Lookin

[TotallyOz]

1. I didn't see a mocking thread.

2. If there was a mocking thread, it should have been reported.

3. When someone thinks others are mocking them in a public thread, does that make a nasty email OK?

4. No one said you were not welcome here as I didn't even know this was about you.

5. I thought you were the one with thick skin?

[Guest Scorpio]

1. I didn't see a mocking thread.

2. If there was a mocking thread, it should have been reported.

3. When someone thinks others are mocking them in a public thread, does that make a nasty email OK?

4. No one said you were not welcome here as I didn't even know this was about you.

5. I thought you were the one with thick skin?

Because there wasn't one. Just as I didn't attack him,as he claims above:

http://www.boytoy.com/forums/index.php?/topic/20050-my-favorite-lurker/

[Guest ButtWilde]

Buttwide, I doubt very much that you are a lurker. You picked that name so you could hide behind it and not have your regular user name attached to it. The same with Scorpio, who "likes" your post. We never hear from him- he doesn't post here. Well, he did once when he wanted to attack me, then he went quiet again. The one thing about me is that you don't find me using the screen names to hide behind it. People know where I stand.

Paranoid schizophrenia is the only thing that comes to my mind while reading this and I am sorry to have to say that but it's true. This has nothing to do with having a thin skin. It has everything to do with not wanting to be ensconced in a hostile and disturbing environment.

I'll now go join lookin, where, even though there might be undesirable encroaching root systems snuffing out the more desirable urban horticulture; even undesirable & encroaching root systems can be transplanted and flourish somewhere barren and in need of sprucing up.

[RA1]

Everyone on this thread needs a good, long sexual encounter (including me)(especially including me).

Best regards,

RA!

[AdamSmith]

Everyone on this thread needs a good, long sexual encounter (including me)(especially including me).

Are you hinting at a group grope?

And, come to think, isn't that what we're already doing in this thread?

We do all know one another pretty well from being here together, and are obviously mutually invested in the interactions. Look at the energies. I think I want to insist that even the criticisms of one another express some caring and need for one another, one way or another.

I start to feel a bit like my beloved Hitoallusa with this line of thought but still, there it is, or part of it anyway. We value one another as community even when we fall into the more extreme nether expressions of each of our particular pathologies.

P.S. It continues to amaze how Oz is the one among us without pathologies. How does he put up with us?

[RA1]

Isn't a group grope what we do most every day, as you suggest? Yes, a family has differences of opinion and other problems but they are a family regardless.

Onward and upward or words to that effect.

Best regards.

RA1

[Guest PasadenaCA]

Are you hinting at a group grope?

And, come to think, isn't that what we're already doing in this thread?

We do all know one another pretty well from being here together, and are obviously mutually invested in the interactions. Look at the energies. I think I want to insist that even the criticisms of one another express some caring and need for one another, one way or another.

I start to feel a bit like my beloved Hitoallusa with this line of thought but still, there it is, or part of it anyway. We value one another as community even when we fall into the more extreme nether expressions of each of our particular pathologies.

P.S. It continues to amaze how Oz is the one among us without pathologies. How does he put up with us?

I love the direction this thread and how can I push it along?

Apropos of nothing, what's the code for the undies-dropped-around-the-ankles-in-preparation icon?

[Guest lurkerspeaks]

this seemed to fit the idea.. grab your ankles, bend over, with your head up your ass

[AdamSmith]

"I've said this to you before, much to the point of becoming tiresome: if you want a forum to be different, post more yourself of the content you would like to see."

Yes, posting more is exactly what this thread is trying to get me to do. Hmmm, sneaky!

I think the sneakiness is your unwillingness to address the things I set out frankly and honestly.

[MsGuy]

Apropos of nothing, what's the code for the undies-dropped-around-the-ankles-in-preparation icon?

In preparation for what? It makes a difference, Pasadena.

[MsGuy]

I think the sneakiness is your unwillingness to address the things I set out frankly and honestly.

Ahahahahaha...total bullshit, AS. You're just frustrated that (for once) Lucky didn't flip his wig and charge the red cape. You were looking to be awarded a tail and both ears.

P.S. It continues to amaze how Oz is the one among us without pathologies.

Pucker up all you like, AS; Oz is immune to gratuitous ass-kissery.

Now if you give him a reach-around while you're at it, you might get somewhere.

[RA1]

Here the various maiden aunts are discussing how to rear children when they have never had any of their own.

Best regards,

RA1

[lookin]

OK, first I'll admit my attempt to get an idea across with what passes in my world for 'humor' fell flat and second I'll apologize for offending Paragon. My mistake was thinking that a cartoon could get across a message that others have tried to impart more directly. I'm probably making a second mistake by trying to say it directly myself, but here goes:

Lurkers probably have a hundred different reasons for being lurkers. They may be shy. They may think they have little to add. They may think their posts will be ridiculed. They may think they're light years ahead of any of the discussions that occur here. And/or, they may have spilled something sticky on their keyboard. Who knows why folks lurk and don't post? I sure don't. The only lurking experience I have is my own, having to do with a fear that I had nothing to add to a community that seemed to be getting along just fine without me. I don't recall what moved me from being a years-long lurker to a poster, but something did and I was glad. For quite a long while.

