I really need to change the way I react with people and the varying degrees of social encounters— from taking the lift and buying lunch to the-larger-ones. I think I qualify as an internet stalker. E.g. I do not really talk to you or know you in real life but I know who your closest friends are, your favourite colour, what music you like to listen to, where you go to cut your hair, what you did yesterday morning, what kind if stores you go to buy your clothes, how annoying your sibling is and I’ve probably read every single archived posts on your blog and your friends’— other than that, I think I have looked through your information on all relevant social networking websites. (But what I care more are the deeper things— if I revisit your blog, you’re deemed ‘worthy’ to me; you normally discuss about existential issues or have a not-so-shallow personality.)
All undeliberately and most of the time coincidentally (just happened to have stumbled upon his/her blog/something else). It’s just natural for me to do all that— with no intentions at all but to know that certain person better than I might otherwise be able to do so in real life (and this is a subconscious intention. I don’t browse through webpages with the explicit intention to conduct espionage.).
And this applies to many people— not just one or two. I guess my candidates are the ones that I think lead double lives— inner and outer. Or ones whom I do not really know about and do not have the chance to do so in real life.
And these aren’t helping things. I often feel very awkward around with these people—whom I have extensive knowledge of. I think this is because I have already formulated my own opinions about them on the net— and I am not supposed to because I’m just an acquaintance, or less than an acquaintance for some. Some of them are those who really lead double lives (like me)— these are the people who are the hardest to handle in real life because hey, this is incongruous with the person I ‘know’ about and I really do not know how to deal with that person for some reasons.
And I find myself analysing every single thing the person does— trying to unravel the ‘real’ person I saw. And sometimes, at this stage, I might find myself drawing connections between the person and myself and here is where ultimate awkwardness set in. The person is distorted to something else other than himself/herself.
Thesis statement: The more the person is chewed and re-chewed in my mind, the more awkward I am with the person.
And how do I explain my awkwardness when purely buying something from a supermarket counter or my lunch or approaching a librarian? In short, I am awkward in all situations that require eye contact. ALL. Not a generalisation. Everyone. Though some lesser than others— if you are not bothered by my awkwardness, I don’t feel awkward (maybe only to a very little degree) with you. And these constitutes 4 people currently in the entire mass of humans I’ve encountered.
Or maybe more— I find older people and complete strangers easier to ‘handle’. Acquintances are the hardest. I’LL RUN AWAY FROM THEM ANYTIME, NOOOOO. Thinking about it makes me sick.
Even if I can’t eventually deal with my awkwardness with certain people, I need to solve the daily ones. Being awkward when buying a loaf of bread or purchasing stationaries is unforgivable.
Huis Clos 
No time to read the entire post for now.. Will come back tomorrow or some other day to scan through.
“I do not really talk to you or know you in real life but I know who your closest friends are, your favourite colour, what music you like to listen to, where you go to cut your hair, what you did yesterday morning, what kind if stores you go to buy your clothes, how annoying your sibling is and I’ve probably read every single archived posts on your blog and your friends’— other than that, I think I have looked through your information on all relevant social networking websites. (But what I care more are the deeper things— if I revisit your blog, you’re deemed ‘worthy’ to me; you normally discuss about existential issues or have a not-so-shallow personality.)”
SO?! It is just an indicator of your resourcefulness.
Stalker?
Not in my definition. Unless you add in any one of these terms “harass” or “hunt” or “pursue”.
I am an extraordinarily resourceful stalker who has yet to take action.
And if its not in your definition, its alright. It is in mine.
😛
And well, its just a blog post and I am free to use hyperboles to my discretion. Stalker or not, the main gist is still there— independent of the word’s construction. You can overlook the word and still know what I really mean.
Well then…
You are either not caring about the readers (maybe, you don’t even know they exist?) or simply, taking your target audience to be only yourself~ Hahas.
That will give you the freedom to construct a whole new meaning for every single word in your dictionary if you wish to do so.
Otherwise, it will probably be in conflict with trying to get others to understand you.
But, well yeah, I can get what you mean. Stalker’s just too strong a word for me to be used in such a (MILD) context, I reckon.
I really like this post.
Humorous with a hint of self-revelation O_O!
I was so awkward with the bank teller today – and ack! I’m 22 years old. I wish I could tell you that it gets easier…
I want to say ‘gets easier for people like us’, but that’s also a hard thing to say. I want to say it, but I don’t want to seem presumptuous in saying that you and I are the same kind of person…
And perhaps that is what I want to avoid most in social situations: acting like what I know is relevant to the person I’m speaking with. So many people are fine with talking other people’s ears off and making strong declarative sentences while looking straight into the other person’s eyes — sometimes I can’t help but interpret this as presumptuousness.
