AGAIN

[ceebeegee]

Yesterday I received an email from someone named "Kisor Hart":

Hi there,

Just have a general theater question,but wanted to make sure I have the right person?

I had a weird feeling about it and didn't reply, not even to ask "who is this?"

Tonight I googled the name and found this on a message board:

Hi there,

I was wondering if ANYBODY could help me with something. I'm looking for a picture of ANGELINA JOLIE where she's being carried on one of those bed/chair type things. (kinda like
what cleopatra would be carried on) It happened on some talk show a while ago (possibly Conan)

Oh dear God.

The name also came up as a hit on a adult-restricted website dealing with some kind of festishes. EW. Ew, ew, ew. Hitting "mark as spam" right now.

Comments

[chillygator.livejournal.com]

YES!!!!! He's back!

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

To my chagrin.

[chillygator.livejournal.com]

Because I've been thinking about this a lot and also value your awesome opinion and this seems to be the best thread to do it (or should I send you vague, creepy e-mails when I ask you questions? lol):

So, socially awkward people. At what point should their awkwardness be their responsibility to be self-aware and observant and realize, "My gosh, normal people don't do/say/ask/talk about these thing!! I should maybe change" and at what point is it our responsibility to love/accept everyone for who they are? I mean, I'm very shy and social situations stress me out, so when someone is socially awkward, I respond by avoiding them, so I'm a terrible example.

This was brought up because 1. I wondered why this guy can't realize that these requests aren't normal and 2. I have a guy in my parent's neighborhood who wanted me to be his friend/drive him to school (when we were both in high school together) but every interaction with him makes me uncomfortable (see: http://chillygator.livejournal.com/570358.html, http://chillygator.livejournal.com/753560.html, http://chillygator.livejournal.com/855170.html -- where you commented! He had a mental breakdown not too long after that and tried to kill himself and was committed to a psychiatric hospital for awhile -- his mom was devastated one week and the next week pretended nothing had ever happened and acted like she had no idea what we were talking about when we asked how Scott was doing. But they've also had other children take their own lives) so I avoid him. 3. I write for a question and answer forum and one of the questions came in reads:

Dear 100 Hour Board,

Why does being a loner have such a bad stigma associated with it? I'm a loner, but I'm still super awesome. What gives?

-Wolverine

And my argument that being alone is fine (and referencing the TED talk on the power of introverts), but lacking the ability to be around other people in appropriate ways is not fine.

Thoughts? Feelings? Agree? Disagree? Personal stories that will make me realize your life experiences are a billion times more uncomfortable than anything I've ever imagined? (o:

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

Well, these are different kinds of social awkwardness--they come from different places. The creep who keeps emailing is (very likely) a guy with a fetish. From what I understand of fetishes (I have absolutely no interest in examining the issue closely), a fetish is a fascination, a kind of compulsion. I don't know if these people are born that way or if it arises from an incident in childhood or when you're just starting to explore your sexuality--I suspect both. (The one person I know who tends that way told me they felt they were born that way--they're "wired differently.") There is nothing wrong with having a festish, but one thing that defines it is that is IS unusual--liking to see women in lacey lingerie is not considered a fetish, it's considered perfectly normal. OTOH, obsessing over women's feet* is unusual--there's nothing wrong with it, but there is something wrong with harassing a stranger online to feed your fascination with that. Nothing wrong with what's in his head, but constantly trying to inveigle me into his reindeer games is where he crosses the line.

I imagine that with the internet, it's very easy to lose yourself in a world of *just* that fetish--there are sites devoted to it, you can connect with others who are like-minded, you can immerse yourself in images. The more you immerse yourself, the more "normal" it may seem--also if you are constantly online and interacting with like-minded people, your sense of socially appropriate boundaries may begin to erode for 2 reasons. 1) If you reach out to "normal" people in real life and say/do something creepy, they will react right there in front of you--they'll say "ew" or "that's creepy" or "what is wrong with you?" 2)If you reach out to normal people online, their most likely response is NO response--they'll just delete you. Naturally this guy is going to prefer to stay online as much as possible--but that just furthers his gradual social alienation. He may or may not be able to help himself, but certainly at one point he was, and because of that, I absolutely hold him responsible for his creepiness.

*I realize I've used male heternormal scenarios for both examples--do women have fetishes to the extent that men do? I don't know, I've only ever heard of men having them.

