draftsman

Apologize in advance for the transgressions of the year past and the year to come.

I am very bad a communication with human beings, I am insanely bad at communicating with people in general. I am possibly one of the most irreverently annoying human beings that tries to be pleasant and colossally fails to be so time and time again. I seem to lack that ability when I am stepping over the line or annoying , insulting and disturbing people in general. This is further compounded by the fact that I am an engineer and I deal with numbers not with people. I awkward as hell and the fact that engineering is not a social profession is not helping my predicament at all. I posted something to these affect earlier on so let me first warn you.

Warning "conversations and ideas that Draftsman has contain graphic displays on insanity, drug use, descriptions (pornographic not artistic ) nudity and violence. Any person easily offended , objectified , disturbed or embarrassed should not engage him in conversation, text messaging, or IM messaging. Discretion is advised.

The story behind the warning as it was written is simple. I pissed a very nice person, and would like to thanks facebook for help to make it public and lasting. Facebook making your private shame, public, lasting , and accessible to you, your friends , your acquaintances , companies and possible employers since 2004. How did people find out I was a douche before? They had to see me in person and wait for me to manage to be a douche and make an asshole out of myself at same time. Now all they have to do is friend me on facebook and other social media and wait. They not travel anywhere they can learn I am an idiot from home computer, and now smart phones.

The exchanges went as follows.

My friends ( I will refer to her as Elise) posted the following status update " Migraines are killing me. I think they are part of an evil ploy"
I posted the following comment "No, evil is seductive calm and alluring . I submit you are evil "
I know I am not only an idiot but I am creepy as well. This was bad and look back on this I wrote this out of turn and embarrassed about it. but it gets better. Elise's boyfriend did not like that comment. Now here is what happened next.
My Elise's little sister (now a 18 year fresh faced college freshman) status update "cannot decide what to wear to class today"
My friends boyfriend comment " go naked to class"
I simply stated that I agreed and second the motion.

I received a message from Elise later that day. I got from the gym and was checking facebook when I had turned on my netbook. I opened the message and as I read the last rays of sun left the room and I was so engrossed by the message that I did not stop reading until I was done. At the end I was sitting on a darkened room with only the glow of my netbook illuminating my face. In an unbelievably polite and diplomatic way she let me know my comments were appreciated , my way of communicating was proper and she was made uncomfortable by some other things I had said before. She went to a really good school and she has an English degree so has great command of the English language and used it.

I felt like awful and had such a sinking feeling on my chest all the way to the pit of my stomach. Elise very polite did not unfriend me on facebook and neither did her little sister. I send a reply message apologized and I have not commented on their status updates or even done the generic birthday wish on facebook since. I think it is better that way.

You would have thought after that episode . I would have learned my lesson and maybe taken stock of my behavior.After a while I decided that they had simply not gotten the joke or misunderstood me. I decided to compose the warning I posted at the start of this post and felt rather good about posting in front on my messages, emails and even a few texts. I decided like a sitcom character that I was on the right . Sarah Vowell described the best sitcom characters this way "they are cheerful at the same time that they're self-absorbed, and galling, and oblivious to the destruction left in their wake. Think Homer Simpson, Michael Scott on The Office, Ted Baxter from Mary Tyler Moore, Larry David, the entire cast of Seinfeld."

I could tell you that it was a bad time in my life. I could tell you that I had just gotten laid off about a month before this happened. After pouring my heart and soul into a project that not only was dead on delivery , but too a great toll on me personally. I could tell you that I was trying to find new ways to relate to the world after spending 15 months working and then three months waiting for the other shoe to drop and for my job to end. But those are just excuses and I should have known better.

I thought I had changed and grown since that episode . I had stopped kicking the joke of the warning around and tried my best to communicate with people. Now as I am approaching the end of the year. Well I can honestly tell you that I think I have missed the mark again. I have been creepy, unnerving and annoying to some of the most kind people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, in real like and in this site as well.
Now I will ask you to please forgive me , but if you feel the slightest sense of me being creepy , annoying , or just plain wrong in something I say well please tell me, yell it , scream it, write it , and let know in any way.

I apologize and I mean it .

I would like to hope that I have something to say about it my life experience and I hope it is meaningful. I would like to start practicing the art of communication. I hope that just like Jackson Pollock conquered alcoholism through painting , like Frida Kahlo conquered social rejection through art and Alan Moore shared his ideas with the world through great story telling. I can try to become a better person by being edited and asked to express my ideas in a better way. The secret to writing is rewriting and I am hoping for a rewrite on my life.

Thank you.