jawnbc | re-orienting my LJ and online life

I've always found online both really kewl and too often phreaky. The kewl outnumbers the phreaky, but the phreaky is still there.

And when I say phreaky, I'm not referring to interesting, esoteric, intriguing, eclectic folks. I mean bothersome, troublesome or worse. Somewhere along the line, I ~~have~~ had developed a tolerance--nay, a taste--for folks who are more than a little self-involved. No, I really shouldn't mince words here: I somehow let a number of wholly self-involved people into my sphere of online acquaintanceship--to a degree I would never in my F2F life.

The recent stuff with my mother's health crisis is what crystalized this for me. When I posted about the events and concomitant feelings, I didn't expect to receive tons of support on here; in fact, I was surprised with how much of it I got. A lof of it came from folks with more than enough stuff of their own to deal with--parenting, school, family issues, work problems, loneliness, depression--and their generosity of spirit despite such challenges really moved me. I should also say that several folks on here with whom I've engaged in very "terse" exchanges totally stepped up and offered support and insight. And I really dig that: people who can respect a person and validate their humanity, even when they've held different opinions on stuff.I've tried to thank you each in comments or via email, but if I missed you thank you so very, very much.

And then I noticed something. A few prominent folks hadn't acknowledged any of what was going on. And that really bothered me. I've sat with that (from time to time, it's not an obsession or anything) for several weeks, trying to find meaning (and my part) in it . To be clear, we're talking about a handful of people, not dozens. And I don't mean to imply that I expected every single one of my "friends" to respond to what's been going on--in fact, most of my "friends" didn't say a word, which for most of them, was normal.

I realized, however, that a few folks were really good at posting about their own issues (and were quite adept at sucking up all the sympathy), but seemed unable to offer the same in return. A couple of guys in particular--who'd happily accepted support from me in the past--didn't.say.a.word. Yet they continued posting their own drama (which I, sadly, still replied to), and were clearly capable of responding to others' entries that weren't serious or painful in the same time period. No kind words, no acknowledgement, nothing. Yet one kept me on a filter for pesonal stuff that they were going through. Which, I should add, they seemed to be always going through.

Ouch.

So while in NY I did a scour of my Friends list. I took the vacuums off. And, just as I suspected, the vacuums unfriended me immediately. Which is fine, but also smarts a bit: really I was just one of any number of shoulders to cry on, a prop really? For someone who "valued my support" apparently I wasn't worth supporting. And I cannot believe I bought into it.

And I guess that's the bit that bothers me most--my buying in. A long time ago I developed a very keen radar about detecting these sorts of people early on. I've not got that ability online, asynchronously or synchronously. I mean, back in the days of EFNET it only required lurking for about 30 minutes: the whackos revealed themselves. Here's it's not so simple.

Is it just me?