Dichroic Reflections

thinking about people

I keep thinking I ought to move this site over to LiveJournal (I do have a blog there but rarely write in it) in order to see if I get more commentary there. Then I keep reminding myself that once I got there I'd still be me. I just don't think I'm the kind of person who everyone loves and reads, either in real life or in my writing voice. (My writing voice is probably closer to the me I am inside my head than the persona you'd meet in the flesh, because of getting to talk about anything I want instead of having to worry about conversing only on topics other people are interested in at that time and place, in short sound bites because that's all there's space to say. Work is for work-talk, rowing is for rowing-talk, airports are for flying-talk, if I ever had time for Stitch'n'Bitch sessions they'd be for knitting talk, and outside that I rarely seem to get to talk to people other than Rudder.)

Anyway, I think it would be fun to be the sort of person who gets hordes of comments on every entry, and constant phone calls in real life. On the other hand, I enjoy being me, too, and wouldn't want to give that up. (Possibly this is the appeal of Multiple Personality Syndrome.) Crankiness has its own satisfaction. Besides, one prerequisite of being widely loved seems to be being the sort of person who likes most people, and I don't. (I do seem to like a higher percentage of people I meet online which tells me that either I'd like people in general more if I knew them better, OR that the sites I read online tend to attract smarter, wittier, and more interesting people. Actually, the latter seems more likely. Also, print is in some ways a better forum for the exchange of complex ideas.)

Another side benefit of not having tons of casual on- and offline friends is that I do really appreciate and cherish the ones I have, which includes all of you who read this or leave notes here. (Spammers excepted. I may be getting mushy but I do have limits.) I love getting to read about the things other people really care about, and the things they're working on as well; it may be a little voyeuristic, but I find I worry when someone disappears, or is obviously unhappy, and I cheer when good things happen to people I read regularly.

Another benefit of blog-reading is the insight into other ways of living. For some reason, polyamory fascinates me - I think it's because in my neo-hippie mind that's more the way life should be. In real life, though, I don't have any great desire to try it out for myself, partly because I'm too lazy and probably too selfish to do it right and partly because, well, see above about not liking enough people. Two things I have noticed, though I haven't collected data on either, and there are plenty of exceptions, is that people who write about being poly seem to be less happy on average and that people who work from home or who don't have jobs seem to get sick more. (If you're thinking you're in one of those categories and I'm wrong, see the part about exceptions. This is just a general impression I've been getting and it doesn't apply to everyone.) The interesting thing about both is I can't tell cause and effect. For example, it could be that some people are more likely to be unhappy for whatever other reason and need to give and receive more love to and from more people to stay on a reasonable keel, that they'd be unhappier monogamous. Or it could be a system that can breed more happiness and more unhappiness both, depending on the people and the situation involved. And the health thing could be that people who go out less develop fewer immunities or it could be that people who have more health problems are more likely to work from home or quit their jobs because they have to. (This does apply to at least two people I read regularly.) Finally, it could be that there's no correlation in either case but that people tend to need to vent about problems and are less likely to write when things are going well because that's the normal state, or that I notice problems more and so get a false impression. Whatever, it's interesting to think about blog sociology and to see trends and connections.

And I think when they taught me statistics, they ruined me for being judgemental.