Latent tendency finally tumbling out of the closet or natural by-product of years of wielding discipline? I'm not sure why but I do know that I'm getting to be a real harridan online (yeah, yeah, I can hear a chorus of Yes, you're sooo right, J !!)
In real life, I don't have as many short-tempered flashes of impatience but in the virtual world I seem to have more expectations of people and keep coming up short time after time after time. Maybe it's because most people I deal with online are young and relative greenhorns in terms of life experiences. Maybe I expect too much from them and end up feeling shortchanged by careless, flippant attitudes. I do tend to be very intense about things in life in general, something of a worry-wart even, and in situations that might otherwise be lightened by a laugh and a step back, my natural inclination is to do the opposite and tighten up with brittle nerves and explode at the slightest provocation. Or maybe after years of handling discipline in classroom situations, I've gotten so used to being instantly obeyed I've come to expect it in outside classroom situations as well.
A good online friend from the US who I first got to know, as with most online friends, in an MIRC gameroom where we'd play trivia every evening always called me stubborn. It didn't help that he's one of the most "abrasive" (his words, not mine) persons ever who gets a kick out of provoking other people. So most evenings I'd be engaged in verbal fisticuffs with him, fighting, arguing and hassling the heck out of each other. "You stubborn woman!" he'd throw at me exasperatedly, "You dominatrix!" and that always made me laugh because I honestly felt nothing could be more way off base. As a child I'd always been the most docile, passive and submissive kind. Always did as I was told, was terribly afraid of hurting other people's feelings, never stood up for myself or my beliefs. Well, now that the worm's turned online, maybe I'm learning to be more aggressive, more assertive in real time too.
Or maybe I just need to go offline and get a life.
In real life, I don't have as many short-tempered flashes of impatience but in the virtual world I seem to have more expectations of people and keep coming up short time after time after time. Maybe it's because most people I deal with online are young and relative greenhorns in terms of life experiences. Maybe I expect too much from them and end up feeling shortchanged by careless, flippant attitudes. I do tend to be very intense about things in life in general, something of a worry-wart even, and in situations that might otherwise be lightened by a laugh and a step back, my natural inclination is to do the opposite and tighten up with brittle nerves and explode at the slightest provocation. Or maybe after years of handling discipline in classroom situations, I've gotten so used to being instantly obeyed I've come to expect it in outside classroom situations as well.
A good online friend from the US who I first got to know, as with most online friends, in an MIRC gameroom where we'd play trivia every evening always called me stubborn. It didn't help that he's one of the most "abrasive" (his words, not mine) persons ever who gets a kick out of provoking other people. So most evenings I'd be engaged in verbal fisticuffs with him, fighting, arguing and hassling the heck out of each other. "You stubborn woman!" he'd throw at me exasperatedly, "You dominatrix!" and that always made me laugh because I honestly felt nothing could be more way off base. As a child I'd always been the most docile, passive and submissive kind. Always did as I was told, was terribly afraid of hurting other people's feelings, never stood up for myself or my beliefs. Well, now that the worm's turned online, maybe I'm learning to be more aggressive, more assertive in real time too.
Or maybe I just need to go offline and get a life.
I used to take part at various Bloggers meeting at B'lore and Mumbai a couple of years ago. And what I have noticed there is, bloggers we thought we know so well, hardly turn out to be the person we expect them to be in real life when we finally meet.
ReplyDeleteThat is the reason why we sometimes piss off our friends in the online world because we sometimes make the mistake of taking them for granted.
In the offline world, we know our friends inside-out, but when it comes to online relationships, many times we expect people to be how we picture them in our head, which invariably they turn out to be not. That is why we have to tread carefully online. I've said many stupid things that have hurt my friends online, but when it comes to offline friends that I've grown up with, such situation never arise.
