I’ve had this window open for days now, and I’m still not sure how to respond. I think it isn’t really conflict I fear, but negative judg(e)ment—rejection of me as a person. (I’ll be cast out into the cold and dark forever!)
And I dare to post here, because I think the chance of that is small; people here tend to react to what you actually say, and not to straw men they make up in their minds, like what happened in a newsgroup I used to be in long ago. Someone posted something, and I thought that could be misinterpreted, so I posted something along the lines of “someone could interpret what you say like [blabla]”, and they (and someone else) responded like I’d written \”I* think you [blabla]”. They made it clear they thought I was a horrible person for writing that, and I felt so crushed I didn’t even attempt to correct their impression, thinking it’d probably just make things even worse, and I just left that group—I could have continued reading it without posting, but I was too ashamed.
Writing this now, I feel ashamed too. No doubt you all think I’m a pathetic loser, and the only reason I’m not downvoted into negative karma is because most people don’t even care enough to click the downvote button. (Please don’t hit me, I’m down already!)
So whenever I post here, I feel scared and ashamed (more or less, depending on how controversial I think it is). And then I usually feel relieved, when I see people don’t hate me but just disagree with me. Or even give me upvotes! Yay! :-)
And I know, your next question is going to be why I would feel ashamed. After all, I did my best, and if someone misinterprets me, all I did wrong was to not write clearly enough. Dunno. I guess my subconscious thinks that where there is smoke, there is fire. If I write something so bad that it makes people hate/dislike me, then it must have been a bad thing to say, and I must be bad for even thinking of it...
Oh man, those are hard (but good) questions.
I’ve had this window open for days now, and I’m still not sure how to respond. I think it isn’t really conflict I fear, but negative judg(e)ment—rejection of me as a person. (I’ll be cast out into the cold and dark forever!)
And I dare to post here, because I think the chance of that is small; people here tend to react to what you actually say, and not to straw men they make up in their minds, like what happened in a newsgroup I used to be in long ago. Someone posted something, and I thought that could be misinterpreted, so I posted something along the lines of “someone could interpret what you say like [blabla]”, and they (and someone else) responded like I’d written \”I* think you [blabla]”. They made it clear they thought I was a horrible person for writing that, and I felt so crushed I didn’t even attempt to correct their impression, thinking it’d probably just make things even worse, and I just left that group—I could have continued reading it without posting, but I was too ashamed.
Writing this now, I feel ashamed too. No doubt you all think I’m a pathetic loser, and the only reason I’m not downvoted into negative karma is because most people don’t even care enough to click the downvote button. (Please don’t hit me, I’m down already!)
So whenever I post here, I feel scared and ashamed (more or less, depending on how controversial I think it is). And then I usually feel relieved, when I see people don’t hate me but just disagree with me. Or even give me upvotes! Yay! :-)
And I know, your next question is going to be why I would feel ashamed. After all, I did my best, and if someone misinterprets me, all I did wrong was to not write clearly enough. Dunno. I guess my subconscious thinks that where there is smoke, there is fire. If I write something so bad that it makes people hate/dislike me, then it must have been a bad thing to say, and I must be bad for even thinking of it...