Presumptuousness about what? I’m not really sure… but there’s something inside me (and its something that I do like about myself and find also in my closest friend) that feels as if people who can and do interact this way are unaware of something that should terrify them if they actually stopped to think about it.
But what is that thing? Is it just existence itself? The fact that we can speak, touch, feel, and think at all? Isn’t that something to be in awe over?
Yet does that inherent sense of wonder about things that I or you have actually show up in daily interactions? No. It usually shows up merely as an averting of the eyes and a struggling for words.
Sometimes this tendency seems like a curse…. but then again – would I really want to be a chatterbox anyway? Perhaps I’d say a lot of things that I regret. At least this way, though I come off awkward, at least I retain my integrity.
Or so I think. What is integrity, anyway? Does this really come from a sense of there being better, more important things to talk about than small talk, or does this tendency arise from a fear of looking ridiculous?
I’ve gotten much better with making eye contact over the years. Surprisingly, however, sometimes I feel that words are harder to come by, especially after hearing that dreadfully automatic ‘Hi, how are you today?’
Reading Rousseau’s Confessions at least reassured me that even great and well-respected minds can be always subject to this same sort of nervousness, and that quick worldly-wise wit is not a prerequisite for living joyously.
Some of us live more in the written word than in the spoken – is that so bad, after all?
(Sorry for the badly written post)
A note on the ‘stalker’ issue:
Writers – good writers – always use words in new ways. That is part of what makes them different than people who have simply learned the ability to write in school. It is a skill to be able to take a word from our vocabulary that people use in one sense and one sense only and to expand it with different or unexpected connotations.
This is generally called ‘figurative language’ and this need not mean only poetic or metaphorical language. What Jane was using here, as she began to say herself, was a device called hyperbole. I think one could characterize it more distinctly as ‘ironic hyperbole’. The use of the word ‘stalker’ is meant to set the tone for the piece, which is a reflection on her status as a double-sided personality. To say that the word is too strong for Jane to attribute to herself as a person is to miss the point of the piece of writing. The speaker of this piece (and with any piece of writing) cannot or should not be attributed exactly to the person writing the piece. This is called the ‘intentional fallacy’ – to make the piece of writing ‘about’ the person who is writing it rather than about the writing itself.
Of course, there may be facts that one knows about the writer that contributes to an understanding of the piece — but the fact that Jane is not a creepy stalker is something that is obvious and does not contribute anything to the discussion at hand.
Who is a stalker? Someone that we want to avoid. How does a stalker come about? They certainly have existed throughout history, but with the proliferation of such mass-media forms of communication as television and the internet, they have achieved a new kind of notoriety, particularly because the people they stalk are known to almost everyone and because their behaviors seem often extremely bizarre compared to normal interactions between people who really ‘know’ one another.
Just by invoking the word ‘stalker’, Jane has also involved all these side-issues in her discussion: contact vs. avoidance (also, interacting vs. watching), normal vs. abnormal, the question of technology and how it affects human interaction, created/imagined lives vs. ‘real’ lives, and the many different ways that one can ‘know’ someone.
Sometimes a stalker might feel like they know the person they are stalking better than anyone else and are completely convinced that if they only got a chance to meet this person, they would have a wonderful existence together. Delusional, no doubt – but we have to come to terms with the fact that we live in a world where technology gives us the ability to show the best side of ourselves to people in a way that we would never be able to do in normal situations.
Jane is not delusional at all, and perhaps this is why xiuli thought that the use of the word was too harsh. But isn’t the awkwardness caused by the stalker’s delusional behavior ultimately caused by the same social phenomena that allows for the kind of experience Jane is describing here? She has the ability to see and seemingly ‘get to know’ an internet-version of someone, yet this knowledge seems to also cause cognitive dissonance when interacting with this or that person in face-to-face contact.
Intimacy is one of the best parts about becoming ‘close’ with someone. But it can also be very devastating – it can be too intense, emotional, destructive, etc. What is happening in our culture when we are allowed to be the most intimate online while simultaneously remaining anonymous or perpetually ‘outside’ in real life?
These are great questions to raise, and I commend Jane for doing so.
Wow, thanks for your long comments. They are so true (as always). I do not know how to reply to them O_O.
I am in awe.
I am just happy that you read it and relate to it, the added boon being that it makes me feel like maybe I’m not completely crazy =)