I'm getting ready to go to the movies, and while I was getting ready, I was letting my mind wander, as per usual. I noticed that a couple of people that I used to know had been perusing my last.fm profile, as well as some other places that I tend to frequent. Normally this wouldn't be of any importance to me, but that they were people that I once knew on a chat program that I used to use (translate: be an addict of), mIRC.
Now, what does this have to do with a goddamned thing, I'm sure you're thinking.
For almost 5 years, even before I moved back to Maryland, I was literally on IRC channels day and night, moving from network to network to network - and quite honestly, addicted to it. This is what happens when an extremely depressed person that has antisocial tendencies hides from real life because they don't know how to cope with it, and instead turn into someone they're quite frankly not (even if you tell the absolute truth, like I did). I'm sure that the people who are still on IRC would say I'm full of shit - but honestly, everyone that I ever met on that service was exactly like that - they were running and hiding from their real selves, or beginning to.
Don't get me wrong, okay - some of the very best friends that I have today were acquired through online means, be it the old WWIV boards that I was on in the 90s, or through WinMX when I was actively, uh, "acquiring" music... or on IRC. But only a very few remain in my life... because they were the kinds of people that truly cared about me - not the online persona.
It leads me to think that I'm very, deeply, grateful for the friends that I have now... and to think that it's so easy to hate all the others that never understood me, that never 'got it'. There are sore spots when it comes to this subject for me, particularly how I finally ended my 'relationship' with IRC - that was a very, very painful time for me, and there are people that I will literally despise for the rest of my life out of that episode. Eventually I'll get around to talking about that, too, but there's still a deep well of anger involved in that whole mess - and I'm in a good mood for a change, heh.
I think that was the beginning of the end of 'hiding myself away', I guess - I finally figured out that I am what I am, that I'm no longer going to hide anymore, and if people don't like me for what I am, hey... there's the door, don't let it hit you in the ass on the way out.
Hmm. Still a lot on my mind and not much time to let it out, so I guess that I'll touch down briefly on a few points. It amuses me that some of the way I was when I wrote full-time is beginning to come back to me - I can't just write without rambling on and on and on pointlessly. Once I was able to do that, I could organize later so that it all made some kind of sense.
Or maybe that's just a crazy person's way of writing, I don't know, heh.
I'll be back later on and then I'll probably have a long, chatty post for you all, who knows. It depends on if I have another dizzy spell or not - I'm still not feeling physically well. Thanks, Paxil. You motherfucker.
CHRIST, I wish I'd never taken that drug.
1 comment:
as a former addict of IRC, i can totally relate. i think my addiction was more the single, stay at home mom of a little guy that never got outta the friggin house! that in itself was depressing!! lol also a lot of deep, deep insecurities about myself, and of course the network i/we met, the men were more than willing to tell u what you wanted to hear.
my online time at home now is down to checking emails, msgs and responding. where i used to spend about 4-7 hrs a DAY now is maybe 10 minutes on the week days and 20-30 on a given weekend. i do have access at work, but keep it down to the people i know "IRL", as they say, as a way of catching up with that week or weekend events.
once i started getting involved in LIFE through work, social events, volunteering, things that forced me to move and get out of the house, those programs, and unfortunately some of those people became a distant memory. i have only maintained probably a tenth of TRUE friendships out of the hundreds of people i chatted with, via IRC and messenger programs.
that's how i met you, and after ditching the online persona's of being channel queens, ya gotta admit, we learned how very similar we are, and i think there's a kinship in that and why it's lasted over the years.
glad you're feeling good today huneh!!!
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