Gilda

Edit: Shouldn't post when stressed.

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

Gilda

Edit: Shouldn't post when stressed.

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

Gilda

This is something I hadn't considered. Do people actually do that? I mean, go into a restaurant, order a $1.85 cup of tea, and take up a booth for half an hour? That seems like a very inconsiderate thing to do to me. It hadn't occurred to me that they might have thought I was camping. I don't think I was projecting a "leave me alone" attitude.

I did stiff the waitress who never came to serve me. If what you suggest is what happened, then what I did in effect was take up a booth for half an hour, keeping them from using it, and then stiff a waitress who thought she was doing what I wanted.

Damn. It's a good thing I'll never be in that restaurant again. A customer who orders practically nothing, camps, and then stiffs the waitress is probably what they like the least. Or it must at least be near the top.

Gilda

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

Gilda

For what it's worth, the movie was mostly fiction. It real life, Nash has no memory of what was happening in his head during his schizophrenic episodes.

Gilda

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

Cynthetiq

people do that all the time, just waiting to pass time etc. One of the reasons that they have minimum service charges and time limits in some places. In NYC it's both... even McDonald's only lets you sit for 20 minutes at a table.

When I was in college I'd use Denny's to study for tests. I'd tell the waitress I'm here to study, please keep the coffee full and come every 2 hours for food... of course I'd only do that in the middle of the night and only when they where slow.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Gilda

Edit: Shouldn't post when stressed.

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

Gilda

You know, I think my main problem here is that Grace is on the other side of the country and I'm lonely.

In the midst of trying to reply to every little thing there, and getting all caught up in the whole restaurant incident, I think I lost track of the main point.

This is basically what I've gotten from the thread:

1. It's all internal. The world isn't looking at me judgementally.

2. It isn't being shy that causes me to be uncomfortable in situations like those I described, it's that I'm shy and don't want to be.

3. I need to learn to accept that this is just how I am, and that doesn't make me an unworthy person.

4. I shouldn't analyze things to death. It isn't not being served that was upsetting, it's the endless analysis I put myself through to figure out why. I should just accept that I didn't do anything wrong in the restaurant except get upset. I should just accept that bad service and rudeness is part of life, and not get upset about that. It happened. It'll happen again. There isn't anything I should have done differently, or should do differently the next time except for not to take it personally.

5. Everyone feels this way all the time, or at least much of the time. Some just don't let it bother them. Learn to accept my limits instead of getting upset about them, and I'll feel better about myself.

6. Being more assertive won't help me be happier if I don't accept myself as a worthy person, and once I do accept myself as worthy, I won't feel like I need to be more assertive; I'll be able to accept myself for who I am.

That alll makes sense, I guess. I'll try to work on accepting myeself for who I am. It certainly seems a less stressful course than the assertiveness training that ended so badly last month in the hobby shop.

Thank you everyone for the help.

Gilda

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

Poppinjay

You're doing what introverts do, Gilda. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. I'm also an introvert, but not shy. I can talk for hours on topics that most people find mundane (namely, my wife).

I loved the line from the article: Are we arrogant? No, simply better in every human way.

Shyness is generally a handicap, one that can be conquered. Introversion is simply a state of reflectiveness that doesn't really affect your social life. At least, not in ways you don't want it to. Mantus mentioned Johnny Carson. He also told Ed McMahon that he was "great with ten thousand people, lousy with ten." I attended a seminar presented by Alex Chadwick, the NPR reporter who did a National Geographic Explorations series. He was funny and charismatic. He eventually came to my former town and I had lunch with him. A person who I respected, admired, and thought would be a great companion for lunch turned out to be a tremendously introverted person, possibly painfully shy. His producer basically had to "take care of him."

It sounds to me like that is Grace's role in your life. You can accept it, and that's fine. Or if you want more out of the situations you find yourself in when you're alone, you can work to change it. Your success in life doesn't hang on introversion, but shyness is a barrier.

__________________
I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet

Gilda

That's one of them. It's mostly about loving each other, but her providing me physical, social, and emotional support is an important functional part of our relationship, true. It's part of it that works well for both of us.

You present it as an either or situation. I don't think it is. There are two independent situations here. When I'm with Grace, there is no problem. I suppose I could learn to be more independent of her, but I absolutely don't want to do that. I don't want to grow apart from her, not even a little bit.

It's only when I'm out alone that my being shy sometimes causes problems, so that's the part of the equation that I need to work on. Either accept that I don't do well alone and avoid such situations, or work to change it. I still don't know which would be the better choice.

Gilda

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

Gilda

I'm sorry I didn't see this before. I don't want to seem like a pity whore, which was what I was doing the last couple of days, but I don't want to ignore a direct question, which would be rude after I opened the discussion. If these were meant as rhetorical quesions just ignore this response. This is more to help me listen to myself think than anything anyway, and I'll probably come back and delete this tomorrow.

I don't think I would. She's my life, my shield, my safe place. I've built my life around making her happy. I'm not good at very many things. I have a lot of talent as a teacher, and work damn hard to be the best I can at that. I'm not a natural, but hard work makes up for that deficit. I'm a master Scrabble player. Sissy needed me for awhile, but not anymore. Grace is the one constant, the one thing in my life that is an absolute sure thing.

