When the Topic is Complicated

Cbox is just a rush. And yes, while someone might post saying, "Gah!" sometimes it would be nice to know how to respond. Should I pat you? Should I say I'm sorry? What's wrong? See, I'm not good with quick interactions or responding to some small statement. If you say "I hate my life", I might ask what's wrong...but if someone disappears, it's hard to offer comfort. I'm not going to hide this fact but it does become annoying when people say "Fine. Bye." It's like they're not giving me a chance to begin with. If you want comfort, give me a chance to respond; I just might be writing up a ridiculously long post/message/etc (like this one), trying to figure out what I can say.

In terms of posts, that's a little more difficult to answer to. I will admit that I'm not the most hospitable person around and I'm sorry if you've ever felt offended by the fact that I don't really post in those threads often, but I'm a wary person. Honestly, I mistrust easily. Sometimes I want to reach out to that person but I don't know what their purpose is. Do they just want the attention? Are the feelings genuine? I ask a lot of questions and as a result, I don't post.

There is also the problem of not knowing what to say. I live by the policy of "only comment if you know what's going on". If someone has just suffered a loss in the family, I understand. If someone is going through a rough breakup, I won't know what to say and therefore decide it would be useless to even attempt to comfort. Have you ever heard of "you just don't understand?!" I have, and it's not a pretty thing when that is what the other person is feeling. I don't want to offer something I cannot give and excuse me for not bothering. I just feel like whatever I say would be useless.

And then there's the whole time deal. I would love to comb through every thread and reaching out to the membership, but I don't even have time to check my own threads. I'll hang around the cBox and chat with y'all, but I barely have the time to do my staff jobs. Thread combing might not sound like a lot of time, but to me, time is everything. I apologize again if you felt that I've been cold to your feelings, but I just don't know how to balance my own life anymore.

Finally, there's the whole "you're a person on the other side of the computer". As much as I would love to say that I'm very close with y'all, there have only been a few I have talked to face-to-face. There is an even smaller number of people I have met in person. In fact, I can only think of one person from this site I have met in person. While we like to believe that we can break through the virtual wall, we really can't. For Ripred's sake, I don't even know what half the membership looks like! We can't base everything just on personality and even if we did, there's no guarantee that I would know what everyone is like through their OOC posts and cBox messages. There are some things I don't share with you guys and I plan to keep it that way.

Long story short: I'll try. I can't guarantee that I can devote my entire attention to fulfill your (or anyone else's) need of comfort. Everybody has their different levels of comfort needed and if I bothered to extend to everyone's level, I wouldn't be able to care for myself.

So yes, maybe we all need a little kick in the butts. But there are just way too many factors to consider. You might want to try to offer comfort but there are times when that's just insanely difficult. And while it might be nice to think that we can all be a big, happy, loving community, that's just way too idealistic. I'm not shutting it down; I'm just viewing this realistically. Can't all be baking cakes filled with rainbows and smiles.