1:51 AM 10/1/2015
I used to do this thing where I wouldn't take any names.
I would say I'm bad with names.
I don't need names.
In fact I go by several names and have mostly given up correcting people when they call me by the wrong name. Often in a group setting people will be talking to me and others who know me by another name will be like who are you talking to. Sometimes I don't answer right away to dispel the confusion. It is amusing.
I did this because I didn't care about your name, because if I needed to call out to you, chances are I knew your name. And if I didn't know it that was because I never practiced or used it. If I've never had to use your name chances are I'd forgot about you the moment the introductions were done. Touch of autism maybe? or aspergers? Don't know. I've never been diagnosed.
I seldom called out to anyone.
I only very seldomly call people at all. To the point where I have no phone. Not a classic one anyway.. Not a wired one at all since phone companies are the devil.. and not a cell phone either because cell carriers are corrupt. I use Google Voice though it is no longer amusing to explain to people that it is a feature rich free alternative to carrying around an expensive cell phone.
If I need to call out to you it would be because all other means of reaching you, social media and web messaging apps failed.
But again, chances are I'm never going to reach out to you.
They come to me. When they don't.. I mean.. Maybe it was an abandonment issues type thing.
Point being, that names.. I don't like names.
I've had so many special people in my life who's names I never knew and will never know.
Where we live in such a world where we will see dozens of people per day or week.. and interact with them.. doing so without using names, it makes it more impactful I guess.
I did something cool with that person. I will never see that person again. There's no possibility of abandonment issues coming up since.. wtv.. I really didn't know that person.. personally.
I had no attachment to that person. But if it was required to know a person's name and then for whatever reason they leave.. That name remains and anyone else with that name is connected to that lost important person. Because names in the western world generally aren't at all unique. Jessica who? The one from camp? The barmaid at Jack Astor's?
In some ways I wonder if that's a problem with society, and always have. As in why is the first thing you do when you encounter someone.. that initial protocol is to introduce yourself.
It's fucked up because generally such introductions are impersonal and utterly incomplete. You don't share anything with that new person and no connection is forged.
Something like, Hello! my name is X, I'm.. and so forth. Why do I care who you are? Be gone. Vanish from sight.
But when you stop at Hi I'm Angela, Hi I'm Michael, and then just look away.. aren't you dimissing that person. Abandonning an opportunity to get to know someone during that otherwise pointless introduction protocol?
Otherwise still, I'm trying to make a point of just do wtv you were trying to get it done. You mayn't ever see this person again. No need to make things personal.
This has led to conflict a couple of times for as many doubled or triple fold the times it led to just smoothly dealing with someone through some mutually beneficial activity.
One of the main conflicts, once was while at checkout at a bookstore the teller refused to serve me because I refused to greet him then refused to acknowledge his greeting.
I get psychotically aggrevated when people do this to me.
I mean at times I wonder if I have a social disorder.. but ultimately I don't care.
This fool figuratively stamped his foot and stood back. Somehow feeling empowered that he could hold up my day, and most irritatingly to me, the rest of the substantial mid day rush queue behind me, simply because I refused to say hello.
It annoys me because it is a societally accepted form oppression towards people with actual social anxiety. If I accepted it as simple anxiety I might work on dealing with it as such. But frankly I don't give a shit. Today I might have stopped, tried to cool down and I might try explain to the next fool what social anxiety is, and that it is oppressive to force people to do what you want. If I'm not capable of saying hello, just leave me alone.
Granted I easily could have not let it get to me. I'm just not cordial in that way. Pop the till and take my money because I'm leaving the store with this book now. It's absolutely perfunctory. There's no need to make it anything more than that. My disacknowledgement or whatever he'd decided to take as an intentional affront was me going 'take my money Imma buy dis ting'. K Leaving Now. Oh you don't want my money? you wanna be a dick... Jump the counter and go the walking dead on his neck or something.
But further, it's that I really don't want to think about anything. I'm not in or of the moment. If you pull me, drag me out of my whatever, to be present enough to greet you and there's nothing more to it. I get stabby.
and well.. again.. a lapse into a psychotic rage.
But instead, even though the situation had escalated into a confrontation.. I paid for the book or magazine or whatever and just left. And haven't returned. Sadly because it is a book store.. Which come to think of it I'd turned to ebooks after that and even bought a Nexus phone and tablet. I'm just not into ebooks though and like books and bookstores.. such conflict. Haven't read anything since and it's been years.
Same happens in video games.
For the most part I don't use names in video games because they are fairly small interactions and so there's little need to call someone by their name, or gamertag. A deluge of expletives sure.. Not much ineligible conversation otherwise. Not usually.
I can't count the number of times I've jumped into game sessions and had fun without ever calling someone's name out. While sometimes people just want to sustain conversation with me like we're old battle buddies to the point where I want to kill myself. Just shoot all the things pls.
When everyone knows their job and just does it. IF a command needs to be issued or some protocol needs to be carried out.. it just gets done. That's fun.
Sure being social and getting to know people and having them add you to their friendslist is fun it just leaves everyone open to drama.
Maybe I'm this way because I'm a drama magnet.
Maybe shit went nuclear because I indeed did buck my own protocol and did want to get to know people. I made it a mission to get to know and to help her. Something in her voice activated me. I was pulled from my whatever back into being. Probably because I'd accepted that Destiny would be a very long commitment and playing with people totally changes that experience into something else. Otherwise it is just a grind fest.
Having friends of course makes that social aspect of Destiny much better.. but I'm not good with having friends.. that are adults I guess.
Because it just sucks being that one guy in the over 2000 hours played club just a little over a year after the game's release but I don't have everything the game has to offer.
I don't go into the game's crucible mode because I'd be alone. Plus I truly hate PvP.
I don't have some of the game's raid content because I don't raid. Not alone.
I have an inventory that overflows with items and can't clear it without dedicating serious amounts of time every day to clearing it because all I've done is PvE bullshit for myself and anyone that asks for help.
Had shit not gone Fukushima of course there's a possibility that playing Destiny might still have some meaning despite its design.
For the moment it just doesn't. There's only minor flashes in the dark when something interesting comes up like the soul crushing Exotic Sword quest line or the Black Spindle exotic daily heroic side quest.
Considering these things and after my break down the other day I looked into those people. I'm entirely unsure of what their status is other than it appears that they have almost wholly abandoned Xbox.
Shit has hit the fan before, but literally dropping a console to jump on PlayStation 4? I mean it isn't such a bad idea now.. but just wow.. I don't even know. That's some serious blowback from idontevefuckingknowwhatjusthappened2015.
Totally encouragement to keep everything related to Xbox Live ultra low key.. Never help anyone outside of the game and make it personal again. Never take the time to learn names. Just exist in my whatever until a Stranger calls on my guardian.. and be ready.