We are the Pilgrims, master: we shall go
ReplyDeleteAlways a little further: it may be
Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow,Across that angry or that glimmering sea,
White on a throne or guarded in a cave
There lives a prophet who can understand
Why men are born
Tih thu kha ka rilru ah lo lang zawk. Ka duh dan thlapin ka kawmen emaw ka tia, type hmaih ka lo nei a, ka delete hnawk kual ta vel. Solly lutuk auh
Good for you, you can't be a doormat all your life. Be aggressive, short tempered, stubborn,explosive, etc etc but please dont be a harridan!!! btw, is it TTP?
ReplyDeleteYep ambs, it's TTP alright. Who else do I fight with so much?! Here's what he said when I first asked him to read this post, "i'm afraid of reading what you wrote. ka pass mai ang." And then of course he goes reading it and leaves me offliners which say, "i'm flattered and honored that you actually took the time and effort to make references to moi. although i don't recall the dominatrix part. maybe i was drunk and my idea of you being this high nosed, bossy, indifferent, and passive aggressive woman manifested into those words." Hihi typical TTP tawp tiro? Remember when we once told him "Chup karo" means "Pass the ketchup"? LOL!! Great times those, hey?
ReplyDeleteAmuan, tu poem ziah nge? Van ron bei ril teh raih ve ka lo tia. "A then pawh ka hre thei lo he lui kam atang hian" tih ani maw a theme hi? A dik khop mai.
ReplyDeleteThat's very true, Illusionaire, carefully chosen written words can't really convey the real package that we are in totality. And we can't read anything other than what others choose to write... no facial expressions visible, no body language to tell us to buzz off or continue to wade in. It's all up to words. And our interpretation of them. It's a brittle bridge we tread on in the virtual world alright.
ReplyDeleteI've find that the stakes in the real world differ from those in the virtual world. These variances in turn bring out our different selves which seems fine-i don't think we necessarily need to resolve them. Incidentally, someone introduced me to your blog. Harridan wasnt the exact word she used but something to that effect.
ReplyDeleteTui ang a nem pawh hi a force a chak chuan maw.. electric a ti eng pam mai a lom. Virtual reality virtual fakeness ...va han buaithlak e aw... Fel kan ti thau thau che Miss... Ka chaw bar pui te nen hian :-)
ReplyDeleteYeah right, philo, our public faces in the real world can sometimes still not quite accurately reflect our real selves, and the virtual world may reflect that more truly. Which begs the question - who are we really? Boggles the mind, doesn't it? So how was I described to you? Intimidating? Shrewish? A firebrand? Volcanic? :P
ReplyDeleteHehe sawmpui, fel min ti lo mah la, room a rawngbawl phalna chu lak bo sak i ni chuang lo ang :P
ReplyDeleteTTp teh duah thin hi chu aw...tell him I said hi. Ninom thin hle mahse a ngaihawm ve tho mai.
ReplyDeleteUmmm.. My way on the online world not always stubborn and cruel but in real life I'm the otherwise! I believe we are just displaying the other side and some part of our real self on the online world.... wotsay?
ReplyDeleteGuess we all have different sides to our personality. What part of it comes out may depend on the person we're interacting with. Which doesn't mean we're fake or anything.
ReplyDelete"What part of it comes out may depend on the person we're interacting with". That is so true, mesjay. Like when you talk to a child, you try to speak like a child. And when you talk to someone whose English isn't the greatest, you tend to use kinda pidgin English too. That's a good point I hadn't thought of before.
ReplyDeleteYep, you're quite right too, mnowluck.
I can see the Jekyll and Hyde in You
ReplyDeleteBut in my mind
You remain the little girl I used to know....
samupa, this must be the first time ever that someone's called me "a little girl" in cyberworld! A pi te min ti mai mai hlom ania, ka va lawm :D
ReplyDeletewe are not what
ReplyDeletewe think we are
we are not what
we think we are not
either
we are
what we really are
no more no less
so stop feeling
over/under exposed
u can't change the way you think.
Grrrr tinks, I hate people like you who come up with little gems like that at the snap of a finger. How do you do it?? And if you can't (or won't) share a priceless talent like that, do the next best thing, start blogging again, you lazybones!
ReplyDelete