In which Woff admits.

I am not a very kind person

I'm writing this right after another quarrel with my mom, who is insisting that I don't spend enough time on schoolwork and too much of it online. The usual. Since it's the holidays, she figured she'd throw in the extra special offer of saying that she didn't want my gift and that "[I] can put it up [my] ass for all [she cares]"

I have been looking forward to Christmas since October and she broke it in one go.

I guess you need a little bit of background to understand why christmas is so important to me: First off, my parents are divorced. While on paper they went apart on good terms and mutually, dad still harbors there petty little hate crimes from time to time which include among others
- refusing to update the index alimony, saying that's my mom's job even though he insisted on getting all the paperwork himsef
- demanding that my mother give back all parts of the alimony during which we are at my dad's (which is bullshit because that money goes into clothes/books/leisure/other stuff I need all of which I have to bring from school
- insisting that my mother brings us to his house which is an hour's drive away on friday, after ten years of not making a deal out of it
and many more bullshit parlor tricks to basically cut all optional effort he has to put into us.

Mom recently retired due to 4 hernias in her neck. She is pending a retiree funding, but as for now she has to withdraw cash from her savings account each month because she gets zilch. It's been a bumpy ride of uncertainty and procedures and tricky relationships with her colleagues and boss, all to finally hear that there's no way to deal with it and she'll ahve to start coping with the pain and look into retiring early. Not very fun to hear as a single mom with no one but a finnicky boyfriend to back her up who leaves her the moment he can't get along with me anymore.

Christmas is the one time of the year where we would get a fake christmas tree and hang some of three years' passed decorations in it and buy each other ten-dollar gifts and be happy with what we have.

and she RUINED it by dragging it through the dirt along with basically everything I do.

You all know me, I won't stand for that. I went downstairs and basically threw the gift at her. Translated, I said "I was gonna make a touching fucking diary for you with these little *clink* bloody *clank* picture frames of the family so you could finally write your own book which you've always wanted to do. There you go, merry fucking christmas now give it to the dog like you do with everything I own that you don't need anymore."

Maybe all the bulllshit about me got to me. I don't know, I was just so angry, but in retrospect what did I even get angry about? Mom telling me to clean my room? Her barging in on me while I'm busy with something?

I couldn't think of anything big enough that I'd risk Christmas over it, and that's sort of when it hit me.

My first thought after that was "Okay, I screwed that up and Christmas is even more fucked now, but if I give in right now it's sort of fucked and I lose this argument and probably have to clean anyways and won't get proven right, so I can't go apologise right now, I'll have to sit this out. Maybe stay silent this weekend."

That's a mean thing to think, both to my mom and Christmas.

I am not a very honest person

I love lying. I just do. There is some kind of thrill to changing reality and getting away with it that I just can't deny. I don't think I have ever, ever at any point in my life, been entirely honest to someone. I always have like, a hidden agenda, or a little white lie somewhere, or an exaggeration.

The worst part is I'm so good at it. For years I have been able to uphold my secret identity. Nobody was supposed to know who I am, the forum I frequented most even didn't know my own gender, even after me posting a picture. It just felt so good for someone to not know something about me. As if I was special, and someone wanted to find out. Like a secret agent or whatever.

I haven't even been very honest on this forum either. I often lie about little details of my life just so they seem more like something I would do in that situation. Most of the time I don't think of a witty response until after the fact, and I want to be funny so bad that in my mind I start editing out the moments I screw up and replace them with one-liners, fixing my life in post.

I've never gotten very very drunk, I haven't even kissed before. I'm not a lesbian. I'm not fine, how are you.

I am not a very sociable person

I have trouble meeting people. For some reason, I always start finnicking so bad about the littles details. I try to call people by their name as little as possible in fear of getting it wrong, for some reason saying hey to someone I met yesterday when they're with a friend feels so impolite to me, I excuse myself to go to the bathroom just to catch a breather at parties...

I have like these rules for social contact. Most of the time, if I meet someone I'd rather not talk to, I actually try to be as asocial as I can, hoping that they'd think I'm the loser and quit on their own accord. But I'm sort of getting to the point in my life where all these loser alibis are starting to weigh down on me, and because I've been so picky in my friend I now have very little people left around me.

