UGH I am so lame...

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Seriously. I've noticed this before but never really thought twice about it, but since I'm going back to my AS specialist next week to discuss medication issues, I've decided to keep a journal of my behaviors this week to show her exactly what areas I feel I need the most help with. So this morning I emailed my wife about some music, I am always emailing her about mp3s I want her to download for me so I emailed her about one to add to her list. Anyway, this is exactly our conversation as I copied it from our email. You will likely notice a pattern in my messages and her responses.

My initial email to her this morning:

Also add to my music list the following song, the artist of which I do not know for sure:
St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)

One of these days I want to come up with a conglomeration of 80s songs I really like and make a CD of them.

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Her response:

ok

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My next email to her, where I switched to an entirely different subject:

I tried calling you a few times this morning on my way to work. I read a story last night and meant to mention it to you but forgot, but this morning they were talking about it on the radio and it reminded me. A story came out yesterday of an incident that the FAA and Continental Express had swept under the rug, but apparently last Friday night a Continental Express plane was flying out of Houston when the pilot, who is former military, observed a rocket or missile flying within 150 feet of the plane.

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Her response:

Wow...... yikes!

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And then I emailed her yet again:

Yeah. Obviously they try to keep things like this quiet because no one knows for sure if it was a hobby rocket or if there was malicious intent, but keep in mind that the plane was flying at 13,000 feet at this point. And there have been little things mentioned in the news over the past few years of pilots noticing missiles or rockets flying near their planes, and our government knows full well, as evidenced yet again this week in Little Rock, that we have our own home-grown terrorists attempting to commit jihad against us. In fact, at first they were downplaying that guy in Little Rock's intentions, saying it was a purely isolated incident and that he had no ties to terrorist groups, but they reported today that this is in fact NOT the case. He had a list of potential targets and it appears that he was conspiring in this with some more organized terrorism groups.

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Her response:

interesting

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My next email, to which she didn't respond:

A good terrorist would know the plane schedules, the delays and such, information which I'm sure is easily found online. Personally I feel it's just a matter of time before we end up with real problems. I suppose that's the price we pay for being such an open, free society and cultural melting pot. In today's world, a lot of people still come here seeking the "American dream" but others come here with their twisted agendas and ideologies, set out to destroy everything we stand for just because they disagree with our way of doing things. They truly feel that we are the real evil power and that our culture has a negative influence on their religious beliefs. How they justify such crimes in the name of religion is beyond me, but unfortunately it's been that way in societies since the beginning of time.

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Anyway, above is how our email conversation played out. After this conversation it crossed my mind that I always type out a whole paragraph, I tend to use my best punctuation, capitalization, spelling, grammar, etc and she always sends back a quick, one-line response, which usually isn't even capitalized or punctuated. I also use proper language compared to her as well, such as using words like conglomeration, brainchild, etc.

After seeing things like this I tend to think, why can't I just be like everyone else? This may not make sense, or even matter, to any of you reading, but it really bugs me and I felt it was worth mentioning. I just feel so lame that I have to be so proper and detailed compared to others.

There was something else I realized yesterday. I've always known I notice license plates and all, but I realized that I associate people with their license plates. We have a new receptionist at my office, and when she first started someone asked me, "I wonder what her story is" or something along those lines, and I responded, "I don't know, but she obviously moved here from Arizona because of her license plate." We live very close to Texas so I have quite a few co-workers from Texas, and I know them all by their Texas plates. I recognize cars on the freeway that I've seen before by their license plates. I used to go through local casino parking garages and count license plates from other states. It always excited me when I saw a really different one like Alaska, Kansas, etc. those are different to me, because I don't see many of those around here.

Don't feel too bad. You're certainly not alone. I think that a lot of us here do that. I really understand how alienating it can be in everyday communication. I do the exact same thing, in my writing as well as speech.

When writing even the most casual email, I will scrutinize the text down to every last detail, obsess over it terribly, and revise it several times before actually sending it. Then, having sent it, I will go back and read it again and obsess over it some more, looking for errors, unclear terminology, potential mis-interpretations, etc. I've probably spent a good half-hour just on this post right now.

While speaking, I use needlessly formal or esoteric words, and talk about things in ways that presumes the listener understands every strange implication and off-the-wall association that I make. It tends to drive people away. I've discovered that most other people don't want to listen to the occasionally disjointed, nonsensical, pretentious speech that I make.


I've always done this too. But I think I go a bit further into it. For me, it's far easier for me to create a geographical association for a person, instead of trying to know them as a multifaceted human being. So when I see a plate from some other state, or even just another county, I immediately create a sort of personality profile for them. To do this, I access the information I have about whatever place they're from, and combine it with my impression of their vehicle, as well as their driving habits. It is a de-humanizing activity. Most of the personality profiles I create are negative. For instance here's how one might go: "Hey, Pinellas County, nice signal back there! Bet you think you're impressve driving that Hummer on your way to the beach, right?" For the 30 seconds or so that I might actually be around that vehicle with that driver, there are all sorts of characterizations that flash through my head. Again, most of them are negative. Unfortunately, I tend to assume the worst about people. On the road, this is especially prevalent.

