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still working on the thing where you learn not to look down on people

I don't mean people who do really hurtful things, I just mean people who are annoying or have very different tastes from me or make (what seem like) stupid mistakes

there is a genuine skill and effort to extending "wow, it looks like he's having a really tough time" or "aww, I'm glad she's doing what makes her happy" to someone when you have the opportunity to scoff or mock instead

and I was not raised with that skill and the Internet is also a very bad place to learn it

and although it sounds almost self-effacing, like you're trying to make excuses for others, I think you actually have to build up a lot of self-confidence to do this. you have to let go of the urge to affirm your own coolness by demonstrating your keenly honed sense of what's uncool

but this is the person I would like to become


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in reply to @pervocracy's post:

I understand the feeling here, i used to be le edgy enlightened centrist logic-lord back when i was in middle school (god, how embarassing) and i used to think i was so smart and logical and everyone who wasn't into what i was into was stupid and emotional

what helped me get over it is turning my attitude of what's cool and what isn't around on itself. I went from "heh, no wonder i dont fit in, these sheeple don't realize what's REALLY cool", to, "hey, the fact that we think different things are cool is probably indiciative of the concept of "coolness" being a bunch of horseshit"

cus yeah, coolness isn't some law of the universe, its some shit we made up that has little bearing on what's useful or whats moral or what's good for you. football was the shit for my family and that's precision designed to give you brain damage

i guess what im trying to say is that id like to be a coolness abolitionist in addition to a gender abolitionist

I am constantly working on this, too! And you're right, I think self-confidence has a lot to do with it, which is something I've always lacked. I'm getting better at it with strangers, still not great with co-workers I find annoying/irritating. Honestly I think growing older and being perplexed by the "cool things" that kids are into has helped. Cause like, what a fifteen year old likes is probably objectively cooler than what I like, so good for them!