It would be like when I lost Katie. I lost myself for years afterwards, having only school as a way to escape from life. I tried attaching myself to anyone who would have me, but couldn't find someone to fill that empty spot Katie left when she died. It took me years to realize nothing and nobody ever would, that I'll always have a hole where she used to be that will never heal.

I lost my parents when they found out I was gay. Another hole that I'll never be able to fill, a wound that will never heal.

Losing Grace would leave me with another empty place in my soul that would never heal. I don't know if I could deal with that again. There's a section in one of the Spenser books where Spenser tells Paul that the riskiest thing he ever did was to let Susan into his life, then to let Paul in. Because by doing that, he gave them the power to hurt him, a power nobody posessed until he gave to them, and once he did, it wasn't something he could take back. I'm not sure how that's relevant, but it just seemed as if it was.

Throwing myself into work and graduate school so that I had no time for a personal life left me with no time to worry about myself. Bathe, work, class, study, eat, repeat. It kept me somewhat sane and functional. I suppose I could do that again.

I think I'm just in a low place because I have an arm that is never going to heal fully, and I'm in a new place where I don't know anybody, and in a new job that's more than a little scary (not the work, that I know I'll be good at), and in a new place that doesn't feel like home, and I can't take care of my part of the family responsibilities by doing the cooking cleaning, and I'm lonely because Grace is across the country and Sissy is off doing . . . something, whatever, most nights. (I'll find out tomorrow what she did tonight. I don't know how she can do that, just take off with no plan, but she seems to enjoy that sort of thing.) Leaving me alone at night, feeling empty because all those connections I have to the world are broken, if only for a little while, so I came here, filled with self pity and wanting attention, and ended up abusing the help people were offering by constantly arguing.

Doing awful, uncomfortable things over and over again will make me feel better? I'm not sure if I agree with you there. I don't really see the benefit, but I'll consider it.

By the way, I tried lurkette's little experiment. At least a little bit of it. While on campus today, I asked someone where the cafeteria was. He was probably a student, about six feet tall, 200 pounds, dressed in jeans, flip-flops, and a Tommy t-shirt. He stared at me for a few seconds, looking from my legs to my cast then back to my legs then off to the side as he talked, made fun of my broken nose, then gave me directions. I wasn't hurt, as lurkette said, I was still safe. But it was just a little bit creepy the way he kept staring at me without looking me in the eye. The only good part about it was when it was over and I put some space between us.

Picking a guy twice my size as a first test subject was not a good idea. Anyway, my conclusion here is that something about me made this guy uncomfortable, given how he reacted. Maybe he's shy, too, and doesn't like being asked for directions.

I need to do this two more times, and at least once pick someone like me and see how she reacts. I'll try one time tomorrow and report what happens.

Grace comes home tomorrow night. Yay! I get to be back in my "happy place ."

Gilda

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

Poppinjay

Most guys that age turn shy pretty quickly when dealing with an attractive female.

As for my original post, being independent and dealing with people outside of your comfort zone is not "growing away" from Grace. It's growing, period. Keep in mind I'm in the same boat, and when I was younger (Jebus, now I feel like an old fart) I would never approach somebody if I were lost. I would just wander around until I wasn't lost (which I did, alot, lousy sense of direction). To this day, I would walk out if I didn't get served at a restaurant. What I do now though, is put a penny on the table.

I think your Denny's experience was entirely not about anything you presented as a person. You were there alone, which means the waitress (who is legally paid all of $2.13 an hour) assumed there would be a much smaller tip than larger groups. And Denny's has never been known for its sterling management or customer service. Your waitress probably went home that night and bitched about the single woman who took up 10 seconds of her time while she was trying to milk a famiily of five for a lousy $3 tip. Having worked in restaurants, and also having been ignored several times when I've dined alone, I can tell you this is how some waitstaff operate. I also know that if you piss them off, they will spit in your food.

That's why some of us get educations so we can make more than $2.13 an hour.

__________________
I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet

Sultana

*hugs Gilda sincerely*

That's all.

__________________
"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath.
At night, the ice weasels come." -

Matt Groening

My goal? To fulfill my potential.

Cynthetiq

Gilda, it's a shame that you are diminishing this thread by editing your posts.

People can see the evolution of your thought process before, the feelings you posted when stressed were how you really felt at that time. Now it's like a husk of itself. It's like you are now embarassed about what you posted since you stated the reason that you "feel foolish" yet when you wrote it, you wrote it with your feelings intact.

It's upon hindsight that we color the moment in history. We don't make bad decisions at the time, we all make good ones based on the information presented to us at the time of the decision. We don't act on something thinking,"Hmm.. I think I'm going to do this the foolish way..."

We aren't judging you, and we haven't been judging you, yet you felt foolish so you altered your posts. We are reading what you are posting and understanding how you are feeling and seeing it firsthand.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

lurkette

Also, Gilda, don't underestimate the contribution this thread is making to other people. You being so raw and honest about things gives others (like me) an opportunity (even a challenge!) to look really hard at our own feelings about this. Look at how many closet introverts have spoken up and been touched by what you've written.

