[locked] anon post: user name @bbboxer

[bananaclip]

I've been here a little while and I've read back a lot of the stuff on the network.

Some of you are smart enough that you'll figure out who I am immediately but, I have to ask — really? Really??

You get on this network and you talk about your old lives like no one you know from back where you came from is going to show up and ruin everything for you.

And you talk like you don’t expect these Jorgmund people to hold some of that stuff over your head, either.

I’m sorry, but I’m a lot more private than that. You know? I’m smarter than that. I’m not willing to ruin everything by talking too much.

PS – Anyone who guesses who I am gets one of those shitty beers from the cafeteria dumped over their head. Mind your business.

Comments

[zerofield]

I can understand paranoia, honestly. Even if I don't have much energy for it myself.

[bananaclip]

I have to be paranoid. My enemy from back home is something like the devil incarnate.

[zerofield]

Fair. I'm not used to hearing "devil" used so singularly; according to the Septian Church we just have a number of devils. But the idea of one that can have such a distinction paints a picture.

[bananaclip]

I don't know if my world has one or many. To my thinking it doesn't really matter.

[zerofield]

Also fair. I've paid little attention to church doctrine since I was much younger.

[bananaclip]

I don't know if what the church teaches has anything to do with what I've witnessed. I'm just doing my best.

[zerofield]

That's all any of us can do, really.

[ Sometimes, they even manage to live through it! ]

[bananaclip]

True enough.

Thanks for being so patient with me. I came out swinging, I suppose.

[zerofield]

It's a lot to take in. Especially alone, which most of us seem to be.

[ She's a little envious of the people who have someone from home, but that also makes her feel a little guilty, because there's no way she'd wish this place on anyone she likes. ]

[bananaclip]

Yes. I'm alone here. As far as knowing people previously, anyway. I assume that's what you meant.

[zerofield]

Yes, it is. It seems like the norm, not the exception. Which puts us at a bit of a disadvantage in terms of group cohesion.

[bananaclip]

It does. Have you found friends here? Allies?

[zerofield]

A few. Networking doesn't really come to me naturally.

[ ...understatement. ]

[bananaclip]

It does for me.

[ She's starting to think this is someone she wants to purposely reveal her identity to. ]

[zerofield]

"A few" people is actually a pretty large improvement from how I used to do, so I suppose at least there's that.

[bananaclip]

You seem all right to me. What's up with not having many allies? Shyness?

[zerofield]

To make a long story short, my emotions were badly stunted by things that happened when I was a child. So I've largely had to relearn interpersonal relations.

[bananaclip]

Oh, trauma. Yeah, that'll get you every time.

[zerofield]

It seems like that might be the norm rather than the exception here, too.

[bananaclip]

Everyone has something. Whether or not one person has it better or worse than another is not for me to say.

[zerofield]

That's true. Maybe it would be more accurate if I said that it seems like highly unusual experiences seem to be the norm here. I have the impression that many of us have been through things that, in our own worlds' terms, are still far from the ordinary. (Which doesn't exclude more "normal" forms of trauma as well, of course.)

[bananaclip]

True enough. I haven't been here long enough to judge. Though it does appear everyone who has felt like sharing about themselves on the network has had that kind of thing.

[zerofield]

If a selection criteria exists (which we aren't really sure of one way or another) then I suspect that plays into it. But it wouldn't explain everyone.