And this is sort of the part which scares me the most: if I take off this loser mask, what if people STILL think I'm a loser? What if people giggle at my jokes but then when I leave they're saying "yeah she's weird like that." I wouldn't know what to do. Then I've got a choice between an intentional loser and an accidental loser, and I don't know which I'd rather be.

And that kind of paranoia is just making me less and less likely to actually check if I'm a loser with myself and maybe act on that because if I suddenly change people will start to notice how much of a loser I was in the past.

I'm not a very motivated person

All the work is piling up, and it's just making me less likely to do it. As much as admitting it is feeling like a chore right now, and I just want to stop doing stuff. I don't get why everyone can alwyas be so busy and not do something they regret at some point. I have honestly considered giving up college because it's been too much of a burden to juggle with internet. Yes, I don't have my priorities straight, but straightening those would take time, time which could be spent on schoolwork, which I'll never do because I'd rather confess things to an empty crowd on Eagle Time.

It's december, I haven't even started to think about finals yet. I really should be. I have been wondering what that feeling was since college started. I thought that it'd take some time getting started again, then it was taking time getting used to college, then Chemistry wasn't really my thing, then it was the November Blues and now it's december and I don't have any excuses left other than "I am just a lazy piece of shit."

This also reflects on my hobbies too: I have been meaning to write, a lot, but the nagging thought that I should be doing something else with my time always bites me at some point making me feel like crap for enjoying myself. I've been sucking at games, failing to write, pretending to draw, imagining inspiration and I genuinely feel stuck between not wanting to do schoolwork because I want free time, and not enjoying my free time because I should do schoolwork, and I can't focus on any of the two entirely because I both need them to think straight.

I read bob's flipshit, where he said he'd have to be in a good position to quit the internet shoudl the occasion arise, and I thought it was silly. "That's silly," I said, "why would you need to arrange yourself to quit that?" But now I can feel more than ever, between the pressing need of two giant obligations that you really need to prepare to give up a hobby.

I'm not a very enthusiastic person

The worst part about moving to another phase of your life is meeting all sorts of people who also did that and did it much better than you. They'll start telling you about how they got an award for their exceptional scores in history which got them into college, how they play competitively in the highest ranks of national snowboarding, how they're published poets and broadcast for their regional news.

Then usually all eyes turn to me and I have to say "I don't have facebook and I write."

I don't have facebook, because I like to act as if I'm a huge hipster who likes music you probably never heard of and wears tailored scarves from thrift stores as if I have giant shuttershades hanging above me. I just don't want a facebook because it'd lead to a lot of discoveries made about me I'd liek to keep secret from most people like my real name, my gender, what I had for supper. Anything that could spawn a contradiction into what I've been telling people I am. But when you meet real life people you can't politely thank and say "yeah no I don't have facebook because online people might be able to find out whether I'm a girl or a guy."

That last part is usually just a mumble. I don't want to admit I write to anyone because it is a very lame thing to do as far as hobbies go. I don't even write my very own great things, it's really mostly just battles and blurbs and scraps, and short stories that don't get finished. So I mainly try to avoid the topic because inevitably it leads to "write something." As if it's the same as "sing a song." Or the ever-popular "can you show me something then?"

I am not deviantart-style ashamed of my work where I think it's good but I say it's bad so other people can say it's good for me. I genuinely think I am not that good that I want to show people my work or at least outside of any forum designated to learning and improving writing like this one.

Woffs does your college offer free mental health services? Mine did and they were super helpful, if just to have someone to talk candidly to about issues.

I've already said most (all?) of this to you, but it bears repeating, because I feel strongly about it.

You are smart. You're in college! Studying chemistry! I couldn't even wrap my head around chemistry in freshman year. It's one of the most confusing subjects I know. And this is coming from a guy who's just barely scraping by in AP Physics. And come on, you know two languages; that's something awesome right there. I tried learning Japanese for three years and I can't even form a coherent sentence in it that isn't just "Neat!" or "It's cold!"

Furthermore, you can keep a level head in conversation with other smart people, like Pinary, DragonFogel, Schazer, SleepingOrange, etc., etc. Even if you don't feel you have any technical knowledge, that in itself shows you aren't even close to stupid.

