When did it become polite to just walk away when talking to someone?

Mickey has a good point.

Some people IM without even asking if you are doing something else, or busy. I guess they assume if they are not, you are not.

Someone worth keeping an acquaintance with will at least get the hint and not be upset about it. Someone who demands attention any time any where - not so much.

I think I already posted this above. I'm not demanding that people give me attention; simply that they say if they can't. Or rather, if they don't reply at all even that's ok too. What I dislike is being kept hanging in the dark, never knowing if they are crashed/typing slow/RL distracted/etc and waiting would be polite, or if they are just busy with something else and it's fine for me to leave.

You mention that "people IM you assuming that you are not busy, because they are not"; but there's a vice versa situation of "assuming that the person IMing you is busy because you are". Plus, there's the risk of people simply expecting 10-minute replies on IM conversations because it's all they've ever known - and corrosive dispassion ("nobody else cares, so if I do, I just lose; I'd better not!" is a genuine danger to the SL community.

Please, see the humor in this:

Madhu: People offer suggestions, and yet you have an answer for each one, an explanation for how each suggestion is inadequate to solve your problems.

Yumi: That is not right. The suggestion are inadequate and wont solve the problems.




I have been trying to find a way to ask you to look at this without causing any more hurt feelings. It is silly in a way. The best way to avoid hurting your feelings would be to say nothing. but .... that brings us back to the first post. I would just be walking away. If you can find the humor you can also see that maybe there is a little something there in what Madhu said.

So.. anyone who says "you just have answers for all suggestions" can, as a result, make ANY suggestion after that point and not be have it criticized?

Yumi, you may be onto something as a general trend in text communication. I'm struck by this:You know, as I think back on it, it wasn't always this way.

I blame Twitter.

I blame ludicrous text message charges myself.

Yumi, it shouldn't come as a huge shock to you that random strangers on a forum don't care to sit down and hash through your particular problems more than they already do. After all, that level of personal work is appropriate to friends, not to forum strangers who really barely know you, and at that only know the aspect of yourself you show on the forums.

And it's remarkable that forum people put as much effort into helping your questions as they do - since you dismiss their advice, mischaracterize their statements as you have done mine, or reduce them to belittling and facile oversimplifications as you have done with what was actually a long, complex discussion of learning to build that offered multiple viewpoints and perspective.

But instead of considering the thoughtful comments people have offered to you, freely, because they are trying to help, you have decided ahead of time that they don't care *enough*, that they aren't trying hard *enough* to help, and they can't possibly even begin to be of value to you in addressing your problems. In fact people do care, up to point, but there is only so much care one can show for a forum acquaintance who generally responds to attempts at care with such resistance as you give.

(And by the way, I said you often come across as negative - not always - and that is a true statement of my impression. For you to say "I don't always come across as negative" is to presume the perception of your audience. Listen to what others say about how you sound; it may not be the same as how you think you sound.)

If you find the comments people make here are so facile and superficial as to be useless to you, I have to wonder why you keep coming back to the forums for advice. You complain that the advice is "untested" which is frankly among the most ungrateful comments I have seen on this board, and that is saying something. The only person who can test whether a particular approach will work for you, Yumi, is you.

Well, I don't expect to change the way you think with a couple of posts. But I do hope that what I've said does rattle something somewhere in your brain, even if you find that most of it is wrong, too facile, or not sincere enough.

The thing you seem to be missing is that your entire post is just a statement of my problem. People are "random strangers on a forum", never friends. It's all about helping me out of kindness or sympathy or other forms of pathos, never because of any actual interest or enthusiasm. Of course there is a limit to how much I can expect from people in that situation - but then my problem is that there aren't people who _aren't_ in that situation.

When I say I'm upset about my social situation... that doesn't mean that the person I'm saying it to, is expected to change it. In fact, any attempt to change it artificially out of desire to help would fail by definition. At the same time, it doesn't mean I'm not upset about it or that I want it to be forgotten.

So why don't you ask your friends?

Their attitude is the same.

And the moral of the story is?

That I've been rejected for a reason I don't understand. And before you say that it's because I'm too negative, I wasn't originally!

Completely assumptive.

Some of us not only like to help people but feel compelled to do it (for good or ill.)

Why do you assume everyone feels sorry for you? I don't.

You also assume you were rejected by someone walking away when they might've simply been busy or distracted.

Anyone who places all the power onto others to make them happy will be disappointed.

Right, but the relationship is still one of helping, not of actually liking or being interested.



I assume I've been rejected because of what I described above to Argent.

Yumi, after years of seeing these posts I think it is time that you really need to start looking in a mirror. I know that I personally would not want to hang around with you. You have been negative for as long as I can remember. There is only one current thread with someone more negative then you. Until YOU change, your circumstances here will not change.

One simple question. Why would anyone want to hang with you?

In no way are those two things mutually exclusive.

It's like you are bent on insisting people dislike you, Yumi.