Scott however is a different animal--he honestly sounds as though he's "on the spectrum," meaning he's has some form of autism. FROM WHAT I UNDERSTAND (I know very, very little about autism, please take all of this with a grain of salt), autistic people genuinely CANNOT understand social boundaries the way we do. They just can't--they can't pick up the unspoken social signals and understandings, they can't read facial expressions. The solution is to tell them flat out (politely, of course). "Don't hug me like that, I don't like it." "Please don't stand so close to me, you're invading my personal space." They'll never be say "My gosh, normal people don't do/say/ask/talk about these thing!! I should maybe change"--it's up to us to help them with that. (If you care--you're under no moral charge to help Scott since you hardly know him.)

OTOH, Scott may not be autistic--you said his family was weird, maybe this is what he learned was normal. If he tried to kill himself, he may have genetic mental health issues--suicide often runs in the family. In that case it is up to him to try to change his ways to fit in, or resign himself to being avoided. Again you're under no moral charge to educate him.

There are also people who just blossom later--they don't quite get it during their teens or early 20s, but as they mature they figure it out. I think in those cases, the best solution is a combination of outside feedback (boundaries plus positive reinforcement) and a desire on that person's part to change themselves.

[chillygator.livejournal.com]

Ooh I love all of this!!!

For your fetish guy, I agree completely. Have your thing, do what you want, yes, but asking other, completely random people about it? Totally not okay. I love your wording on social boundaries becoming blurred by spending too much time online. Here is where I think (for the sake of the Board question I'm answering) that even though one is introverted, it's still important to make an effort to interact with others if just to keep up on socially acceptable norms. I am one million percent for the internet and meeting and talking to people here, but I also know that if I hid in my bedroom like a recluse for years on end, I would not be capable of being a functioning member of society because I'll have altered my own expectations of reality and lost practice at reading social cues.

And mental illness. Oy, that's always a hard one. There are no obvious signs to say, "This person as aspergers. Be blunt." or "This person is retarded. Beware."

How does one address to someone "normal people don't do this" anyway?

My roommate is very mentally with it (she has a master's in social work and a job as a social worker), but she can't for ANYTHING read social cues. I always wonder if it's because she doesn't care, doesn't practice or something in her just makes her incapable. Like, she's told me many times that people have felt she's interrogating them when she's really just asking them about their lives (in fact, last night she was going through my bags and asking me questions about everything I had -- why did I have so much candy in my purse? When did I start taking birth control? Why? and my answers were abrupt and my body language -- of trying to take the purse away -- seemed to me to be very obvious and she JUST KEPT DOING IT!). Where does it become the person's responsibility to say, "Oh, hey, I must be bad at this because a ton of people say they feel like I'm behaving inappropriate. I should make an effort to be more aware."

As for why "loners" (I really hate that term) have a bad stigma? I think it's a combination of society valuing extroverts and the mentally ill (I also hate that term...) or people who are just socially off (and don't care!) who give it a bad wrap, but I could be wrong (o:

Have I mentioned how much I love your thoughts on things??? I agree with them, but you say things better than I ever will!

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

Your roommate sounds like someone who has lower emotional intelligence (which is interesting in light of the fact that she works in social work). I appreciate your dilemma--one reason I have such extreme frustration with people who don't pick up social cues is because as a WASP, I am essentially conditioned not to be confrontational in social settings, to read social signals. Someone who can't or won't acknowledge my unspoken message is forcing me to choose between either speaking up and overtly establishing a boundary (no, I'm not interested in dating you; I prefer not to be called that; I don't like to be hugged by strangers, etc.), which feels rude, or suffering in silence. People who can, really REALLY need to educate themselves on how to read people because being forced to spell things out can end badly. Remember this guy?

http://chillygator.livejournal.com/788498.html?thread=2330130#t2330130

Although with him I suspect it was more a case of denial than someone who lacked emotional intelligence!

Where does it become the person's responsibility to say, "Oh, hey, I must be bad at this because a ton of people say they feel like I'm behaving inappropriate. I should make an effort to be more aware."

Probably at the point they become annoyed and/or frustrated that people are avoiding them. But this would then require a thoughtful, genuine attempt at self-examination and correction, which is very difficult for a lot of people.

WRT to the stigma of loners--it seems to reason that the more distance you keep, the harder it is to read you, which then makes people less willing to trust you.