Your social self

[DannyL]

It's weird if you're interested in things like magick or spirituality or therapy as well. I guess psychedelic use would count here also though that's not something I do. Most of those mates I would never talk about that stuff with. Particularly the first two. Lots of people I know would have zero idea that that's an active interest. These little compartments we build for ourselves.

 

[luka]

That's one of the reasons I'm always keen to defend online discussion and not accept the line that it's always inferior to IRL interactions. You get to be people here you rarely or never can there

 

[Corpsey]

My "real" personality is a mixture of extreme seriousness and extreme silliness. Both extremes are too extreme to be acceptable to a wide range of people, so the social self mask is put on for new people who I want to not dislike me, which means making small talk which I find excruciating.

In those early stages it's almost like I'm fishing or something, trying to figure out how far I can go with this person before they're offended or repulsed. Once I figure that out I can drop the mask - not to say I'm then constantly saying outrageous shit, but I just feel relaxed.

I don't feel relaxed talking to my parents for this reason, which is a shame.

 

[DannyL]

that's interesting. I'd not really thought about that in that way before. You don't think online personas suffer from precisely this though? That lack of embodied living?

Perusal of social media shows me that a lot of online magicians are appalling dicks.

One reason for being in London is that I can pursue some of these relationships IRL - though to be fair my longest standing friendship in this area migrated online some years ago and mostly happens via Messenger. I look forwards to having a pint with this guy again one day but it's been five bloody years now.

The above to Luka obvs

 

[entertainment]

I guess everyone is here because the conversation offers something we don't get IRL, be that a chance to be someone else, a medium of discussing things that you wouldn't otherwise, kinship or simply having your words be heard and treated in the same regard as anyone else's in the conversation.

Many people that say really interesting things IRL speak in a nervous or apologetic manner, that others pick up on and dismiss the content. A decontextualised format of conversation can be a wonderful outlet for those.

 

[luka]

I personally choose to meet the people from online whenever I can. I never say no to meeting someone but also its true that the interactions you have with those people in the flesh isn't quite the same as you have with them online. Not better or worse but different.

 

[luka]

I guess everyone is here because the conversation offers something we don't get IRL, be that a chance to be someone else, a medium of discussing things that you wouldn't otherwise, kinship or simply having your words be heard and treated in the same regard as anyone else's in the conversation.

Many people that say really interesting things IRL speak in a nervous or apologetic manner, that others pick up on and dismiss the content. A decontextualised format of conversation can be a wonderful outlet for those.

Good point. I've seen poetix defend online discussion as being great for autistics too.

 

[Corpsey]

In this new place I work everyone chats on Slack (like WhatsApp for offices) and I've noticed that everyone is much more extroverted and open with their feelings on Slack than IRL. Even people I am talking to regularly in real life.

 

[luka]

It's also allows for people who work at different speeds people who like to ruminate and people who like the synapses firing people who like to chew their food people who like to wolf it down

 

[Corpsey]

I don't feel relaxed talking to my parents for this reason, which is a shame.

You evolve different personas to work in different environments and then you go back to an old environment and it doesn't work there, you have to remember the old persona...

This is why some of my old best friendships have degenerated over the decades into awkwardness. We both know it used to be better than this, but it was all so long ago.

 

[pattycakes_]

i'm a social chameleon in all the ways that make people think i'm disingenuous and honest in all the ways that alienate and upset people.

That patty cakes quote is it really. It’s always a game for me. I don’t have real friendships. I’m incredibly condescending to everyone else and this feel I’m too smart to engage with them honestly.

Do you own all that stuff or does it bother you? How did it come to be?

My teen years were spent with people from such a different class background from me that manufacturing faux-common ground was a necessity.

Was just listening to a podcast interview with John Goodman the other day. He was talking about involuntary imitation of accents. Something I do sometimes, but never quite wrapped my head around why. He framed it as people pleasing. Surrendering everything about yourself to be the same and therefore accepted. Was an aha moment.

 

[pattycakes_]

If you don't want to get treated like a freak you have to hide and if you're going to have to hide might as well make it fun

How does one go about this?

 

[Mr. Tea]

My "real" personality is a mixture of extreme seriousness and extreme silliness. Both extremes are too extreme to be acceptable to a wide range of people...

This could almost be a description of me, I think.

When I was 12 a friend of mine said I was like "a 50-year-old trapped in a 12-year-old's body who tries to act like other 12-year-olds but overdoes it and ends up acting like a 7-year-old", which was pretty perceptive for a kid of that age, in retrospect.

 

[version]

I don't feel relaxed talking to my parents for this reason, which is a shame.

I feel like this with my dad, but that's mainly because I'm always waiting for him to blurt out something sexist or homophobic. A woman in a film can be doing literally anything and he'll laugh if it goes wrong and call her a "stupid tart" or something. He kept going on and on about how Harley Quinn is a "psycho slut" and he sends his mates birthday cards that say stuff like "Crazy Woman Canyon; Don't take your wallet!".

 

[sadmanbarty]

Do you own all that stuff or does it bother you? How did it come to be?



Was just listening to a podcast interview with John Goodman the other day. He was talking about involuntary imitation of accents. Something I do sometimes, but never quite wrapped my head around why. He framed it as people pleasing. Surrendering everything about yourself to be the same and therefore accepted. Was an aha moment.

i own it insofar as i play it off as funny. cheeky, flirtatious arrogance.

it doesn't bother me too much because i don't have to engage with people if i don't want to. if i worked in an office i'd be a basket case.

i wonder if i talk a bit working class when i'm actually firmly middle class. every now and then people will say something that makes me think i'm not coming off as much like carolne lucas as i thought i was.

luke talks working class but says he's middle class.

 

[luka]

Do you own all that stuff or does it bother you? How did it come to be?



Was just listening to a podcast interview with John Goodman the other day. He was talking about involuntary imitation of accents. Something I do sometimes, but never quite wrapped my head around why. He framed it as people pleasing. Surrendering everything about yourself to be the same and therefore accepted. Was an aha moment.

I've never quite been happy with this in as much as I think accent acquisition is alway mimetic and is always shaped by those around us by necessity. It's not an inherent property like the colour of our eyes

 

[luka]

i own it insofar as i play it off as funny. cheeky, flirtatious arrogance.

it doesn't bother me too much because i don't have to engage with people if i don't want to. if i worked in an office i'd be a basket case.

i wonder if i talk a bit working class when i'm actually firmly middle class. every now and then people will say something that makes me think i'm not coming off as much like carolne lucas as i thought i was.

luke talks working class but says he's middle class.

I think for me it bothers me in that I'm somewhat lonelier than I would wish to be.nid like to have more friends able to converse on what I consider arrogantly or otherwise to be my level.

 

[version]

I know a couple of people who come across the way barty describes himself. When you speak to them it feels as though they're constantly taking the piss and the more they protest and go "nah, nah. I'm serious" the more pisstakey it seems.

 

[yyaldrin]

ain't that also a way to cover up your own insecurities. best defence is to attack.

 

[Corpsey]

My parents aren't very politically engaged (which I inherited off them) but they'd never say anything homophobic or racist or sexist. (Unlike me.)

I think I hide my humour from them because it's so bound up with disgusting/edgy stuff, I'd think they'd be disgusted by it. I do find that stuff funny of course (through an ironic lens) but I also wonder if I evolved it as a defence mechanism at school etc., being fundamentally a weedy dweeb of a child/man.