I talk a big game, and most of the time I do have this managed, but shit, there are still times where I would rather chew through my own ankle than go to a party with people I don't know. It doesn't take much - a bad hair day, catching an unflattering glimpse of myself in a mirror, wearing the wrong shoes, saying something stupid in a meeting - and suddenly I feel like a worm and I can't imagine exposing myself to the inevitable and (I feel) righteous judgment of people who are so much more accomplished/beautiful/intelligent/kind/effective/choose my flaw than I am. Everyone else looks at me and says "what the fuck are you thinking? You're brilliant, beautiful, poised, blah blah blah" and I know that's not how I feel, but that's what they SEE. So this is the insight I can give you: listen to the people around you. Your feelings are not necessarily (or even likely!) correlated with reality. And they don't need to stop you from having the life you want. There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be by yourself, which is a healthy impulse; but we ALL lose something precious when a beautiful, intelligent, compassionate, caring person like you stifles herself because she's afraid of what we might think of her.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

Gilda

I apologize for that. It was selfish. I was trying to make myself feel better, and treated this thread like my journal. It didn't work, for what it's worth.

I was in a bad place at the time, as I had been for a couple of nights, and I felt like I needed to . . . fix something, do something to give myself a sense of control. Grace and Sissy were gone, and I was lonely, and they'd be royally pissed at me if I hurt myself, so I had to have something I could do, some way I could change something about myself that would give me a sense of control. And there were those posts I made and when I read them, I sounded, to myself, like a whiny ten year old insisting that I was right in the face of overwhelming evidence that I was wrong.

It's like, I can't go back to that Denny's and fix things there by leaving a lot earlier than I did now that I realize that that would have been a lot better choice than sitting there for so long doing nothing and beating myself up for it.

But I can go back and fix the things that I kept saying about it, the things that made it seem as if I just wanted to argue my position and not listen to anyone.

I was embarrassed by what I'd said. I figured that the important stuff was all still there, the advice that lurkette, ratbastid, and pje620, and a couple of others, were giving me still stands, and my repeating the same arguments with them again wasn't adding anything except to make me look foolish and childish and argumentative.

Ok. I'm sorry to have implied otherwise.

Gilda

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

Gilda

Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I was thinking about just myself, and not the dozen or so other people involved here. It was selfish.

Oh. I'm sorry that you feel that way. I wish there were something I could do to help, but as you can see, I'm not real good at dealing with this stuff myself.

Yeah, I get that. But understanding that certain feelings and emotional responses are counterproductive doesn't make them go away, or deprive them of their influence. I understand intellectually that getting on that 300 foot tall roller coaster is safer than the car ride to the amusement park, but it doesn't keep the coaster from scaring the bejeezus out of me, and the coaster wouldn't be any fun if it wasn't scary.

See, that's a big part of what makes me feel so foolish. I have this life that, on paper, most people would envy. I'm soon to be a college professor at a top university. I'm married to a beautiful woman who loves and accepts me unconditionally. Between the two of us we make a very comfortable living. And so on. Make a list of the good stuff in my life and the bad stuff and most people would scoff, and rightly so, at my whining and complaining about getting bad service in a restaurant. Hell, as I was reading back what I wrote, I was thinking, this is stupid, why didn't you get up and leave 15 minutes earlier instead of making yourself miserable?

That's the weird part. When I'm here at home, I don't want to be by myself. That's why I came here and posted all that stuff. I don't do alone well. When I'm out, I want to have someone with me, specifically Grace or Sissy, or when he's around, Boris (my brother). When I have someone with me to act as a filter so that I don't have to deal with strangers by myself, I'm good. Most of the time, I don't even think they realize that they're doing this.

It's only when I'm out in public or in a new place, like my new job, that I want to be left alone. All of the people stopping by today while I was trying to write up my syllabi for my upper division courses weren't just annoying because they were a distraction, they were, each one of them, a new opportunity to say something foolish or offensive.

Thank you for the help.

Gilda

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

Gilda

Heh. I seriously doubt anyone has ever been intimidated by my looks. But thanks.

I disagree. Five years ago, Sissy needed me, I mean really needed me for emotional support that she couldn't get from anyone else in our family. As she's grown as a person, and grown stronger, she's gotten to the point where she doesn't need me at all anymore. Someday, sooner or later, she'll get married, or she'll graduate and take off on her own, and we'll be apart. Though this saddens me on one level, I recognize that she's better off without me than having to depend on me. Her growing more independent did mean her growing away from me. In this case, it's a good thing.

But if I got more indepenent, it would mean losing a bit of my connection to Grace, and that would diminish me in a way that I find very scary.

Well, I do the same thing. I'd rather invest the time needed to find my way than feel foolish. I don't see anywhere where people were saying that walking out was the wrong thing to do, just that I shouldn't have felt bad about it. It isn't what I did that was the problem, it was how I felt about what I did, if I've been reading it right.

Aha! Finally, someone agrees with me. Confrontation would have had concrete negative consequences that had nothing to do with how I felt about the situation.

