Sunday, 10 February 2013

The truth about the internet

In all honesty, I hate how things are communicated these days. I talk to a lot of people mostly over text or facebook, and I hate how things are lost in translation. Not only simple things like sarcasm, jokes etc as you can’t always easily guess the tone of voice, but opinions people have and also what people are really truly like.

What if someone actually can’t stand you and they seem to just talk normally through facebook comments etc, whilst in fact they’re sitting at home rolling their eyes at the computer screen when they see they have a notification from you. I hate the idea of bothering someone. If people take a while to, or never do reply, I assume they’re sick of me or don’t like me much therefore I'm not good enough for the time of day it would take to write a reply. I'm very aware that's easily just me being paranoid, but when text or facebook are my main ways of communication with a lot of people (especially as I can't just pick up the phone and sometimes struggle in person to understand things) it really annoys me, and hurts when people just don't seem to bother with the effort.

I'm not an overly confident person myself - I struggle to meet new people especially in person as my hearing severely affects my ability to listen and understand I worry I come off as rude (and thats been confirmed by the looks I've got off people when I've not responded to something and I've not yet explained to them I'm deaf and need to lip-read) which obviously means its hit my confidence in all areas and I'm quite shy and this has gone over to meeting new people online, as I'm never one to just strike up a conversation. If people are busy or don’t have much to say they may write short, quick replies, nothing wrong with that, but again the tone can be lost in translation and you can easily assume they're just not interested or that you’re bothering them.

It’s annoying and distressing and half the time I just feel like giving up on trying and ultimately becoming a social hermit and not speaking to anyone. But would they notice seeing as I rarely pipe up or they’re in fact not that fucking bothered what I do anyway. The other thing that bothers me is how people’s perception of you over the Internet can be very jumbled. I hate how people assume to know you cos you’ve spoken to them a bit. I know some people think I'm some annoying thick blonde whose opinion is irrelevant because they don’t know me, they think I can’t follow things intellectually just cos I don’t necessarily talk about that stuff or use 'big words'. I once spoke to someone online through status about the more complicated chemical understanding of kalydeco on facebook, they were wondering about how it actually works and I've read a bit about it and understand it so I told them what I knew. A mutual friend saw what I said and was totally shocked that I had the ability to comprehend that information as they just think I'm an idiot who gets confused and bumps into things and did photography at uni cos I was too thick to do something that people may consider an 'actual' degree. For your information, I understand a lot of how kalydeco works as I've taken my time to read and understand the terms used (even though I got bored in high school bio and chem) and I did a degree (and I'm very pleased with my 2.1) in photography cos I enjoy it and didn’t want to spend 3 years doing a Maths or English degree when I don’t have a want or use for them. My gcse and a level results may not be the highest as I admit I struggled in school since I was 10 (due to the fact that I couldn’t hear the teacher and didn’t get any extra help so was expected to be able to do and understand work set when I couldn’t even hear the teacher explaining things to the rest of the class) but personally I don’t think that makes me thick.

It just really annoys me how people seem to judge without knowing, or they think they know you cos you’ve spoken a bit, and assume things, when in fact they’re so far from the truth but won’t actually admit cos they believe they ‘know you’. I’m fed up of trying to talk to people, I’m fed up of people not being interested if I do try, and just generally getting to the point where people piss me off because of this! I’m so aware that I could be just doing exactly what I’ve written about and pre judging people’s opinion of myself through miss reading of context, but that’s the over all thing that annoys me, as it’s so easy to do. 

Ultimately, yes I’m ranting, no I don’t really care, and if you’re one of the people who think I’m annoying or that I’m an unintelligent little thicket without even knowing me, then you can in fact do one, or tell me to my face that you can’t stand it when I join in on comments or something seeing as you so kindly ignore me. And especially if that’s true, please tell me what the fuck I’ve actually done to annoy you seeing as I can’t for the life of me think of what I’ve done to annoy people I’ve barely known to the point where I can clearly tell I'm a nuisance in their life.

5 comments:

Little Harriet said...

That's the trouble with the internet, things get lost in translation. Try not to worry about what people think, if anyone is bothered then they aren't worth it.
I think it is ace you have a photography degree, I would have loved to have gone to uni.

Gem said...

Eugh! I get the "music is a doss subject" thing all the fucking time. It does my head in! You worked so hard for your degree. Don't let any take any of that away from you. To be honest, filling in that Goddamn student finance form every year is worth a whole new degree in itself. Bastard thing!

Things do get lost in translation so easily online. People can't hear the tone of voice, or often the sarcasm (<-- you should have seen my typo of that word. It was unrecognisable!) and people jump to defend themselves very quickly; Look at the CF forums!

I've been shite at texting people these past few weeks. I'm always at the end of a text should you need a good old fashion piss take session :)

lovelovelove xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ruth Jay said...

I've had all those kind of comments too! Things get very mixed up over the internet and it's often difficult to figure out how people feel about you - especially the people you've never actually met in person. Even in person I usually can't figure out if people actually like me or not so what hope do I have over the internet?

Oh, and it annoys me that we constantly have to justify why we do things when we just want to do them! Why should you have to explain why you did photography and not maths?

xxx

Anonymous said...

Illegitimi non carborundum

You have achieved a lot so don't take things to heart or over analyse. And you're right - this is a crap medium to communicate.

Dave

Me said...

I love and yet hate how technology has changed how we communicate. At the end of the day facebook etc is a bit of fun and if someone thinks they know you from your facebook status' i.e. you bang in to stuff alot, then they are the stupid ones!

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