But I also recall a poster on the other site who screwed up his courage to post about a physical condition that made him feel insecure around escorts and others, and he was skewered for his efforts. Cruelly. This gave me much needed empathy for lurkers, and a great deal of respect for their right to choose when and how to make themselves known. If they ever do.

Like Lucky/Paragon, I'd welcome lurkers feeling free to post on their own terms and would try to give them any support they need in their initial efforts. But, if they're not ready, it just doesn't make sense to me that shining a light on them would make them any readier. It wouldn't have worked on me, that's for sure. It would only have driven me further underground and made it less likely that I ever would have posted. In my opinion, it's counterproductive to focus more attention on someone who's made it clear s/he's comfortable with less attention. I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept to grasp. But, like clockwork, there comes a post that shines a beam on lurkers and, as far as I know, it's never been effective and it usually ends up with somebody getting their nose out of joint.

I'll go another step. If there are lurkers out there who feel like stopping by to read something I've posted, I'm honored. If it somehow encourages them to jump in, so much the better. But if they feel happier sitting quietly in the Orchestra seats and waiting for me to take the inevitable pratfall, that's fine too. They don't owe me a thing, unless it's to make sure they're using only ripe tomatoes.

As far as telling other posters what they should be posting, I can't say it any better than AdamSmith has. Lead by example. Most of us know when our posts or threads fall flat and it's a buzzkill to have somebody regularly swooping down from the pulpit to tell us we should be doing better.

In one of the Board's perennial poop threads, I made a single post - one, that is - and I don't think it was even on-topic, but that didn't slow down a series of excoriations that I, among others, was making the place unfit for any potential new posters to join in. Well, how would anybody presume to know what would attract a lurker to join in? And, if somebody does know what would attract lurkers, why in the world isn't he posting it? Isn't that a more direct way to tackle the problem? And if the excoriator doesn't know what will bring in the customers, then why badger other posters? Particularly when it's likely to turn current posters into the very lurkers that are allegedly the problem. It just doesn't make any sense. Not to me anyway.

If somebody has some particular topic they'd like me to conjure up a post on they can let me know what it is and how long they'd like it to be and I'll quote them a price. Cash up front. However, as long as I'm posting for free, it'll be what I like. Within, of course, the TOS and hopefully within the spirit of the thread. Is there anything unclear or unfair about that?

(OK, this direct stuff stuff is starting to tucker me out, but here's one more on the subject of thin skin.)

I do not pretend to have thick skin and, if my dermatologist offered to install it for me in a single painless office visit, I wouldn't take him up on it. I've been sensitive to the mood and tone of other folks since I was in the cradle. That sensitivity has served me well over the years, and I wouldn't give it up even for a weekend with Ralph Woods. Especially for a weekend with Ralph Woods.

Naturally, there have been times when I've had to armor up and take a few hits from aggressive strangers or sociopathic coworkers, but never by choice and usually only when I'm getting paid good money to put up with it. I do not intend to spend my free hours on a message board pretending to enjoy somebody asking me who the fuck I think I am. I'm not masochistic and it would be crazy to spend my spare time acting like I am for the 'pleasure' of some stranger who gets a kick out of being belligerent. Again, I don't see what's so hard to understand about that concept.

Perhaps it's the illogic of some of this behavior that leads me to believe that the folks who engage in it know full well what they're doing and I can either be irritated by it or I can laugh at it. This post is one of the few times when I'm going to do neither and assume the person who's aggravating me really has no idea that he's doing it, and I'm going to try this once to explain it in plain English and as directly and humorlessly as I know how.

I hope it works because Lucky/Paragon is a person who has meant something to me individually and to this Board in general. I hope the message gets through clearly and makes some sense as, hopefully, it's the last time I'll ever need to.

And, of course, apologies for interrupting the feasts of reason and flows of soul among the esteemed denizens of this thread. I know that AdamSmith, MsGuy, RA1, and other worthies will have us back on (or off) course in a trice.

A trice-and-a-half at the outside.

[AdamSmith]

Ahahahahaha...total bullshit, AS. You're just frustrated that (for once) Lucky didn't flip his wig and charge the red cape. You were looking to be awarded a tail and both ears.

Pucker up all you like, AS; Oz is immune to gratuitous ass-kissery.

Now if you give him a reach-around while you're at it, you might get somewhere.

I think for the first time ever, you are living down on the first derivative. I have a deep investment in this community, way beyond bull baiting. I said so above, sincerely. Lookin's deeply felt post I presume to say comes from some similar place. The community here, even with its anonymities, and its spats etc., is not a joke, to many of us.

[RA1]

lookin-

Thanks for baring your soul and also for providing a picture of otherwise. baring. I enjoy being on this site and miss having you be a regular poster.

Best regards,

RA1

[Guest ButtWilde]

lookin,

you are a geniune, generous, kind, thoughtful, funny, humerous and multi-dimensional human being.

The planet needs more people like you. Thanks for posting! :-)

[Guest hitoallusa]

Oh my what about a nice wedding? We can dance and sing all night..

Everyone on this thread needs a good, long sexual encounter (including me)(especially including me).

Best regards,

RA!

[RA1]

If I were to have a wedding, my plans would not include singing and dancing all night.

Best regards,

RA1