Also, I think I haven't made something completely clear. It was in one of those posts that I deleted above, but as I think about it, I see that I really haven't been clear about one point.

I know that I wasn't the problem. I know, and I knew at the time that I should have been served at the restaurant, and that there was nothing about me that meant that I was unworthy of eating there. The problem wasn't about how I felt about myself, it was in how I thought they felt about me, and I didn't want to suffer the idignity of being told whatever it was. Being insulted is unpleasant, even when you know the insult isn't accurate.

Gilda

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

Gilda

Ok, one last one for tonight.

I tried step two of the little experiment lurkette suggested.

I asked a man where to find the financial affairs office.

He was about 50, wearing a brown suit with a white shirt. Bald, with the only hair left on his head being the ring above the ears and at the back of the head, about my height and a little pudgy, maybe 220-230 pounds, but still big enough that he'd have little trouble with me in a physical confrontation. Any time I have any interaction with a strange man, that's there in the back of my mind.

He asked me what the happened to my arm and nose, and I said, "Car accident," wondering as I did what this had to do with anything. It still seems like a non-sequiter. It had nothing to do with the reason we were interacting, and we'd never met before, so he obviously had little to no reason to need to know what happened to me, and it just delayed my getting the information I needed.

He looked up and to one side, then with a little bit of annoyance told me directions. I didn't pay close enough attention, because I was watching his reactiion, and ended up having to check my map to find it anyway.

When I got there, it turns out that I was in the wrong place, but it took ten minutes before someon figured that out and sent me to human resources, where I should have gone in the first place. They had assumed I was a student, and never bothered to ask, then got annoyed with me for not telling them I was a professor. Who would have thought that the payroll information wouldn't be handled by financial affairs? How on earth was I supposed to know this? The way they acted, it seems as if I'm the only one on the planet who didn't know this.

God, this is why I hate starting a new job. People expect you to know things you have no way of knowing.

I'll try finding a woman dressed like me tomorrow.

I was invited to the faculty Thanksgiving dinner. I'm trying to figure out an excuse not to go. I tried, "I'm not a member of the faculty yet," and "I don't know anybody here" both of which bombed as excuses not to go. I'm hoping Grace will help me find one that'll get me out of it without actually lying. I don't suppose just telling them that I'm shy would help?

I got some not exactly bad news, but stressful news today regarding my class load, but it's late, and I'm tired.

But one last thing. I was told by the department head that I'm not actually expected to teach my freshman comp students how to write. I'll explain tomorrow.

Yes, I have landed in Bizarro land.

Time to go climb in bed and snuggle up. Despite the stressful day, all will soon be right with the world, at least for the next six hours.

Gilda

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

Mantus

Gilda, it's a shame you edited your posts. Your thoughts are of great intrest to me. Not for amusement or as some labaratory experiment but you intrest me as a human being. You see, I get by though social events by trying to understand people. It's why encounters such as the one at Denny's, with that old man, or at the receptionist at office don't effect me the way they effect you. I try to walk in other people's shoes and when I do the experience becomes shared, clear and those negative emotions are disarmed.
This thead is eye opening for me. I hope you keep writing.

The warmth of my heart to you.
Cheers.

lurkette

Oh, my dear. You don't need to apologize, and it's not selfish - I see you beat yourself up and I just want to either hug you or hold my head in my hands. I SOOOO don't want to be harsh because you seem to be fallow ground for internalizing people's comments, but I think you missed the point.

You went back to edit things because you feel they reflect badly on you and you wanted some control over your surroundings; we're not upset that you did this and certainly don't think it was selfish (at least I don't) - we just want you to get that (here's "the point" that you missed) those things you hate about yourself and want to edit out make you loveable to us and make us think about ourselves. Isn't that the best essence of being human? Connecting with other people and seeing yourself in them?

Oh, honey, I know you've been hurt in some big and deep ways, and it probably started (as ratbastid has said) early early in life. So early that this automatic self-hatred is just the water you swim in. It's so true, it's like breathing. You don't think about it, it just IS the way it IS. Let me say again, there's absolutely nothing wrong with how you are. The only thing that's "wrong" with it is that you are caught between familiar ways of being, and seeing that you want something else and not knowing how to get it because you just feel trapped inside yourself.

I'll refer you to another thread I started on "cognitive distortions." http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...ve+distortions

When I'm upset about something, when I hate myself and nothing in my life feels like the way it should be, and I just want a reset button so I can start over and do it right this time, I look at these and ask myself:

1. What's the situation (just describe the absolute facts, e.g., my boss said "you didn't turn in the report I asked for on time", or I didn't pay my electric bill on time)
2. What automatic thoughts am I using (e.g., "I'm a failure and my life is out of control")
3. What cognitive distortions am I using (e.g., labeling and magnification)
4. What could I ask to challenge this (e.g., what areas of my life are in control? What have I succeeded at?)
5. What would be a more realistic statement? (e.g., I was late with the assignment; my system for paying bills is not working)

All we want is for you to see yourself the way we all see you.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

Cimarron29414

Gilda,

:: DISCLAIMER :: I am as extroverted as one can be. I say good morning to every person I pass. I have never left a social situation without a new friend. My wife says that I couldn't identify a stranger if I wanted. Because, for me, there is no such thing. Sometimes, I speak to people and they look at me like I have 3 eyes. I've come to accept this and blow it off - maybe, they were just having a bad day.