So anyways, I totally relate to where you're at. I don't know about being lame, though. Even if no one else does, at least I like hearing myself speak and seeing my writing.
Oh, wait.
That makes me lame, doesn't it?

Hah! Good post, thanks for making me feel better. In fact I do not see you as lame, and that helps me to feel better about myself since we have some similar behaviors. I also kind of create a profile in my mind based on where a person is from, but it's a bit more simplistic. You see, where I live we have a LOT of backwoods redneck types. I am a city boy and always have been, but I live and work around a lot of people from the country. If I see someone is from New York, though it's not necessarily correct I automatically associate them with the city. Even Illinois sometimes, particularly if they have some other type of identifier on their car. If they have U of I Fighting Illini stickers, I assume they are from the Champaign-Urbana area and not Chicago. When I see people with plates from out west I generally think they are more progressive people, perhaps artsy types. I could be entirely wrong on all my profiles but it makes me feel good so I go with it.

I don't find good grammar and proper punctuation lame at all. I prefer it. Typo-ridden, uncapitalized and poorly puctuated emails drive me nuts. I won't even use the text message function on my cell phone and I hate getting them because of all the truncated words and phrases. They're very hard to understand.

Regards,

Patricia

I don't think you're lame at all. Most of my e-mails, and just conversations in general are a lot like what you wrote. Sometimes, I get a little frustrated that other people will only answer my whole long e-mail, or discussion with one or two words. If I have something to say, I want to discuss it in detail, otherwise I don't see a point in bringing up a subject to begin with. I guess that's why I'm not good at small talk. I can't just skip over a subject in a condensed way. It has to be in long drawn out detail complete with my opinion on the matter. I have an aspie friend that I exchange e-mails with frequently, and she says that she appreciates that I never send her 'hi, how are you' types of e-mails.

Welcome to the world of "the detailed brain" sbcmetroguy. Well, you do not need a welcome...it sounds as if you are familiar with it already.

I am exactly the same. I am details oriented. I write long emails. Others reply with one-liners. That is normal chit-chat i am told. I have never understood and i wrote in another thread yesterday that beings crisp, short, succinct and glib is EXHUASTING becase i have to mentally harness and restrain my brain from spilling out all the information it contains.

Do not worry, most people have empty brains that only work a few hours a day.

Ours are full to the brim and never stop ticking over.

we are not lame.

Yes, this is exactly it! I want to have an intelligent conversation, which my wife is fully capable of. But it's not just her, it's everyone ... except me. I write out things like that and I always get the same type of response from people, a simple one- or two-word reply with absolutely no intelligent thought behind it whatsoever.

Oh, Millie, you are so right here! It seems my brain never stops. My head is always so "loud" with thoughts. I am always thinking of things, and usually it is related to topics that most people would find extremely boring but are interesting to me. Time travel, extraterrestrial life, existance or non-existance of an afterlife, international conflicts, etc. My brain NEVER stops for a coffee break.

I'm familiar with this phenomenon, too. I can go on and into great detail about something that interests me. I love exploring ideas and possibilities. BUT...

when I have written a well thought out letter, and I get one or two lines back, I take note and reply in kind. I used to write more and more, trying to evoke the response I wanted, then one day realized what I was doing and that I was probably coming off as pedantic and BORING, and I'd hate to die with a reputation for being dull. So now I take brief responses as a hint and adjust.

My dad used to say "She could talk the hind leg off a jackass." It's not a compliment. He also used to remark when someone had "diarrhea of the jaw".

I also try to vary the length with my regular correspondents... some very brief, some longer.

Notice how your posts got longer and longer?

Your wife is probably busy and doesn't have the time for long online conversations.

I like your clear, content-full posts. Where can I find out more about those rockets?

I can relate to this issue but I am not sure I have anything intelligent to add to this conversation Seems kind of pointless to just say 'yeah me too.'

I know that I absolutely loathe flat responses or 'ok' in response to a deep, controversial, or emotional subject that I am attempting to discuss with someone who means something to me (I don't engage in serious communication with someone who doesn't mean anything to me). But on the other hand I think I am guilty of doing the same thing sometimes if the subject doesn't interest me or I just can't think of anything to say.

I like to have intelligent conversations and well-thought out feedback on all things. I even like debates and arguments as long as the responses are intelligent and not ad hominem. I guess you could say I love stimulating converstation, it makes me feel excited and animated. I feel so deflated when someone replies to me with a mindless response.

Also, as you mentioned OP, I seem to use 'big' words in conversation that not very many people use. I like to find the best way to get my connotation accross but I think perhaps it is lost on most people.

I LOVE it when I see people write to me in paragraph form. I hate it when I want to have a conversation with someone, and I write these page long letters to people and they just write like 1 sentence or 2 back to me....ugh. It's frustrating! I would love to read their page long letters!!

Don't get discouraged. It happens.

I think you'll find a lot of people here who do the same thing. I rarely write in an informal way except for internet slang for the comedic value. And the times I do it feels incomplete and I have to stop myself from writing it again in more detail and better diction.

It's also incredibly annoying when I write a long, paragraphed message and the only response I get is "what's <long word here> mean lol" and when you explain it to them they change the subject without having the decency to comment on what I wrote! It's infuriating.