But let me turn that around on you a little bit. Based upon what should people like you any more than they would like anyone else they barely know?

It seems you want to be special. I'm not talking about basic courtesy. On that I agreed with you. But when others and also myself have tried to point out that sometimes *other people* have *their own needs* that might conflict with your own wish for their time, attention, or fawning over you - then you become down at the mouth.

That seems one-sided.



How about not assuming much at all?

I am not sure which post you refer to, with Argent, though.

Right. But the problem is, it's double-edged - I cannot change until my circumstances change. If others don't want to be around me, then all I can talk to other people about in SL is how I stood around doing nothing and logged off, and I can't really think of a way to make that interesting or compelling. Or I can talk about things I did IRL, but that doesn't seem too popular in SL.

SO wrong.

Wrong, dead wrong, can not say just how many ways that this is wrong and that is the first thing that a therapist would say. You have to change for your circumstances to change.

Not trying to be mean hearted Yumi. I have nothing against you and you have never been mean or unkind to me. But I do think that you should take the opportunity to look in the other thread and hopefully see that there are some similarities. Multiple threads bemoaning that no one wants to teach or help or be friends etc. You need to face the fact that you are suffering from depression and that you need to seek treatment.

Maybe surely wrong in the real world, but in SL? So much of SL is social that without others being involved, there's very little SL experience. And without having an SL experience, there's little shared experience to talk to other people about.

Then why on earth are you standing around doing nothing? You don't *have* to have company to do things in SL.

If you are convinced that you need company to do anything interesting, and that you need to do something interesting to earn the right to company, then that is quite circular bind you have set up for yourself. One of those self-fulfilling prophecies I talked of earlier.

Why not just stop sitting around wondering why everyone hates you and just go DO something? Go explore Chakryn Forest or Isla Menorca or Montmartre or Tempura or any of the other hundreds of fascinating and beautiful sims around SL. Or go pick a mainland road off the map and just walked along it seeing what you saw - some real interesting and strange places out there. Or pull up the live music events from the event listings and TP from one to the next until you find one that's surprisingly good, or one that's hysterically bad. You'll have stories to tell in no time. Then next time you want to talk to someone about what you did in SL you won't have to just say "I stood around doing nothing and then I logged out."

Still at a loss for ways to make conversation? Here's what I do: I ask other people what *they* like to do in SL. Then when they answer, I ask a follow-up question. Then I ask another.

Surprise! it's a conversation!

You don't even "have" to be in SL. Uninstall.

Yumi - you said - as you know - you said you could not change until your circumstances change.

That is BS. Take it from one who has had to adapt in life more than once.

As people keep telling you, people dislike being around people who are negative, who blame anyone but themselves anytime things do not go perfectly for them, who nitpick, and who are always frowning.

Some people in SL have a lot to frown about in RL but somehow find a way to be FUN to be around in SL.

This world is not Utopia. People want to feel good and have fun, and they seek out or spend time around those who are that, personified. It is not a huge mystery. Be fun and be nice to be around and people will. (Although even THEN, you must allow them to do their own thing too!)

Your thinking on this is backwards.

Must also stop thinking that others will give you unconditional love. That exists for infants from their parents, and in adulthood possibly from a pet or your child. The rest of the world will set conditions, whether large or small. And everyone has their limit. If you run through life testing those limits, just to prove to yourself people really are not good, or patient or loving, you will be satisfied in seeking disappointment each time.

Even in these threads, it is like people pour themselves out trying to help you but you put up a wall. If that is how it is in SL or RL people will feel drained and give up out of, as Mickey put it, self preservation.

I'll also ask what I asked the OP of the other thread - When is the last time you gave out what you seek from others?

Several people have been friends to you, here in this forum, Yumi. You don't even have to read between the lines....it's not subtle.

Oh wow.
-I sometimes feel the way Yumi does, rejected, but I know it's perception. I also know it's caused by pre-menopausal hormonal shifts, and--being a satirist--I humorously warn people when this happens.
-Frankly, I think that about 95 per cent of the people in SL are nutters, some of whom I had been "sexually" involved with, which is why I no longer date in SL. The trick is to seek out the ones who aren't and form bonds with them.
-Rudeness--particularly in the form of favoritism--bugs me too, but when I come across it, those people go on Mute and then are taken off my contacts list. I've burned a lot of bridges, true, but I've also had a much more varied experience of SL than I would have if I hadn't burned them. I don't waste time on people to whom I am obviously a low priority.
-Who says you need company in SL? When I first went in-world, it was after years of chat rooms where, indeed, the social aspect is everything. I was "alone" for a long time, which was great! I created a back story for my avatar, adopted a prim baby, and started teaching myself how to build. Now that I have some people in my SLife again, I enjoy that too, and have found a perfect balance.

It's past 2 a.m. so I'm not sure how much sense that last point makes, but I think the general jist is there...