2) This concept of automatic thoughts is really important. I actually was going to mention this to you, and I am pleased someone else brought it up. You seem to have "automatic NEGATIVE thoughts" or ANTs. For example, when you speak to a male you automatically evaluate him as a threat. The statistical probability of him actually being a threat in a public place in broad daylight is extremely close to zero. Hence, the thought is irrational and can be defined as an ANT. Your ANTs are certainly detected by others. You have been very perceptive with others' body language. I would guarantee that they are perceiving yours.

Did fat, bald guy ask about your injuries because he cares or because he wanted to project an image of caring because he could see you were uncomfortable/threatened? Perhaps he was trying to allay your discomfort by displaying compassion. "I care about your current injuries, so you can be assured I won't be adding to them."

Generally, your evaluation of the people you meet seems to be that they aren't behaving the way you expected/wanted. You might ask yourself, "Are these people acting this way because they ARE this way, or are they acting this way as a REaction to something I am doing? (Body Language)" And here's where you need to avoid the ANTs again!

3) If you want some light reading, you should consider picking up a book on group dynamics/human factors. You might not ever be truly comfortable with these concepts, but studying them might assist you in faking it during unavoidable social situations, like the faculty dinner.

__________________
Gives a man a halo, does mead.

"Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

Sweetpea

I think Gilda is making allot of connections in this thread to some extent and everyone has been doing their best to give great advice and insight

but just as a note...

If someone wants to edit their posts... They CAN and should be able to Without having everyone jump on them for it, even if it's well meaning... it often appears as ganging up on the thread starter, especially when it's about something so emotion based... it is the thread starter's choice to leave words there or take them out.

Sweetpea

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"I am the Type of Person Who Can Get Away With A lot, Simply Because I Don't Ask Permission for the Privilege of Being Myself"

Supple Cow

Nobody "jumped" on Gilda for editing out a bunch of her posts... they only said it was a shame to lose them, which it is. I constantly feel the urge to go back to posts from two, three years ago to delete all the things I said when I was less experienced in the world. But then I would never know how much I have grown.
In the same vein, you have no reason to apologize. You DO have every right to edit your posts the way you see fit as long as they don't break the rules. I think the people who mentioned it just wanted to see the record of your evolution as much as I do.

I hate to say it this way, Gilda, but it actually makes me a little sick to my stomach to read this thread because I am familiar with the feelings you are describing - only my reasons for having felt them were not the same as what I imagine yours to me and that is probably why I don't feel that way very often anymore. (And yes, I still find you quite more than acceptable, even though it doesn't really matter what I think.) What is the feeling? That it's not okay to make mistakes. This sounds really basic and I am fairly certain you've said it to countless middle school students in your lifetime, but I don't think you really believe it yet, so I'll repeat it to you: It's okay to make mistakes.

You are being very analytical about who you are, why you are who you are, and why the people around you behave as they do. But the language you use in this thread (and sometimes in other threads) tells me that you aren't playing by those rules yet. The consequences you perceive at the end of all these potential social interactions betray your fear of messing something up. But you know what? It's okay to make mistakes. So what if you wrote something in the heat of the moment? So what if some random internet stranger in another state or another country reads your posts and doesn't realize what you were going through when you wrote them? So what? Grace and Sissy still love you and you will still be the wonderful person that you are. Hell, even if you spammed the TFP with obscenities and were banned ignominiously, it wouldn't change a damn thing in Grace or Sissy's mind. Your students would still listen to you. You have a safe, if small, network of people who love and/or respect you. You have their love and respect because you earned it.

If you decide to try talking to strangers again anytime soon, I hope you'll humor me and try a different approach, remembering that it's okay to make mistakes. (I know that the whole concept feels like gambling, and you don't strike me as a gambler, but I'm going to use the metaphor anyway.) Try to think of it as a bet placed with a $20 bill you just found instead of $20 of your own hard-earned cash. That way, you can remember that no matter the outcome, you won't come out of the situation any worse off. Who cares if the casino might get $20 richer? You either have a net gain, or you end up right where you started. Not a bad place to be. Grace and Sissy still love you, remember?

Oh yeah, and it's okay to make mistakes.

__________________
"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
(Michael Jordan)

denim

Key point I realized too recently: it's okay to be you. Honest.

Sweetpea

excellent point denim.

which includes editing posts if she wants too Without repercussions from other members

now, now don't jump on me for saying this anyone... i would just like to point out:

Keep in mind, none of you (at least to my knowledge) are professional therapists, which is the kind of individual Gilda is used to getting advice from and bouncing these issues off of, and although all of you have much to give and much personal experience... you must understand it's quite different speaking about these integral and emotional issues with all of you than with her actual therapist... so bear in mind, Gilda takes every word each person says to heart, the things you say (negative or positive) can have great affect.

