I've only been posting to the Cellar for about a decade, so I'll throw in a few words...
There are parts of this involving offline relationships between our protagonists, and since I don't know the whole story there (i.e. all I know is what I've been told and what I've seen posted, and the Rashomon effect applies), I'm staying out of that mess as much as I can.
It's obvious that the issues go far beyond the eye-joke/unemployment chatter that started this mess, because I've read the threads a few times, and it's _chatter_. It's the old back-of-the-bus gotcha-last stuff where the next target's the mother of whoever laughs loudest. Certain people are reacting like someone's pouring hot sand in their urethras, and untrained observers like myself don't and won't get it.
Quote:
Originally posted by Undertoad
Also, this confirms to me why I don't like GTGs and didn't have any for a decade. And why I won't attend another one for a decade. Christ.
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Honestly, I agree with this. I've been a Cellar denizen for at least ten years (I remember being in Ruthie's fantasy baseball league in '94), including back when it was strictly a Philly-area dialup BBS. In that time, I've interacted with several members outside of the Cellar itself; I've traded games with one or two, shared a hacked newsreader binary with one, had one hook me up with a job interview, and received an old EPROM burner as a gift from yet another. No regrets, and many benefits.
However, I have yet to meet a Cellar member face-to-face (despite GTGs, a dinner invitation many years ago, and similar things), and call me shallow if you like, but I haven't lost any sleep over that.
It's not that I'm actively avoiding human contact; I'm not the Unabomber v2.0. If my wife hadn't been having surgery the week of Tony's birthday GTG (nothing life-threatening, but I still had my hands full), I would've considered making an appearance. In ten+ years, I've killfiled exactly one person (and it wasn't April, Barak or Mike Smith, rather someone many wouldn't have expected from the BBS days), and can't think of anyone that I'd have a problem being around for a while.
Part of it is that I'm naturally like that; I make friendly acquaintances easily, but I'm a wallflower by nature, and it can take effort and a crowbar to drag me out into parties and social events. (If I go somewhere, it's generally because I have a reason to go there, not just to hang out and kibitz.)
Part of it is that I don't dive headlong into every thread like many do; when I have something to say, I pop up and say it, and when that conversation dies off, I disappear until the next time.
And part of it is that I prefer to keep a small amount of distance, just to avoid situations like the one that this thread is about. I keep coming back to the Cellar because it's full of diverse and interesting people with working brains, most of whom refuse to take themselves too seriously (and who have no compunctions about puncturing the egos of those who do). I'd miss it if it went away, as it has at least once. But I don't invest a ton of emotion towards anyone here in particular, because people come and people go and people disappear for a while and shit happens. I've played the "If X is going to be there, then I won't be" social bullshit game with an ex-gf, and it sucks monkey rocks -- and hanging back a little helps ensure that if problems ever do arise between me and someone else here, that emotions won't run deep enough to reach that point where I wouldn't feel comfortable sticking around.
But that's me. Maybe I'm just strung out on cough syrup or something.