le_bebna_kamni (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
le_bebna_kamni) wrote2006-10-11 12:43 pm
le_bebna_kamni) wrote2006-10-11 12:43 pm
Entry tags:
Pondering Loneliness
I went to bed, I swear!!
I'm just having one of those days/nights/days where I can't get my brain to shut off. When I close my eyes, I"m dreaming about RSS feeds and editing XML to get a particular look on a webpage that I don't even have (further compounded by the fact that I don't know XML). After 36 hours of being awake (or having unrestful sleep if you count the 3½ hours I caught between 8:00 a.m. and 11:30), I have an opinion on everything and want to share it with everybody. I start thinking that mundane things are way too important; I'm way too honest, but severely lack judgment. Wow, being tired is a lot like being drunk.
As I'm surfing the internet looking at blogs and personal ads and tests ‒ one site leading to the next in a perpetual orgy of information ‒ I can't help but think how lonely people seem. Why is that? The internet is supposed to be a place where you can find like minds, end the loneliness.
The most obvious place I see it is in the personals, which makes sense ‒ people generally go to those places because they are in some way lonely (either because they lack a significant other, or just don't feel they have enough friends). But it's somewhat disconcerting in an hour of random clicking to run across multiple profiles that all say [explicitly, I might add] the same thing: "nobody notices me online". These people (well, guys mostly ‒ why can't girls have the same problem?) aren't losers. They're reasonably articulate, they're not bad looking, and they're simply voicing their frustrations after countless other profiles have failed. If anything, they're too "average". They fall into the "nice guy" category, and simply lack good marketing strategies to make themselves stand out.
It seems to me that most of my [male] friends are single in their early-to-mid thirties, and have no desire to be that way. Many of them have profiles online, but can't find anyone who is interested. It's not that they fail every time they meet someone ‒ they can't even meet anyone, because no one seems to look at their profile to give them a chance.
There's something about internet dating that turns people superficial: when you're sifting through thousands of potential sites, you generally can't afford to look at every one. So you develop a mental algorithm that tells you which sites to discard and who to invest time in getting to know. The problem is, I think most people have no clue about how to develop an effective algorithm (guys and gals included, given some of the responses to my profile that I've gotten). As a result, the best people end up getting the shaft (or not, if you take it as a double entendre =P).
I think that's very true of the other [non-dating] sites out there as well. A glut of information leaves people struggling to figure out what is interesting and what should be ignored, so many people get left out of the "connection loop" of the internet. I see people with few or no people on their friends list. I also see people with friends lists 100 names deep, but only two or three people ever respond to their posts.
I don't particularly think this is a reflection of real life, per se (while I think people who are exceptionally popular or exceptionally socially inept seem to do about the same online, people in the middle are a mixed bag. Some people who have reasonably-sized friend networks in real life have no friends online and visa versa). But it is a great illustration of internet culture. When you have 100 "friends", you clearly can't read all of their live journals ‒ you have to pick and choose, and of the ones you read, you may only post to a tiny fraction of them. If your "friends" have 100 "friends" each, then they also have to pick and choose who to read. Someone inevitably gets left out, usually the one who has the least catchy or inflammatory or flashy journal because it doesn't make the "information glut algorithm" cut.
It's a lot like being in a small town versus a large city. When you walk down a sidewalk in a small town, you meet people one or two at a time, and it's generally expected that you'll make eye contact and say hi, even if you aren't necessarily well acquainted. If dating sites and live journals only had a handful of profiles, everyone's would get at least acknowledged.
But if you're in New York, there are just way too many people. You certainly can't greet everyone, and if you do say hi you're more at risk for attracting muggers, psychos, con artists and the like because no one else makes eye contact. Only a handful of people stand out (i.e., public figures) while many people fall by the wayside (elderly people are at extreme risk for this in our society). The same happens with over-crowded dating and journal sites.
Do I have a solution for this problem? Absolutely not. I could say something trite like, "We should all try to notice the people who don't get noticed" (although the logic of that sentence kind of boggles my sleep-deprived mind). But that's not how it works. I'm a selfish person like most of the people out there, and I'm not going to go out of my way to befriend someone that I don't think I'll like.
I notice the "un-noticeables" because I was an "un-noticeable" growing up and I know what to look for. On the internet, I do seek like minds, and many of the un-noticeables I've met have turned out to be really great people (I'm dating a perpetual un-noticeable right now). I have no advice for the "noticed" crowd, because it's really difficult to learn to notice something you're not used to looking for. But for the "un-noticed" caste I recommend learning to recognize your own kind. The results can be very rewarding.