Sweetpea

__________________
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"I am the Type of Person Who Can Get Away With A lot, Simply Because I Don't Ask Permission for the Privilege of Being Myself"

Aphrodite

Wow, you're so like me it's scary.
Being in the same boat, I'm afraid I don't have any useful advice except to accept who you are and embrace the upsides of being who you are. The friendships I have made in spite of (or perhaps because of) my reticence have been awesome ones that I value immensely. I don't miss having a gaggle of groupies to go to the mall with and rave on about nothing with. I had that when I was in high school and tended to just tag along. It wasn't satisfying then and I learned from that.

Unfortunately, living in my head and dwelling on abstract things so much makes it hard to live in a world where every job advertisement asks for a "bubbly, outgoing personality" and everything is so in-your-face. I have never had a problem with giving presentations or public speaking either, in fact I do quite well at those things... but in an interview situation, one-on-one, I fall down quite spectacularly.

Supple Cow

You're probably right that most of us aren't therapists (at least I know that I'm not one), but isn't this stretching things a bit far? I thought this community was about bringing different people together, not self-censorship in the name of unhurt feelings. I'd be willing to bet that nobody in this thread had the intention of hurting Gilda's feelings - not a one. In fact, I think all the posts in this thread were meant to help. We just express ourselves in different ways. And, to simply state facts, the TFP doesn't revolve around one person - that's the beauty of it. This isn't a private session with a professional therapist. This is an internet discussion board.

I think you should give us all (including Gilda) a little more credit.

__________________
"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
(Michael Jordan)

lurkette

Hear hear!

Everyone here is only trying to help. We all have the best of intentions, and I'm sure Gilda is strong enough to take the advice we have with whatever grains of salt need to be taken.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

Sweetpea

well, you got me for being perhaps overprotective of someone i care about who is going through allot right now... it's a natural tendency And you might have posted the same thing were you in my position.

Sweetpea

__________________
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"I am the Type of Person Who Can Get Away With A lot, Simply Because I Don't Ask Permission for the Privilege of Being Myself"

Cynthetiq

If you cannot look back as to where you come from you'll never really know where you were or how you got there. They show the tree of evolution of animals so that you can see how to connect the dots from point a to point b.

And to add to Denim's post and your agreement. She may have felt foolish after rereading those posts, but those posts were her at that exact moment. They were her real self at that moment.

Having been to therapy myself, the only reasons I know I grew outside of them was because I kept my own track, which good number of people do not do. Most of us here at TFP are interested in personal growth to some degree be it in ourselves or just understanding other people. My point of stating that it's a shame to lose the posts, is simple. They are part of the conversation that flowed and followed.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Gilda

If I'd known it would have this effect, I probably wouldn't have deleted the posts. It's just one of those things that I do sometimes, not thinking that it might have consequences for other people. I do that sometimes, which is something else I need to work on, paying more attention to how my behavior affects other people around me.

But I do think that, if, as Cynthetiq suggests, those posts had value because they represented my honest feelings at the time I wrote them, then so to does my deleting them the next day represent my honest feelings at the time that I deleted them. They were little more than a confused mess anyway, and the posts to which I was responding are all still there, and I think that those are going to be far more valuable in the long run than the confused mess I made of things in what I wrote in response.

Anyway, once again, I apologize for doing that. I had no idea anybody would care one way or another.

Gilda

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

Cynthetiq

Yes, that could be the case. While you say there were a confused mess, they provided some of us an insight into how you think, a window into the mind of an introvert. Again, many people have come through here and read your posts and say that they resonate with something you stated. Some have come from those posts that you deleted, some from the organized thoughts.

When I took the Foreign Service Workers exam there is a part that is an essay and it's to be completed in pen. Specifically stated as PEN. People asked if they could use pencil, people were very uneasy about the fact that they had to compose and write something on the fly in pen. Sure you could use scrap paper to help orgainze your thoughts but ultimately what you submit has to be well written and in pen. For some reason people are uneasy about permanence.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Gilda

Dammit. I just lost about two pages of text. I was working on a post about my third encounter asking for directions when I accidently hit a button at the top of my keyboard with a red i in it. A screen popped up, saying this was my internet button and I hadn't configured it yet. So I closed the popup, and found the post I had been working on for the last hour and a half gone with it. I hate this keyboard. Why the hell would they design it with a button that would close a window and potentially cause someone to lose a lot of work?

Gah.

Back to start over. I hate it when this happens. I've lost a good two or three dozen posts the last year by accidentally closing the wrong window at the wrong time.

Gilda

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

Cynthetiq

no worries... i'm looking forward to reading about your next encounter

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Gilda

Ok, one more try at this.

