Chris Collins :: a personal journal » social

the 2009 purge

cj69collins — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 03:28:40 +0000

I have to hand it to social not-working devs. they always seem to try to come-up with new ways of doing the same things as the popular sites. the problem with that is that they never really live up to the expectation set by those popular sites. what is worse, even popular sites that do not improve with the times can fall victim to the effect. eventually, as quickly as things grow, they decline. pownce, jaiku and others fade into oblivion.
I am one to try just about anything. eventually, though, I get overhelmed by the numbers or bored by the offering. to that end, purged a number of links I felt were not offering me much of anything. Friendfeed, hi5, myspace, tumblr, livejournal accounts were all canceled in the last fortnight, along with the accounts of a number of smaller services. I never connected at myspace like I do at facebook; I connected even less at hi5, which seemed predominantly hispanics; I connected even less with friendfeed; livejournal and tumblr were repeats of this blog or twitter, which seemed a waste. Most of the smaller twitter wannabes just never cut it. What profiles I could not close, I simply walked away from. tagged made the cut, since there is some interaction. plurk made the cut, just barely, for the same reason. Both socialvibe and realjock have purpose beyond social not-working. the hookup sites entice me, yet scare me still. all in all, the purge was good, since I know predominantly focus on two site, facebook and twitter. I am even using twitter clients Syinx on Mac and PockeTwit on Blackjack. I will be less enticed to try the new service when the old seems to do the trick.

a life less planned

cj69collins — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 01:01:21 +0000

I wake weekday at 06h30. I go to work for 08h00. I have lunch at 11h30. I leave work at 17h00. I have regular meetings. To take vacation, I need to plan the days well enough in advance. Every five weeks, I am on-call for off-hours IT support. I get paid every other week on a Thursday. Three times a week, I go to the gym, which I must schedule up to two weeks in advance to get a time conducive to my continued employment. I must pay my bills by a specific date of the month. My car needs regularly schedule maintenance. On top of all of that, I usually have a routine by which I conduct my off-hours. Usually, this involves a fair amount of social not-wokring at specific sites, depending on the day of week and my mood.

This routine, I believe, has resulted in weekends that are, at best semi-dull. I cannot just go to the shore, go to the casino, make a day trip into Philadelphia, or a weekend trip into NYC. This is about equal parts lack of incentive to really do anything fun, ‘considering’ the schedule for things I will be doing or need to do, and whether the money and time spent in maing fun happen is spent well. [i.e. will I really have fun?] I have no place to just ‘hang out’ for an afternoon or evening, just to be social and sociable in real life, to meet people for real, to meet real people. While, I will admit, I am seeking more order at work, I have come to the conclusion that I have too much order, obligation, regimentation, schedule and/or plan in my life. Now that I feel I am getting my social legs under me, really for the first time in my life, I have less incentive to have fun. As I lose the fear of doing things ‘because I will not be socially accepted while doing them,’ I feel a loss of incentive to do them because either ‘its time is past’ or, worse yet, ‘my time is past.’ More and more, I am getting bored trying to have fun, and that is because, I feel, I am no longer feel the spontaneity which allowed me to get over my fears and have fun. Things are just too well planned for me, and I do not like it.

lone conclusion

cj69collins — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 20:07:13 +0000

I have come to a conclusion. I am lonely.

I have no friends in real life, no one to hang out with on the weekends, no one to go {shopping|to a {movie|concert|gallery|club|party|coffee| et c.}|visit}, no one to call and chat with. The only social circle I had was in New Hope, and I was a hanger-on. I have not kept-up with the blogger group I met two or three years ago.

Largely, I know, I have myself to blame. My shyness, while having waned in the past years, still holds me back. My self-doubt, a self-image still lacking in confidence in social situations, still tells me I am not that interesting. My lack of social skills means I have a bad time trying to hold a conversation, especially when I’d rather listen than talk. I do not like talking about myself. I tend to be aloof, flighty and flaky around others, often in my own world than the real world. And, I do get bored easily. I need to be stimulated. What is worse is that I believe I seem to get bored much more easily than I do. Did I also mention I tend to be self-deprecating and self-defeating?

Looking back at things in restrospect, I see that I have had many an opportunity to make stronger acquaintances than I have. I ask myself, ‘how do I engage this person? what do I say? how do I respond? how can I connect?’ Fleshing-out who a person is seems easy enough. Actually conversing with them seems to be the challenge. There are some people with whom I can do that easily. But, maintaining that connection seems to be a problem with me. ‘I do not wish to be intrusive,’ I think. ‘I do not wish to force myself on others. I do not wish to seem desperate.’ Did I mention I tend to be self-deprecating and self-defeating? Actually, yes, in the last paragraph.

I will admit to setting-up my environment for the social defeat in which I am now engaged. I have no clue how to correct it. I am 42, but my social skills are not that much better than they were when I was half that. I am scared of the lone conclusion.