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Misery is expecting company
(or Online Journals we can do without)
by
There are few Livejournal/Blogger/Diaryland/etc. users who use their
online journal in a positive manner, be it topical, public record, or
just a "this is what's going on with me" kind of thing. When they're
good, they're good, but as I've seen so many fucking times, when they're
bad, they're horrid.
Most of them really are purely narcissistic. They expect the internet
public to hang on every word, and to gladly suffer every shred of
bullshit they post. The poor dears just don't realize they're not all
that interesting. If they do, usually they start making shit up to
impress. This, in the vast majority of cases, backfires. Annoying, but
generally harmless.
Some of them, however, are of the "misery-loves-company" variety. They
post every bit of teary-eyed, breathless, maudlin,
stomach-turning-woe-is-me-kill-me-now bullshit they can... to attract
attention. The more miserable they are, the more attention they get,
usually from other "miserybags" (to appropriate a phrase that Bon
coined). The sad part is, most of these people really *do* have
legitimate problems. What they don't realize is they're doing nothing to
solve them, if not in fact making them much worse, by pissing and
moaning about them in a public forum (the last place in the word they
should be doing such) and by fostering "friendships" (read:
codependency) based upon shared misery (which is so utterly fucking
maladjusted). Note that I said misery, not challenge. If they were
bonding over overcoming something, that's one thing - they've found a
solution or are actively looking for one, and sharing their experiences.
These people aren't sharing or overcoming - they're wallowing in their
shit like it's a Club Med mudbath.
The best part is, when anyone tries to hold them responsible for what
they say on their PUBLIC journals, they become immediately defensive, as
if they hadn't written every single fucking word of it their damned
selves, and it wasn't on the web for all to see.
And how do I know all this? Because I dated a man about a month and a
half ago who was just that person. He was charming, and funny, and
sweet, and with self-esteem that was maybe a little low - in person. In
his journal, however, he was miserable; unable to take responsibility
for his situation, or for getting himself out of it, wallowing in his
shit, and constantly talking about how he could never be happy and he
resents happy people and he wasn't meant for this world, and he wishes
he would just die... (there are only so many ways one can read "I want
to walk in front of a bus") and getting all sorts of sympathy from the
people he was performing for. One person here, another person there,
just for a cheap fix of an insincere, superficial, Kool-Aid emotion that
no sane human being should ever want from anyone.
I liked him a lot, but I wasn't going to put myself through that. I
can't fix him and I don't want to fix him - it's not my responsibility,
and he'll never get stronger if he doesn't do his own heavy lifting. I
cared about him enough to not let him use me as a crutch he could fool
around with on occasion; he got no sympathy, but he could have had a
friend. Did he see it that way? No. Now, I'm just going to be another
entry in his fucking journal, another bastard in his cruel, cruel world,
and he's back to wallowing.
It's immature, maladjusted, and for all intents and purposes, pretty
fucking sick.
For more entertainment, check out Fabulana's commentary on a rabid Journaler who took exception to this rant.
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