Category: Personal

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On groups and dyads

A variety of painful circumstances in my life recently have crystallized out a thought, for me: as much as we want a Group to be a cohesive unit, the group is only as strong as the strength of its various dyadic friendships.

When a group that had been constructed around one central Hub Person implodes, the continuance of the group is dependent on whether any of the Spoke People had actually formed individual (“dyadic”) friendships with each other. Without those interconnected friendships, the group would wither away without its Hub. (And maybe that’s why some Hubs feel threatened when they’re no longer the gatekeepers of access to the other friends?)

And when a large enough group (40 or so people) forms, not everyone will be as close to everyone else in that group; so it’s up to the individuals to build (or not build) their friendships with one another. If one person is having a crisis and reaches out, I am finding that sometimes, a larger group is *less* likely to respond. It’s the small six person chats that get things done for each other; or it’s an existing dyadic friendship within the larger circle that recognizes the need and answers it.

Is this the Bystander Effect in action? Are the larger groups prone to feeling too helpless to help? Someone else will do it?

Is this an effect of geography? Some of my Discords are pretty geographically dispersed, and I think that makes it harder (though not impossible) to build those sturdier connections.

It can also be hard to know what/how someone needs help. With closer individual bonds, there’s more of a chance that the person helping will actually help, versus accidentally making things worse. (I know that’s a thing for me as well: I’ve made things worse so often.)

But I just had an absolutely terrible week, and all kinds of people came to my rescue; and I am so grateful. And I witnessed someone else leave a group because they weren’t getting the support they needed, and my heart aches for them; but we were never directly close with each other, either, so I felt too distant (geographically and emotionally) to help. So it goes.

But anyway, my point in all this rambling is: If you are in a large friend group, make sure you aren’t neglecting the individual connections with individual people. In the end, “The Group” is a legal fiction. The people that help you move are the real individual humans that you can bond with, or not, as life takes you.

But try to take care of each other. Yes, The Village is built on unpaid labor. It’s transactional even though it’s not tracked, or shouldn’t be tracked, because Village Support is about having help with specific concrete actions that need doing.

I don’t know. I’m rambling and tired. But just. Look for the helpers; and be the helpers, when you can.

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‘Til we’re on the other side

Today I was listening to “The Breaking Light” by Vienna Teng, and remembering a friend’s pregnancy, and how we were all holding our breaths for her.

Listen to the sirens, listen to the heartbeat
Listen to the turning tide
Listen to the murmurs, carry them inside you
‘til we’re on the other side

And we listened to the heartbeat. And now we’re on the other side, and she has a rambunctious toddler, and we all breathe.

And I think this is a good time of year, and time of history, to remember that there will always be another side. We’ll get there and we’ll get there together.

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Buttered sociolinguistics

So today I had what is possibly the most Emily interaction ever.

I was at a dinner party, and accidentally misgendered a friend of a friend. However, because we had already been talking about dairy allergies, and because I couldn’t hear very well, the person who corrected me sounded (to me) like she was saying “They don’t use ghee” instead of “They don’t use ‘he’.”

So, naturally, I assume she was talking about one of the NB people I had already met, and asked “Oh wow, do THEY have a casein allergy too?”

We sorted it out eventually, but wow that was embarrassing and also hilarious in its own way.

Bonus #showerthought: If ghee were a pronoun, then would the object case be “ghem,” and if so, is this Cetagandan propaganda?

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Buttered sociolinguistics

So today I had what is possibly the most Emily interaction ever.

I was at a dinner party, and accidentally misgendered a friend of a friend. However, because we had already been talking about dairy allergies, and because I couldn’t hear very well, the person who corrected me sounded (to me) like she was saying “They don’t use ghee” instead of “They don’t use ‘he’.”

So, naturally, I assume she was talking about one of the NB people I had already met, and asked “Oh wow, do THEY have a casein allergy too?”

We sorted it out eventually, but wow that was embarrassing and also hilarious in its own way.

Bonus #showerthought: If ghee were a pronoun, then would the object case be “ghem,” and if so, is this Cetagandan propaganda?

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Online spaces are not real spaces

I recently took a weeklong hiatus from Facebook – not on purpose, just because I was very busy with things going on in my life, and didn’t have time to log in and share some memes.

