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Well, now that I've gotten my feet wet here, I'm noticing some very interesting things about the process.
First of all, I think SU is exactly what you make of it.
Do you need a dating service?
Do you need some friendly company?
Do you need to belong to a group with whom you share something in common?
Do you need some soul-soothing?
Do you need to "find yourself?"
Do you need to be stimulated with new information?
Do you need tips on your subject of choice?
Do you need to rant?
Do you like to look at art and discuss it?
All of these needs, and others I haven't mentioned, can be met here at SU, and I think that's just great.
But what's really on my mind tonight is the method of communication here and how it relates to the idea of anonymity.
I find myself censoring my emails (or PMs, as I've been informed they are called :) ) because I do not want to offend anyone by asking anything too personal. And this defies every etiquette lesson I've learned about how to be social in this world. Typically, we ask:
Where do you live?
Where do you work?
Do you have children?
Are you married?
Are you in a relationship?
Where did you go to school?
What's your sign?
And the one that stumps me over and over again...
What do you do?
And on and on goes the boring list. We engage the other person in conversation by getting them to talk about themselves and share information. Then, we take our polite turn, telling the same things about ourselves.
When we ask questions like these, are we truly getting to know someone? Or are we scratching the surface with polite, small-talk drivel? Does any of that really matter at all?
Or sometimes, I used to tell my sad story from the past, in order to try to show myself to others.
It defined me for such an unfortunately long time.
I'm struggling with this. It's hard. It's a challenge to define myself by sharing my Self, not sad stories or irrelevant details. Sometimes I just don't know what to say, and I feel uncomfortable. This is new territory for me, but it feels like the right thing, nonetheless.
All day long I've been thinking of the writing of Oriah Mountain Dreamer, and I've seen this particular writing here on SU several times. I have The Invitation in hardback form, and I spend a lot of time in those pages lately.
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