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more ranting
2 months ago
I write stuff here when I need to vent my feelings. I can't help but imagine my friends and mutuals are sick of hearing me complain about things, and I know for sure I feel guilty about doing it. Here, it feels like somewhere simultaneously hidden yet open, like writing it all on a piece of paper. Anyway, here goes.
I'm really debating my place within the fandom/community.
This isn't me saying I don't want to be a furry. The characters themselves are great, the people behind it all are incredible. And, honestly, I want to get more in touch with it. I'd been sat as a near anonymous, almost entirely alone spectator of everything, and now that I've started interacting with people and making something for myself, it's really helped me feel better about myself. But now, looking back and thinking about things as they are, I wonder if I even have a place in this at all.
This isn't some unrealistic begging to be some high esteemed member of the community who everyone knows and who gets gift art every day. I don't want to be that well known and I only want to pay for art of my characters. But I do want to feel like I belong. Even with all the wonderful friends I have, I still feel like an outsider watching in. I think it's definitely one of those things that's always been the case, ever since I first got my sona, but over the years, particularly as of late, I've grown more cognizant and worried about it, to the point where it's borderline crippling now.
At least some of it just bad luck and a lack of trying on my part. I don't live in the United States right now, where the vast majority of my friends are, which means I don't get to hang out with them or go to conventions to meet them all and even more people. I'm not an artist, which means I don't get to draw for people and with other people and socialize that way. I have very few interests in general, more importantly nothing that gives me any particular merits within the fandom. And I just have to put up with those, and, actually, I can try to fix them. I'm desperately trying to move to the US, I'm trying to learn to draw and I'm trying to get into things that might help me interact with other people in the community. And of course, there's the social anxiety. The demon in my brain that paralyses me in social situations and whispers bad thoughts in my mind every second I'm not in social situations. Again, it's something I'm aware of, and I'm trying to overcome it.
But above all the things I'm aware of and can try to control/fix, I feel like there's...something else. At the risk of sounding conspiratorial, I often feel like there is something else out of my control consistently stopping me from properly socializing with others. I notice it most trying to join Discord servers, or Telegram groups, or even just a group chat of 3 or more people. When I'm chatting with people one on one, I get on without much of a hitch. But a soon as multiple people are in the equation, I suddenly feel invisible. There might be a moment's rush of attention when I first join, but even a few days after joining and I get completely ignored. And I'm not being entitled and implying that every time I should send a message somewhere that every other person in the group should respond; I'm talking that my messages get completely ignored, even if they're relevant to the conversation. Combined with my social anxiety, my usual discord server joining process is: say hello and get responses, feel good, reply to something later, get no response, feel a little bad, post something, get no response and feel bad as somebody posts something a minute later and gets responses, leave.
Although I just said that one on one conversations go better than my attempts to chat in groups, I'd probably actually say they don't. I've come to appreciate the difference between random people, mutuals and friends. A casual, one of exchange, an every now and again chat and more frequent, meaningful conversations. I only really value the latter, so coming to terms with the idea that not everyone who a status on a website/app says is my "friend" is actually my friend really helped me out. As friends, we value each other and enjoy talking to each other, but for random people and mutuals, it's just usually one off interest, where the relationship isn't really and is, ultimately, disposable. But lately, I've been noticing the conversations with (even my closest) friends are starting to resemble the patterns of DMs with random mutuals. But I still value these people, dearly, and want to keep talking to them. Which leads me to only one conclusion: that it's my friends that see me as that random mutual, the disposable, meaningless relationship. Just categorical friends, not real friends.
And with all this together, I just can't help but think: do I really have a place in all this? Do I really belong? Yes, I could be trying a lot harder to find my place. But I'm not not trying. If anything, the reason I don't try as hard as I could is that when I do try, the results are always the same. I want to fit in, to have a place in all this. It's all I know. I want to get on better with my friends and even my mutuals. I can't get enough of talking with people, and I not only want to make other people happy, I want to feel happy myself. But everything in my life is just not conducive to being like that, and I've fully run out of ideas on how to address it anymore. I can only pray that moving to the United States and getting to literally be closer to my friends will make things better. Because frankly, if things don't get better, I can't even imagine what I'll do.