While I was gone, a very anodyne post that I shared exploded. I was generally aware that “there was some drama,” but I was unaware of the fact that people were, apparently, calling out to me within the comments of the post. (I do not keep Facebook on my phone for balance/mental health reasons. Life/life balance? It’s not work/life balance, it’s just that I find Facebook distracting, and I try to limit my distractions whenever possible.)

Today I’m checking back in on things, and reflecting: should I have been there to monitor the post?

I have a friend who considers his online space (that he controls and moderates) to be an extension of his living room: that it is for people who he invites in, of his own volition, and he expects them to behave as though they *are* in his living room, conversing with people they know to be his personal friends, with all the assumption of noble intent that would go along with such an interaction.

Not all of us keep such a tight leash on our Internet communities. My Facebook is almost entirely private, and while I do occasionally befriend people who are “one hop” away from me (and have made good friends by doing so), in general, I try to keep the posts to people I do, in fact, know, and generally get along with.

This has landed me in hot water more times than I can count; in part, because I can get along with many different types of people. Not everyone; I have my lines. I have unfriended or blocked a handful of folks over the years, and I could probably tell you exactly why for each one. (If I knew how to do spoilers on WordPress, I would give the examples right here.)

This is, in a sense, an extension of Geek Social Fallacy #4: Friendship Is Transitive. The people that I am friends with are not always going to get along with one another; and that goes double if I am not there to moderate the tension. But here’s the thing: I don’t live on Facebook. Facebook is not real life. I cannot moderate it all the time; I’m not hosting a 24/7 living room party in my house. And I think that fact extends to situations in which I refrain from logging in, even for extended periods. My real life will always take precedence over Facebook. (Even if real life does involve some level of farting around on my phone on DIFFERENT social networks.)

So, while I do feel bad that the conversation spiraled without me…I am realizing that I don’t feel responsible for it, if that makes sense. I would say “sorry,” but it would be the “sorry” of Condolence, not of Apology.

I figure I will continue on as I have begun: by using Facebook sporadically, and not trying to check it more often just because people might have driven a thread off a cliff. (Especially since on a platform like Facebook, I have no moderation power beyond just deleting the entire thing.)

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The Achilles Cantaloupe

When I was a teenager, I was a total weirdo.

I mean, I still am. But I was then, too. (Apologies to…Mitch Hedberg, I think?)

One year at our big family beach vacation, I announced at dinner that our cantaloupe was just like Achilles.

Everyone stared at me.

Sensing the fact that they did not understand my Galaxy Brain (we did not have memes when I was a teenager, so I am making up for lost time now), I explained.

Earlier in the week, the cantaloupe we had bought was large, but very bland. But the cantaloupe we were eating that night was small and very sweet! So it’s like Achilles, who was offered a long life in obscurity or a short life of glory, and chose the short life of glory.

Short life? Small cantaloupe. Glory? Sweetness.

It made sense to me.

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No lilies

I’ve never been a big person for flowers and things of that nature; I like house plants, but flowers just isn’t one of my love languages.

But one thing I learned when I adopted my cats and started googling “what’s safe?” is that lilies, as well as other bulbs like tulips and daffodils, are extremely toxic to cats!

Here’s a TikTok from a veterinary practice about lily exposure. Content notes: cute cat, IV, and the cat survived.

So, if I ever make one of those pat little “how to date me” guides, item #1 would be “if flowers: nothing toxic to cats.”

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Mens sana in corpore.

I had a small realization just now.

I think part of the reason that I view my body as separate from me (my brain, mind, consciousness, soul, whatever you want to call it) is that my body is starting to break down, and I view that as a personal betrayal.

Just TAB things, I guess. (Temporarily Able-bodied)

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Everything doesn’t happen for a reason

Years ago, I read this essay by Tim J. Lawrence, “Everything doesn’t happen for a reason.”

One of my extended family members goes into hospice this week, so it’s been on my mind.

Some things in life cannot be fixed. They can only be carried. 

He is one of the kindest people I have ever known. So was the first uncle I lost that I really knew well. (The first member of that generation to pass away in my family was an uncle who sustained brain damage at age 2, and as such I never really got to know him.)

I have already lost people my own age (though not in my family). I have already lost members of older generations. But the creeping onset of mortality is just getting more real, year after year.

But the goal, here, remains the same: Make your own purpose in life. And be kind to one another.