accept isn't that he has all these "friends," but the realization that I was a real socially inept introvert back then... and still am to some extent.

[Drusilla lives!]

Whats interesting is , I wonder where Zyrson (I believe that was his name) went to ? I checked and he hasn't posted in 13 days. Quite a long time for the dude to not be posting here.

Ya know, I was wondering the same thing. The last time I recall reading one of his posts was quite a while back... before the change over to this new BB software. And I think I remember him saying something about having problems logging in under his user name or something.

[CromagnonMan]

i dislike Facebook intensely, in fact id say i have "Facebook phobia". i cant bear to actually log into my account, the feeling verges on giving me physical discomfort. Id say 90% of the people who are my 'friends' are not actually my friends, in fact a fair proportion id say i 'dislike'.

the sooner the Facebook fad wanes the better, i say. Bah.

its probably only going to get worse though, imagine in the future when youre expected to actually log onto something like FBOOK and actually communicate live over the net with your 'friends' similar to Skype scary thought.

whats wrong with the damned telephone?

[dan bailey]

whats wrong with the damned telephone?

It exists.

(I'd much rather communicate in writing than spoken words. I'm sure that's part of why I don't, & don't intend to, own a cell phone of any type.)

[Romero]

I do get kind of jealous sometimes when I see how many more friends some people I know have than I do, or when someone I knew friends a mutual friend, but not me. It goes away though!

I'm also surprised at how politically opposite I am to many of the people I went to grade school with. Lots of tea party/Republican/ Big L Libertarians, which is not me at all. And some of these friends have other friends who, yikes, I'm glad I don't know them. I do try to avoid political discussions on FB though.

[dan bailey]

I'm also surprised at how politically opposite I am to many of the people I went to grade school with. Lots of tea party/Republican/ Big L Libertarians, which is not me at all.

Same here ... except that I'm not surprised, considering that I grew up in a very conservative place (rural SW Arkansas). Not that I happen to be friends on FB with anyone I went to grade school with; the opportunity just hasn't presented itself, & I can't say I've really sought it out.

Again, it's a small pool to begin with: My graduating class was something like 55, & of course it would've been probaby around half that if the school system hadn't desegregated in the 6th grade. The number of people I went to grade school with is pretty small, in other words. The handful of people (from & after grade school alike) I'd be interested in reconnecting with don't seem to be on FB. C'est la vie.

[Cei-U!]

whats wrong with the damned telephone?

Can't speak for anyone but me, of course, but I have a really difficult time talking on the phone. Over the last ten years or so, I've developed a strong aversion--almost a phobia--to the damned thing, which is a bit ironic because I used to practically live on the phone. Short to-the-point conversations are fine but chit-chat is agonizing. I get antsy after about five minutes and have to struggle not to just say "Well, gotta go" and hang up. It seems to have little to do with who I'm talking with or what we're talking about: my internal timer goes off and I feel the anxiety coming on. I can and do get past it but it takes some serious willpower. Facebook has thus turned out to be a true blessing for me.

Cei-U!
I summon the middle-aged crazy!

[Romero]

God, I prefer FB or emails to talk to people if I can. I have never been a chatty guy. My phone conversations with my own parents tend to be 5 minute affairs where I give the basics of how I and the family are doing. It drives my wife crazy sometimes, when I don't even have an extended amount to say to her, but I'm like that with everyone!

With an email, or FB message, I can just say what I want and be done. No awkward pauses or forced stream of consciousness. I can say exactly what I want and plan it out before I say it. An introvert's dream.

[The Confessor]

Whats interesting is , I wonder where Zyrson (I believe that was his name) went to ? I checked and he hasn't posted in 13 days. Quite a long time for the dude to not be posting here.

Oh yeah, that's quite a while for him not to be posting on these forums, isn't it? Maybe he's got computer troubles. I know that whenever I've had to dissapear from the forum for a few weeks it's always computer related.

[The Confessor]

Does anyone know of a good, free online database for cataloguing your music collection, similar to www.stashmycomics.com but for music? There are quite a few systems that you can download to your PC, but I'd like something online based, so it's not taking up room on my harddrive.

[CromagnonMan]

Can't speak for anyone but me, of course, but I have a really difficult time talking on the phone. Over the last ten years or so, I've developed a strong aversion--almost a phobia--to the damned thing, which is a bit ironic because I used to practically live on the phone. Short to-the-point conversations are fine but chit-chat is agonizing. I get antsy after about five minutes and have to struggle not to just say "Well, gotta go" and hang up. It seems to have little to do with who I'm talking with or what we're talking about: my internal timer goes off and I feel the anxiety coming on. I can and do get past it but it takes some serious willpower. Facebook has thus turned out to be a true blessing for me.

Cei-U!
I summon the middle-aged crazy!

soundslike a phobia..very irrational!
could be social phobia, though youd also dislike being social face to face if this was the case.
if not, id say its a possible case of "phone phobia" - maybe the 1st ever?

[USArmyParatrooper]

It exists.

(I'd much rather communicate in writing than spoken words. I'm sure that's part of why I don't, & don't intend to, own a cell phone of any type.)

This way if there's an emergency you can write a letter and drop it in the mail.

[dan bailey]

This way if there's an emergency you can write a letter and drop it in the mail.

If there's an emergency, I'll find out about it one way or the other.

Seems to me that cell phones have been prevalent for only the last, what, decade-plus? Having read a lot of history in my time, both academically & otherwise, I'm fairly certain that emergencies preceded those days. Somehow, humanity managed to survive.

[dan bailey]

soundslike a phobia..very irrational!

Though far less so than yours toward Silver Age Marvel, of course.

could be social phobia, though youd also dislike being social face to face if this was the case.
if not, id say its a possible case of "phone phobia" - maybe the 1st ever?

Probably not, as I've definitely got a version of the same thing. Haven't done so lately, but I've been known to turn my ringer off at home for days on end &/or to let my voicemails pile up for a week or so. In my life, for whatever reasons, phone callers tend to be the bearers of bad tidings.

And yet the two of us managed to carry on a perfectly cool phone conversation back in, I believe, December for ... not sure how long it lasted ... but at least for a half-hour, & maybe rather longer than that. Something about Rob Allen's soothing presence on Kurt's end (ummm ... so to speak) must've been involved in making that seeming miracle possible.

[benday-dot]

i dislike Facebook intensely, in fact id say i have "Facebook phobia". i cant bear to actually log into my account, the feeling verges on giving me physical discomfort. Id say 90% of the people who are my 'friends' are not actually my friends, in fact a fair proportion id say i 'dislike'.

the sooner the Facebook fad wanes the better, i say. Bah.

its probably only going to get worse though, imagine in the future when youre expected to actually log onto something like FBOOK and actually communicate live over the net with your 'friends' similar to Skype scary thought.

whats wrong with the damned telephone?

I'm with you, though perhaps not quite so visceral about it. I closed my account. I had a fair amount of "friends" on it, but there was always an air of phoniness about it.

Although I enjoy coming on here and "chatting" with all of you fine people, I often myself exercising a lamentation over the collapse of the private sphere and a glorification of the "social network" as the legitimate sovereign of our lives. I don't know if the fortress of solitude is to be preferred to the governance of the global village, but the latter does have an homogenizing effect, some extol, but, which I find leaves me rather melancholic.

Like you, I now use the phone to get in touch, or to tune the world out. I don't have a cell phone when not at work.