You are fun. When you're in the chatroom it's always much livelier. I look forward to when you come online, because there's always a healthy, enjoyable amount of chatter going on when you're around. A true loser couldn't do that. Even if it's online, it's still a part of you as a whole. Even while you're worrying that maybe you're a loser all the way to the core, you are surrounded by people who enjoy talking to you on an almost daily basis. You're not a loser to us. To me.

And if your outward face suddenly changed for the better - and I am speaking from experience here; this happened to me - people wouldn't look back at your past and go, "What a loser!" They'd look at who you are now and go, "What a great person!" It might take a while to change your image, and I won't lie and guarantee it'll be easy. But if you do, nobody with any sense will spurn who you've become in favor of who you were. And if they do? They're not worth your time.

You are nice. I can't recall seeing you ever insulting someone when it wasn't clear to everyone you were just kidding around. You don't make fun of other people's legitimate problems. Chatting with you is easy and comfortable because I don't have to worry about feeling insulted or belittled by the way you phrase things.

And when you are mean, you give a shit. You snapped at your mom and felt terrible about it. You felt bad enough about the little lies you've told us that you confessed about having done it. I'm afraid I can't pick out any more examples, but it's only because I haven't seen you being mean all that much. c:

And while we're on the lying: you know what? I forgive you. And furthermore, I respect you for telling us about it. I don't blame you for liking the feeling of being mysterious; I'd be a hypocrite if I did. But you're already special and interesting. And mentally fixing your memories is something more people than you'd think do. Most peoples' memories aren't even close to perfect, and it's seriously tempting to modify the fuzzy bits to be how you like. I've done it, more times than I can count. I don't blame you for doing it and I respect you for standing up about it.

Now in regards to work. If you're having trouble shifting yourself between the internet and school, you should take a break from the internet. Yes, it would mean we wouldn't get to see you around. The chatroom would be a good deal less interesting around the time you'd usually come online. But finals will come and go, and then you can come back online if you still feel it's an important part of your life. Unlike the internet, finals will not still be there if you put them aside for too long. And if I advised you to choose the internet over your schoolwork, so I could be happier in the short term in exchange for you being happy in the long term, then I wouldn't be a good friend of any kind.

So summarized: I care about you. I don't think you're a loser. I think you're smart, nice, and fun to be around in general. And I'm pretty sure everyone else here at Eagle Time does too.

SpoilerShow

And just so I can hopefully make you smile as I close this off: you're not alone in the last bit of the lying section. I've never gotten very very drunk, I've never kissed anyone before, and I'm pretty sure I'm not a lesbian.

I
I

AHHHHHH *HUG*

I'm not good at putting these things into words and I can't be there physically to give a hug and ahhhh

Um umumum could you try and give yourself a hug? For me? From me? You're much, much more than anyone out to put you down says, and no matter what they say, they're ultimately out to make you feel bad and this is the wrong thing to say isn't it ahhhh

But you're you and we love you for who you are, no matter the quirks you have or the habits because they're as much a part of you as anything else and we accept you, we forgive you, and our lives wouldn't be the same if we'd never met you, wouldn't be as fun or as interesting or just as worth living through!

just
I wish I was where you were so I could give you a hug
a hug that would say everything I'm trying to say

hopefully not fracturing any ribs

Guys, I...



Thanks for everything you do, for everything you say. I've received an immense support after I ranted in here, partially from people who I didn't quite expect such an honest response from, and I, gosh, both on the forum and in IRC you guys have been so supportive, and even though I just received a truckload of work, and a bunch of bullshit from everywhere, I don't feel as down about it as yesterday.

If I do have to take a break from the internet, let it be known that I will miss every last one of you to pieces in my absence <3

I always feel like I don't know what to say in times like these. I don't know what you want to hear and I don't know what you should hear. I probably don't experience things the same way you do, but I do understand how you're feeling. I probably won't say anything new. But having the ability to recognize the troubles that haunt you from within, whether legitimate flaws or some sort of unfounded fear, and then being able to take action to change yourself so that these troubles go away, is something to be admired.

I'm not sure if I'm phrasing this right. I'm sorry.

If you think changing your habits will make you happier, then try. It'll be hard, but if it makes you happier in the end, it's worth trying for. And I hope you're aware that whatever you struggle through, we'll be supporting you.

So...well...good luck in everything.