I picked a woman who was dressed in about the same manner as I was. I was wearing black slacks, a dark green fitted blouse with matching alligator (fake) shoes and black lace pattern knee-high silk socks. She was wearing fitted tan slacks, a white blouse, a gold brocade vest, and black heels with a small gold buckle on the toe. She was a relatively tall Korean woman, about 35, long wavy black hair, very slim. She spoke with a thick southern accent, which surprised me at first, and I'm a bit disappointed with myself that I was surprised, as that indicates that I was making an unwarranted assumption about her based on race. She mostly looked at my face, glancing down at my cast and my clothes a time or two. I took notes immediately after so I could get this right:

Me: Uh, excuse me, but would you mind telling me where the education building is?
She: Sure. What do y'all need to do there? [I was thinking, what does it matter, you either know where it is or you don't]
Me: I, uh, need to talk to Dr. [department head].
She: His office is in the school of education administration building.
Me: Oh, ok. [pause]
She: Are y'all new here?
Me: Yeah.
She: Nice to meet you. I'm Dr. [lastname, a distinctive British name]. [she extended her hand to shake hands, once again glancing at my cast]
Me: Nice to meet you. I'm Gilda. [I shook hands. I noticed her nails had an impeccable french manicure, which reminded me that I need to find a nail salon here, and I made a mental note to see if I could find something on the internet, but forgot about it until I starting writing this]
She: How long have y'all been in [state]?
Me: Uh, about a month, I guess. [if this hadn't been one of the half dozen most beautiful women I'd ever met in person in my life, I'd have been getting antsy by now; get to the directions already, I was thinking]
She: Why do you need to see Dr. [ed department head]?
Me: A couple of my classes are dual credit.
She: Oh, are y'all Dr. [English departmenthead]'s new GA?
Me: I don't think so. [I was wearing green that day, but I didn't have a bow with me, so I don't think she and I have the same interpretation of what GA means. I still don't. More terminology I'm supposed to know but don't.] I'm an instructor.
She: Oh. You have dual credit classes?
Me: Yeah.
She: They usually don't give those to instructors. What classes do you have?
Me: None right now. I start in January.
She: Yeah, hon, that's what I meant.
Me: Oh. Sorry, I thought . . . [pause]
She: I didn't know we had any new instructors. You English?
Me: [momentarily confused, thinking, no Irish and Ukranian, with a little Chinese for flavor, but that's probably not what she meant, and while I paused to consider this, she continued]
She: What department you workin' for?
Me: English and education both.
She: That's strange. They never have instructors do that. What classes you got?
Me: Uh . . .
She: I mean when you start in January.
Me: Uh, Freshman Comp I, World Masterpieces II [side note--I am woefully unqualified to teach this class, but all newbies get a freshman comp and a freshman lit survey as two of their couses, with the lit class being handed out roughly at random; it's only the upper division classes that are assigned based on specialty], children's lit, and adolescent lit.
She: That the three hour children's lit, or the five hour lit and methods class.
Me: The lit/methods class.
She: Damn. I thought that was . . . you aren't Dr. Nakamura are you?
Me: Yeah.
She: Damn. How old are you? [If I hadn't been fantasizing about clubbing her with my cast, ripping her clothes off, and having my way with her right there on the corridor floor, I'd have been ready to gouge my eyes out by now]
Me: 29.
She: Damn. I was expecting a middle-aged Japanese woman, but I guess I can see it a little now.
Me: What do you mean?
She: What are you, maybe 1/4?
Me: [quizzical expression]
She: You don't look Japanese.
Me: I'm not. It's my married name. [this I find a surprising, and just a little annoying, assumption coming from an Asian woman with a British surname; do people routinely assume that a woman's last name is necessarily indiciative of her ethnicity?]
She: You sure you're not a little Asian?
Me: 1/8 Chinese, I think. The records aren't real clear.
She: Ah. Listen, hon. You're not an instructor, you're a professor. It may seem a small thing to you, but it's a big deal to a lot of people around here. Instructors are temps with master's degrees and GA's [and I'm thinking, cool! I want to be in Mr. Queen's class] And you'll want to introduce yourself as Dr. Nakamura, or people will all assume you're a GA. Y'all sure you're 29?
Me: Uh, yeah, ok. Yeah, I'm sure. Can you . . . [I was ready to ask for directions again, but she was off on tangent number 17, section B, subtangert 3.4]
She: So, y'all gonna be at the faculty dinner next Tuesday?
Me: Uh, I hadn't planned to.
She: Oh, hon, you really need to be there.
Me: I'm not part of the faculty yet, I'm just here . . .
She: Oh, shoot, honey, don't worry 'bout that.
Me: I don't know anyone here yet.
She: You do now! And all the more reason to come. Y'all are part of our family now. Time to meet all your weird aunts and uncles [I actually felt a little chill when she said that; not her fault, she has no way of knowing how that would strike a nerve in me].
Me: I'm not sure . . .
She: Really hon, unless y'all are all leavin' this weekend, you need to be there. Dr. [department head] wouldn't like it very much if you weren't. [and I'm thinking, if it means more conversations like this one, maybe I can just quit now and have it all over with. Being a housewife wouldn't be so bad.]
Me: Ok. I'll think about it. Uh, where is Dr. [ed department head]'s office?
She: Damn! Forgot about that. [and she gave me directions]
Me: Thanks.
She: Remember, you're Dr. Nakamura, a professor. Start upfront with that if you don't want any shit from [Dr. department head's secretary]. If they think you're an instructor or a GA . . . aw fuck it. I'll walk you over.
Me: Uh . . . [and she proceeded to walk me over to the administration office, where she introduced me as Dr. Nakamura, with a heavy emphasis on the Dr. to the secretary, chatted with her for a bit, then took off.]

