This post requires a little back story. Most of what I post here is copied from my blog, Partial Nerdity. One post I made there, wondering about my being creepy, garnered a rather unfavorable response from someone who identified their-self as "Benjamin":
I’m replying here anonymously, because I don’t want things to be awkward between us when we encounter each other in our real lives. But, while I feel and hear your pain here, I wanted to let you know how I perceive you.
We’re acquaintances and (at one point) friendly, and I’ve tried multiple times to engage you in conversation/dialogue online, to no avail. In regards to women, I see you respond to every big-boobed, belipsticked burlesque hottie who responds to your FB posts, yet not once have you directly or indirectly responded when I take the time to comment. So what I see is, not a creep, but quite a snob. That’s your right and I’m not condemning you for it, but it’s my perception. I have little in common with what seems to be your main clique of girl friends (the least of which is my gender), but I’m disappointed to put forth an effort and to get nothing back. You strike me as someone who thinks they are far too good for most folks around you, so to hear that women many times find you overly friendly is a surprise.
After a lot of thought, I decided to post a response. This is Part 1 of that response (part 2 is not yet written):
Dear “Benjamin,”
I hope this letter finds you well. You will be pleased to know that I have been considering your comment on my blog of June 24, wherein you called me “quite a snob” and “someone who thinks they are far too good for most folks around you.”
Against my better judgement (and no doubt the advice of my friends, were I to ask them), I have decided to post this open letter to discuss some of the thoughts you comment has inspired in me.
First, I want to tell you a few things about myself that you probably don’t know because I haven’t allowed you close enough to learn them for yourself.
1) I am painfully shy in social situations. You probably doubt that if you’ve seen me online or work a room IRL in the last couple years. However, for most of my life, I have been terribly socially awkward: never really knowing what to say to people in social situations, never very good at picking up non-verbal cues, and relying heavily on alcohol-fueled bravery to talk to people, usually with disastrous results.
For several years, my job required me to act as a trainer of our customers. I found training to be a lot like performing, just with different content. But I learned from my job how to interact with people. How to listen to them and respond to them. What to say and how to say it. Instead of lecturing from a stage, I learned to collaborate with my trainees. And lo and behold! those skills translated to my everyday life. I have learned (and proven repeatedly) that I can now strike up a conversation with anyone about anything.
But I must admit, that skill doesn’t necessarily translate into social situations. For one thing, when I work a room, it feel very false. It’s protective coloration and little more. I’m not offering people anything of who I really am, nor do they want me to. When I am among friends, or potential friends, I tend to clam up more, especially if there are folks around who I don’t know.
2) I don’t relate very well to people who are unintelligent or whose interests, politics, or religion are very different from mine. I can make casual, short-term conversation about a variety of topics, but one can only talk about one’s job or the weather for so long. Since I don’t follow sports, there’s not much to talk about unless there are shared interests. If I feel I’ve used up the available topics for conversation and am not clicking with a person, I generally excuse myself and move on to the next person or group.
3) I have a very low tolerance for drunkenness, drug use, drama, and crazy. That first one might seem contradictory since I used to be a very heavy drinker, myself. So what changed? Somehow, I became virtually a single parent. My relationship with my kid is very good; she is the number one thing in my life. For a variety of reasons beyond the scope of this letter, my kid prefers to spend a majority of her time living with me rather than her mom. That means that potential friends and lovers are also people who will potentially be around my kid a lot.
If you’re a drunk, a user, a drama-seeker, or unhinged, I’m not going to judge you for your choices (heck, there is a lot of booze and drama in my own history), but chances are I’m going to keep you at arm’s distance. Because I don’t want you around my kid. She doesn’t need it in her life; I don’t need it in mine.
(I suspect this is going to earn me a lot of flak from some of my acquaintances. People like their booze/drugs/drama and they DON’T like it when other people don’t like it. My only defense is that I have more than just myself to look out for; if you’re a parent, then you probably get it.)
I must away to a Thing, so I will finish my letter another time. Despite its length, part 1 is, IMSO (“in my snobbish opinion”), the least interesting of what I want to say to you.
To be continued….