Social graces and internet as a meeting ground

Expanded slightly from a comment at the meeting of pyrogenic and metaphorge from different sectors of my social group

The internet gets a bad reputation because you can meet all sorts of weird people there. People who might not make it past the first "Ewww, they smell funny" in person can slip into one's life in a meeting of intellect as long as they have the courtesy formulae for their section of the internet memorized.

Face to face, you have a meeting of social graces before you have a meeting of minds, and people with the bad social graces get weeded out, and one can still be pleasant with people with good social graces and poor minds.

On the other hand, on the internet one has a meeting of minds before one has a meeting of social graces, so the people with the poor minds (and the poor online social graces) get weeded out first. Upon meeting face-to-face, one still has to weed for social graces.

Things Hogwarts Faculty and Staff had better come to terms with (in the style of the # Things lists)

1. Jokes based on the popular culture of my youth have not been funny for the past hundred or so years.
2. Those candies I prefer are actually disgusting to everyone but me, and I must no longer offer them to new colleagues lest they feel constrained out of politeness to accept some.
3. The charming recent graduate who was making eyes at me all through their seventh year does not have the academic credentials to be hired yet, and their application will only be declined, no matter how much I may nag and tease.
4. No matter how many points I assign or subtract from the other houses, the Headmaster will still skew the balance at the end of the term towards his own favorites.
5. New students will think that the obvious witticism about my name is hilarious.
1. No matter how many times I assign punishment for it if they make it in my hearing.
2. Unless I come up with something so horrendous that the experienced students will warn the younger ones.
3. Even so, someone will.
6. No matter how exactly I define the terms of what is 'acceptable work' and what is not, someone will find a way around the letter of the law and submit sarcastically unacceptable work that fits every particular of my standards.

Form, formality, and communication

It's been one of my standards for myself that for a major life thing of sufficient importance, I don't make a public/mass/general announcement of it until I've told Darkside first. For some things, I don't tell anyone about it until I've told Darkside first.

I do it partly for form's sake -- one naturally waits on a public announcement of something major until all affected parties are informed first, and as Darkside is my best friend in title, though he is not physically present day-to-day, it's the automatic courtesy to ensure that he's not neglected. Mostly, though, I do it because it's important to me to demonstrate to both of us that I give his presence in my life a high priority even though it's not strong or regular anymore.

He may not realize that he's hearing things before the public in the form of LJ hears about it -- he probably doesn't realize that half the time I tell him things before I talk them over with Mama. It's a subtlety of proper form that he doesn't need to be explicitly told about, but one that creates an underlying intimacy when I save these things to tell him.

Allegra

outofambit had an old machine for sale. It seems that I may have been the first one to respond with interest.

She'll most likely be shipping the computer on Thursday.

...

I'm now almost able to say this without squeaking, squealing, giggling, leaping up and down, yelping, yowling, laughing, cheering, and otherwise performing physical and vocal stunts that put me in danger of terminal fangirlishness and/or actual injury. I may have actually sprained something in my ongoing and almost entirely successful endeavor to keep said utter raving fangirlishness out of the actual correspondence. Incoherent fangirls are a dime a dozen, and slightly creepy. Cheerful and coherent correspondents are somewhat less easy to find. I'm just being me -- the spell-checked, smiling, and everyday self I am when I'm not having a very loud and somewhat disturbing fangirl moment over in the corner.

Diane Duane is as pleasant to correspond with as she is to read when published.

Yes. I was sitting on the public glee of this news until I got a chance to tell Darkside.

(no subject)

A bright little curious kid on the bus. His dad looks like his best friend. I miss the Little Fayoumis.

(no subject)

Still madly in love. Work is hearing a little more about Darkside than before. I keep myself busy.

(no subject)

One of the phlebotomists is friends with the two girls scheduled in @ 4. Small world in Phoenix here.

Silliness, useful things, well duh

Silliness: Things I am not allowed to do at Hogwarts, with links to addenda. (Old, but still good.)

Useful: ASL Browser -- see assorted words demonstrated in Quicktime video rather than try to puzzle out from a static image. (I think I'm probably going to wind up using signed words along with my spoken conversations when I know the signs (which I mostly don't) just because language is fun.)

Duh: Heterosexual men plan wedding for tax reasons -- a few years ago, I would have happily married my not-actually-related-to-me roommate Sis for tax and custody reasons, and while I'm not heterosexual, she is. So this does not surprise me. The marriage of convenience is an old tradition and a traditional plot device. (Hello, slashers! Now you, too, can use this for real-world-based fiction!)

Ahh, relationships.

figment0 proposed that since going after significantly younger partners is called "robbing the cradle", the practice of going after significantly older partners should be "graverobbing".