[Note: I'm ticked that the LJ spell checker can't recognize "double entendre". It's such a useful phrase. ;P]
I'm just having one of those days/nights/days where I can't get my brain to shut off. When I close my eyes, I"m dreaming about RSS feeds and editing XML to get a particular look on a webpage that I don't even have (further compounded by the fact that I don't know XML). After 36 hours of being awake (or having unrestful sleep if you count the 3½ hours I caught between 8:00 a.m. and 11:30), I have an opinion on everything and want to share it with everybody. I start thinking that mundane things are way too important; I'm way too honest, but severely lack judgment. Wow, being tired is a lot like being drunk.
As I'm surfing the internet looking at blogs and personal ads and tests ‒ one site leading to the next in a perpetual orgy of information ‒ I can't help but think how lonely people seem. Why is that? The internet is supposed to be a place where you can find like minds, end the loneliness.
The most obvious place I see it is in the personals, which makes sense ‒ people generally go to those places because they are in some way lonely (either because they lack a significant other, or just don't feel they have enough friends). But it's somewhat disconcerting in an hour of random clicking to run across multiple profiles that all say [explicitly, I might add] the same thing: "nobody notices me online". These people (well, guys mostly ‒ why can't girls have the same problem?) aren't losers. They're reasonably articulate, they're not bad looking, and they're simply voicing their frustrations after countless other profiles have failed. If anything, they're too "average". They fall into the "nice guy" category, and simply lack good marketing strategies to make themselves stand out.
It seems to me that most of my [male] friends are single in their early-to-mid thirties, and have no desire to be that way. Many of them have profiles online, but can't find anyone who is interested. It's not that they fail every time they meet someone ‒ they can't even meet anyone, because no one seems to look at their profile to give them a chance.
There's something about internet dating that turns people superficial: when you're sifting through thousands of potential sites, you generally can't afford to look at every one. So you develop a mental algorithm that tells you which sites to discard and who to invest time in getting to know. The problem is, I think most people have no clue about how to develop an effective algorithm (guys and gals included, given some of the responses to my profile that I've gotten). As a result, the best people end up getting the shaft (or not, if you take it as a double entendre =P).
I think that's very true of the other [non-dating] sites out there as well. A glut of information leaves people struggling to figure out what is interesting and what should be ignored, so many people get left out of the "connection loop" of the internet. I see people with few or no people on their friends list. I also see people with friends lists 100 names deep, but only two or three people ever respond to their posts.
I don't particularly think this is a reflection of real life, per se (while I think people who are exceptionally popular or exceptionally socially inept seem to do about the same online, people in the middle are a mixed bag. Some people who have reasonably-sized friend networks in real life have no friends online and visa versa). But it is a great illustration of internet culture. When you have 100 "friends", you clearly can't read all of their live journals ‒ you have to pick and choose, and of the ones you read, you may only post to a tiny fraction of them. If your "friends" have 100 "friends" each, then they also have to pick and choose who to read. Someone inevitably gets left out, usually the one who has the least catchy or inflammatory or flashy journal because it doesn't make the "information glut algorithm" cut.
It's a lot like being in a small town versus a large city. When you walk down a sidewalk in a small town, you meet people one or two at a time, and it's generally expected that you'll make eye contact and say hi, even if you aren't necessarily well acquainted. If dating sites and live journals only had a handful of profiles, everyone's would get at least acknowledged.
But if you're in New York, there are just way too many people. You certainly can't greet everyone, and if you do say hi you're more at risk for attracting muggers, psychos, con artists and the like because no one else makes eye contact. Only a handful of people stand out (i.e., public figures) while many people fall by the wayside (elderly people are at extreme risk for this in our society). The same happens with over-crowded dating and journal sites.
Do I have a solution for this problem? Absolutely not. I could say something trite like, "We should all try to notice the people who don't get noticed" (although the logic of that sentence kind of boggles my sleep-deprived mind). But that's not how it works. I'm a selfish person like most of the people out there, and I'm not going to go out of my way to befriend someone that I don't think I'll like.
I notice the "un-noticeables" because I was an "un-noticeable" growing up and I know what to look for. On the internet, I do seek like minds, and many of the un-noticeables I've met have turned out to be really great people (I'm dating a perpetual un-noticeable right now). I have no advice for the "noticed" crowd, because it's really difficult to learn to notice something you're not used to looking for. But for the "un-noticed" caste I recommend learning to recognize your own kind. The results can be very rewarding.
[Note: I'm ticked that the LJ spell checker can't recognize "double entendre". It's such a useful phrase. ;P]