I'm really debating my place within the fandom/community.
This isn't me saying I don't want to be a furry. The characters themselves are great, the people behind it all are incredible. And, honestly, I want to get more in touch with it. I'd been sat as a near anonymous, almost entirely alone spectator of everything, and now that I've started interacting with people and making something for myself, it's really helped me feel better about myself. But now, looking back and thinking about things as they are, I wonder if I even have a place in this at all.
This isn't some unrealistic begging to be some high esteemed member of the community who everyone knows and who gets gift art every day. I don't want to be that well known and I only want to pay for art of my characters. But I do want to feel like I belong. Even with all the wonderful friends I have, I still feel like an outsider watching in. I think it's definitely one of those things that's always been the case, ever since I first got my sona, but over the years, particularly as of late, I've grown more cognizant and worried about it, to the point where it's borderline crippling now.
At least some of it just bad luck and a lack of trying on my part. I don't live in the United States right now, where the vast majority of my friends are, which means I don't get to hang out with them or go to conventions to meet them all and even more people. I'm not an artist, which means I don't get to draw for people and with other people and socialize that way. I have very few interests in general, more importantly nothing that gives me any particular merits within the fandom. And I just have to put up with those, and, actually, I can try to fix them. I'm desperately trying to move to the US, I'm trying to learn to draw and I'm trying to get into things that might help me interact with other people in the community. And of course, there's the social anxiety. The demon in my brain that paralyses me in social situations and whispers bad thoughts in my mind every second I'm not in social situations. Again, it's something I'm aware of, and I'm trying to overcome it.
But above all the things I'm aware of and can try to control/fix, I feel like there's...something else. At the risk of sounding conspiratorial, I often feel like there is something else out of my control consistently stopping me from properly socializing with others. I notice it most trying to join Discord servers, or Telegram groups, or even just a group chat of 3 or more people. When I'm chatting with people one on one, I get on without much of a hitch. But a soon as multiple people are in the equation, I suddenly feel invisible. There might be a moment's rush of attention when I first join, but even a few days after joining and I get completely ignored. And I'm not being entitled and implying that every time I should send a message somewhere that every other person in the group should respond; I'm talking that my messages get completely ignored, even if they're relevant to the conversation. Combined with my social anxiety, my usual discord server joining process is: say hello and get responses, feel good, reply to something later, get no response, feel a little bad, post something, get no response and feel bad as somebody posts something a minute later and gets responses, leave.
Although I just said that one on one conversations go better than my attempts to chat in groups, I'd probably actually say they don't. I've come to appreciate the difference between random people, mutuals and friends. A casual, one of exchange, an every now and again chat and more frequent, meaningful conversations. I only really value the latter, so coming to terms with the idea that not everyone who a status on a website/app says is my "friend" is actually my friend really helped me out. As friends, we value each other and enjoy talking to each other, but for random people and mutuals, it's just usually one off interest, where the relationship isn't really and is, ultimately, disposable. But lately, I've been noticing the conversations with (even my closest) friends are starting to resemble the patterns of DMs with random mutuals. But I still value these people, dearly, and want to keep talking to them. Which leads me to only one conclusion: that it's my friends that see me as that random mutual, the disposable, meaningless relationship. Just categorical friends, not real friends.
And with all this together, I just can't help but think: do I really have a place in all this? Do I really belong? Yes, I could be trying a lot harder to find my place. But I'm not not trying. If anything, the reason I don't try as hard as I could is that when I do try, the results are always the same. I want to fit in, to have a place in all this. It's all I know. I want to get on better with my friends and even my mutuals. I can't get enough of talking with people, and I not only want to make other people happy, I want to feel happy myself. But everything in my life is just not conducive to being like that, and I've fully run out of ideas on how to address it anymore. I can only pray that moving to the United States and getting to literally be closer to my friends will make things better. Because frankly, if things don't get better, I can't even imagine what I'll do.