Sigh.

Here's what I was hoping for:

Me: Me: Uh, excuse me, but would you mind telling me where the education building is?
She: [gives me directions]

I'd have ended up in the wrong place, but I would much prefer asking directions again to another round of something like that.

I am sooooo glad this experiment is over. I'll be able to rely on my trusty little map and trial and error for the rest of this month. I think I'll print up flyers with a FAQ on them and just pass them out at the faculty dinner, which I ended up telling Dr. Departmenthead I would be attending. He told me to bring Mr. Nakamura so that everyone could meet him, too. I'm more than a little ashamed that I didn't correct him.

[sigh]

Gilda

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

FngKestrel

Wow. That was quite the conversation. Didn't sound too bad though. Is GA Graduate Assistant?

Cynthetiq

seems to me that long conversation yielded alot.

Yes, there's lots of uncomfortable banter that happens when people meet sometimes. It sometimes stems from people making assumptions about the other individual and then correcting them by asking for more information or clarification. It's not usually meant to be insulting, it's meant to be informational to the person querying.

People have expectations. Sometimes we as individuals alter those scripts of expectations. To me this conversation is quite enlightening about how an educated person that wanted to get to know you and give you advice in the same conversation.

Your expecatations were to be a simple single question and answer conversation.

Let me point out that the conversations you have here, the information you interject here, belies your introversion. You speak here with confidence of subject matter.

Transfer that ability to real life. Yes easier said than done, but not impossible. We don't bite, and neither do people in real life (unless you ask them too )

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Cimarron29414

"Gilda shots.....she scores!!!!" (Wayne Gretzky reference)

I viewed this encounter as a complete success. While the other participant did most of the reaching out (which, we expected, and that's fine), you walked away from it with a new friend, colleague, ally. Oh, and she was nice to look at - which is never a bad thing. There was no downside to it, good for you!

Suggestions: Next time you see her on campus, say hello and tell her you appreciated her help. Second, compliment her on her nails and inquire as to where she has them done. You need yours done, afterall. Maybe the two of you could get appts. at the same time and strengthen your friendship/alliance?

Question: While your approach was identical in all three cases, your initial thoughts were very different. In the first two cases, you felt threatened and disengaged as quickly as possible. In the third case, you complied with the subjects suggestions and spent much more time with the individual. So, what was it about the third subject that you allowed yourself to remain engaged with the person?

__________________
Gives a man a halo, does mead.

"Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

Gilda

Gee, what kind of comic nerd are you?

GA = Green Arrow, i.e. Oliver Queen.

Oh, and apparently, these strange people mean GA to mean graduate assistant, ie, a graduate student who acts as slavel labor for a full professor. I was used to TA back home for the same thing.

Gilda

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

Gilda

That makes sense. Maybe it's the assumption she was making that just because she wanted to know more about me that that would mean that I'd want to share that information.

Then again, I was looking and analyzing her at the same time, ethnicity, dress, nails, accent, name, etc. I was just doing it differently, and without verbalizing my assumptions and checking them with her in that way.

I wonder if she'd have been offended if I'd asked her if she was Korean, as I assumed, or commented on how the accent surprised me coming from an Asian woman. Given that she didn't have any qualms asking about my ethnicity, going so far as to ask a couple of probing questions, I somehow doubt it, but that isn't something that I could have known on the fly at that time. I still don't think I'd want to make that assumption based on so little information and then say something that would offend her or appear to be racist. Then again, I'm already making that assumption, in making any kind of judgement about her based on ethnicity, I'm just not expressing that aloud.

That's part of my problem. I understand the basic script, but don't know how to alter it on the fly, so to speak. And when the conversation goes so far off the rails that it leaves the original neighborhood and ends up three states away, I get completely lost, as you can see by my completly lack of contribution above.

When I'm "here", I'm physically at home, usually with Grace around somewheer, often with Sissy. I'm in a comfort zone. I have the luxury to pick and choose which of the thousand different conversations I want to join, and or to just hang out and read, be a wallflower that watches and observes without being involved. And I express myself much better in writing than in speaking.

Hmmm. Actually that's not entirely true. Given the right subject--children's literature, poetry, transsexuals, lesbians, comic books, pedagogy, Scrabble, kung fu movies--I can talk easily and comfortably, because I know the script beginning to end, and I can handle tangents; hell, the tangents are fun. I'm also in a comfort zone when discussing those things, home or class, which makes it far easier. There is, however, no script to follow with a casual encounter with someone you don't know in a college corridor, and public places aren't comfort zones, so I'm out of my element both intellectually and emotionally.

That's after-the-fact analysis, of course. In the moment, I just worry about whether or not I should air what I'm thinking, and possibly offend or sound foolish or end up embarrassed.

Well, Grace does, but . . . dammit. You had to go and take my joke. It's not really fair for you to toss out the setup like that and then take it for yourself.

I don't know how I could transfer that to real life. Unless she somehow ends up in my home, I'm not going to have her in a comfort zone where I can bring up the things I was thinking.

Gilda

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert