It looked better in the window display...

[sombrablanca]

Off topic but why do people say personally I've and I've personally? It is redundant. You could say my personal thoughts (As in thoughts I don't usually share) or just stick with the I've. It always seems like the person is just trying to add a big word.

To the topic at hand yes, a few times. I've seen writers on here I thought would be fun who end up not. God I hate one liner RPs.

 

[yuna1981]

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[NippleMuncher]

Off topic but why do people say personally I've and I've personally? It is redundant.

Personally, I've never had a problem with it. IMHO, you're being a little overly pedantic about it. It may be slightly redundant, but it's also personalizing the comment, rather than a blind statement of fact that may belittle someone else's view point.

There are more ginormous (my personal pet peeve of a word! ) errors in syntax, punctuation, and generally illiterate things that folks are doing to worry about what they're doing "personally". Texting is the single greatest death of the written word.

 

[philos]

My personal peeve is the word "basically". Somehow it always seems to imply to me that I'm too simple to understand the real explanation and they are going to dumb it down for me.

 

[yuna1981]

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[User_Damashii]

As if there going to buy that.

 

[Cattypuss]

Just respect the difference between there and their. Please.

Oh God, yes - PLEASE.

And 'they're'.

 

[Cattypuss]

Off topic but why do people say personally I've and I've personally? It is redundant. You could say my personal thoughts (As in thoughts I don't usually share) or just stick with the I've. It always seems like the person is just trying to add a big word.

To the topic at hand yes, a few times. I've seen writers on here I thought would be fun who end up not. God I hate one liner RPs.

As others have said, it's used often as shorthand for "I want you to know that I'm conscious that this is only my opinion, but...".

And - seriously - it's hardly a "big word"!

 

[yuna1981]

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[bailadora]

Texting is the single greatest death of the written word.

Quoted for truth!!!!

Text speak annoys the hell out of me, especially on a discussion board. It's one thing when someone is replying from a smartphone, but quite another when someone has full keyboard in front of them. I'm sure it's a generational thing and I'll be called a crotchety old hag for it, but in my opinion text speak conveys a sense of laziness: as if the poster can't be bothered to communicate in complete words and sentences.

 

[bailadora]

My personal peeve is the word "basically". Somehow it always seems to imply to me that I'm too simple to understand the real explanation and they are going to dumb it down for me.

This is not directed at you Philos, but more of a general observation. I genuinely wonder about the intelligence of some people, given the stuff they put out there. I read it and think, "Are you for real?" Especially when what they've written seems so antithetical to common sense.

 

[NomadLady]

Yuna, not to date myself, but... as you go through life you find there are many many different people you will come across. I have found it more about expectation setting. If you set them, you may be setting up for disappointment and unfairly so. If you are engaged with someone and you express them then it's a matter of communication. But if I may offer any advice, I would say be open minded, don't put too much into any one thing, stay optimistic and when you do find something worthwhile - be enthusiastic, committed and positive. You'll get and give more that way.

Ditto this advice....age helps you in so many areas of your life!!!! well except for the physical part of getting old...LOL

 

[yuna1981]

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[coastal-boy]

There are 12 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet and over 26,500 words that simply describe Hawaiian beauty, culture, geography and life. For example...there are 33 ways to describe a cloud. Seems to me that language is meant to be dynamic. As long as I understand what someone is trying to say, I can care less if it is gramatically correct.

 

[yuna1981]

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[Pleasure_Fan]

Do some people just have good "selling points" that don't go deeper?

YES! The answer is yes. People get good at their hooks, you know? One trick ponies do, at least. Something works once... and repeat. The draw is there, and they know it, because it's worked for them. But it's all they know. For me this shortcoming is apparent in the first few PM's, which I don't consider an unacceptable waste of time.
IRL I am much harder to string along and I've been known to literally and rudely dismiss people within 10 seconds. It's not something I do consciously - it's just that I can be a rude, intolerant bitch when I'm not paying attention

 

[ruminator]

nice to meet you folks here

lol....I've had this happen when talking to myself. At first, I captured my own attention and then quickly became bored and walked away.

 

[NippleMuncher]

lol....I've had this happen when talking to myself. At first, I captured my own attention and then quickly became bored and walked away.

Damn! I hate it when that happens!

 

[ruminator]

Damn! I hate it when that happens!

Awesome signature line.

It really fits the Lit.

 

[Nidhogg]

While there certainly are people who make a conscious choice to put their "selling points" out front and center, some people are more interesting in situations than they are one on one.

I've known a lot of people who weren't a lot of fun or very interesting conversationalists when alone, because when I met them they had been with their group. They had learned how to play off each other and would have that incredibly attractive level of confidence. Alone, they didn't have anything to work with. Now there is the issue that some people take a while to warm up to new people, and they just have to get comfortable in order to be themselves. Some people don't need a specific group, either. They just thrive on being around other people.

You also have to take in to consideration the situation. Sometimes people completely change depending on what they are doing at that time. It isn't necessarily a mask, just them being swept up in what is going on around them.

Other people are complete opposites. I, for one, appear to be the most boring, shy, and awkward person you could imagine if I'm in or around a group of people. I do better with the group when we're not in public, or not around a lot of strangers, but I never grab attention and always find a way to be quiet. When I am with 1 or 2 other people, however, I am quite engaging. Some people just have issues with groups. Some, like me, have actual psychological conditions. If you ever really want to talk to a person like this, don't force them in to conversations, and don't just corner them. My advice is to introduce yourself while they're with one other friend or person they're comfortable with.

First impressions are a funny thing. They have a tendency to be completely misleading, and they have a tendency to be spot on.

The thread seems to have covered most of what I would say about online interaction. All I have to add is that sometimes people spend a lot more time thinking and composing their words in posts than they would in messages. For some people, I think it is because once they get the message they don't feel they need to put as much effort in to it. "Hooking the fish is the hard part, so I could easily reel it in while drunk."

The person also might feel a subconscious need to respond as fast as possible, lest the sender feel ignored.

I know I don't spend as much time on PMs as I do on most posts. I would like to think I am not that different on a personal level. More casual, certainly. I really hope all my private messages don't sound as much like a teacher's lecture as this post did.

 

[bailadora]

I've been called flighty before and I'll take that hit. I'm pretty secure in my own perception of my intelligence, but well aware that I am exceedingly lacking in common sense. I'm mostly ok with that.

I suppose I described that poorly. I know it's quite possible for someone to be highly intelligent yet still have difficulty navigating everyday situations with a lick of common sense and/or social grace (IE - The Nutty Professor stereotype).

 

[yuna1981]

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[BongoGal]

I'll admit that there have been a few times when beer goggles have turned otherwise uninteresting guys into folks that I've welcomed into my bed. In the sober light of day, I've asked myself, "Him? Really? What was I thinking?" (And there was one guy that I actually wound up sleeping with on two separate drunken occasions. Maybe the second time was an attempt to figure out what I saw in him the first time. I never figured it out, though. He did get me off, however, so it wasn't a complete waste.)

 

[CoyoteTales]

Personality and Personableness and Perception...

...do not necessarily link together.

A fallacy that I've had quoted at me by a (thankfully-now-ex) relationship partner was "Well, you're so smart, how can you NOT understand that what you said/did (or didn't say/do) would bother me?

Or this rather vicious attack: "You're a writer. How could you not know the meaning of the words you're saying?"

(Disclaimer: I'm always willing to admit when things are my fault -- even when they aren't.)

Book smarts does not equal relationship smarts. In fact, if you think about it, we spend a large chunk of our formative childhood years learning to read and write and perform more and more complex tasks and solve problems. Our 'life-career' aptitude is measured by how well we do on these.

A different fork in the road are the folks who find that their physical aptitude takes them down the route of an athlete; there, too, they take a series of tests that pit them against their peers and compare them to their performance.

A different fork in the road again are the folks who find their physical appearance can win them opportunities.

People are people, the saying goes, but people also follow different routes to get to being an adult.

None of them are typically adequately prepared for their first relationship. Or their second.

Think about it for a moment; we spend a lot of our childhood lives being told that talking about sex and committed relationships is 'bad', a taboo subject, and we definitely do not consider sex with anyone until we're of legal age. (Some folks do it anyway, and then we get the horror stories about teen pregnancy bashed into our minds by the media as again, bad.)

But all media blitz aside, if you think about how difficult it was at first to learn to read and do sums, is it any wonder that our first steps at trying to dance with someone else usually end up with people feeling/looking clumsy and awkward and elbows and knees and noses go in the wrong places? Sure, we may be consenting adults, but it's like being a kid all over again.

Show of hands -- as much as the media claims that your first time ought to be amazing and cool and perfect, was yours awkward? *raises a hand*

If someone tells me that they're new at relationships, I take it SLOW. Reallllly slow. I give them plenty of time to realize that I'm more than just a first impression. I have a lifetime of experience behind me; I'm just this guy that you met, and I make mistakes, and I learned from them with other people, but it never, ever, means, I know it all.

I never want to be the guy that someone makes a mistake with. I never want to be the guy that someone gets so tied up with that they don't know how to let go even when it's not working. I've been there. And so I guess I'm very, very, aware that what I am on the outside is going to get people's attention, but I also insist that people get to know me for awhile before I'm willing to accept that they really, really, like me.

Remember that in society, we are predisposed to either like or dislike strangers; to trust easily or mistrust implicitly, and therein lies the initial color of a first impression.

-CT