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Ugh. I feel like having an extended whining session about something, but I'm not sure what. I have two prime contenders, but neither of them are making it particularly easy for me to write them.
One is your straightforward 'look, see how much I suck' whine. The specific subject matter for it is interviews; specifically, the fact I'm being a total stressbunny (bursting into tears every five minutes, hand-flacking, words-all-rushing-out-at-once, not being able to do anything right, the full works) over the *mock interview*. Yes, that's right, the thing that's meant to build my confidence and that doesn't make a *blind bit of difference* to *anything*. And yet, here I am getting so stressed I need to write a whiny entry about it. Did I mention I suck yet?
The second one is a serious subject that really deserves significantly better treatment than this, and I might re-write it up another day if I don't get the response I'm looking for from this post because everyone stopped reading when I said I was going to be whiny. The issue is - how do you decide when you can trust someone? The reason this issue has come up (and the context I mean 'trust' in) is because I'm flat out of nearby ScaryFriends (ScaryFriends in this context means people I can trust enough to take as insurance against random people I'm meeting for the first time turning out to be MadAxeMurderers or suchlike. e.g.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
naath, sath, passage. I suspect quite a few other XF-people would do as well.) and hence I can't meet up with dr_vannacutt and his friend in Chelmsford.
However, I have metdr_vannacutt IRL before. Which raises the question - how much do you need to know someone before they can be accepted as trustworthy? (This doesn't, of course, include naturally or selectively untrustworthy people; for instance, I trust enchantedmelody significantly less far than I can probably throw her in this particular catagory of trust, because she's as good as said that her idea of self-defence is to point me at the threatening person, and also because despite the amount of time I've spent with her I still don't think I actually know her, or at least not the her I suspect she is on her own territory.) Some examples of my faliure to be sensible about this: the sheer amount of panic that this guy *who I'd known IRL for a whole year, who had never seemed anything other than reasonable and sensible and generally not MadAxeMurdererIsh* giving me a lift home caused - but I happily got into the car just yesterday with the lab tech from school who I've never exchanged more than two words with in the past when she offered me a lift.
A less rambly summation of the problem: now I've metjaq and he doesn't seem particularly untrustworthy, why does it still not feel like it'd be sensible to go visit him without one of the ScaryFriends along, and why do I feel that they're any more trustworthy? dr_vannacutt also seems like a rational human being, and a pretty nice one at that, so why do alarm bells start ringing in the 'you're *so* stupid if you even think about this' catagory when I think of meeting up with him and his friend in Chelmsford for lunch? marble seems quite definately harmless and nice, but still the 'that would just be *dumb*' flags wave when I think about just randomly visiting him without backup of some description. And as I said, I'm just about plain out of backup over here, and I'm not quite sure what the procedure is for recruiting new backup, given that the criterea has either been 'same age and gender, been around them every day for months on end' or 'responsible Christian type person' (and mostly 'and has been cleared to be on a SU team too'), and neither of those seem to be likely to be good rules for the future, especially unless I want to be very limited socially.
That was quite rambly too, actually, but I think you've got the idea. I'm interested in your opinions - what's the line you'd draw between a stupid situation to put yourself into and a sensible, reasonable hardly-a-risk-at-all thing which people have to do if they're to make life work (like crossing the road)?
One is your straightforward 'look, see how much I suck' whine. The specific subject matter for it is interviews; specifically, the fact I'm being a total stressbunny (bursting into tears every five minutes, hand-flacking, words-all-rushing-out-at-once, not being able to do anything right, the full works) over the *mock interview*. Yes, that's right, the thing that's meant to build my confidence and that doesn't make a *blind bit of difference* to *anything*. And yet, here I am getting so stressed I need to write a whiny entry about it. Did I mention I suck yet?
The second one is a serious subject that really deserves significantly better treatment than this, and I might re-write it up another day if I don't get the response I'm looking for from this post because everyone stopped reading when I said I was going to be whiny. The issue is - how do you decide when you can trust someone? The reason this issue has come up (and the context I mean 'trust' in) is because I'm flat out of nearby ScaryFriends (ScaryFriends in this context means people I can trust enough to take as insurance against random people I'm meeting for the first time turning out to be MadAxeMurderers or suchlike. e.g.
naath, sath, passage. I suspect quite a few other XF-people would do as well.) and hence I can't meet up with dr_vannacutt and his friend in Chelmsford.However, I have met
dr_vannacutt IRL before. Which raises the question - how much do you need to know someone before they can be accepted as trustworthy? (This doesn't, of course, include naturally or selectively untrustworthy people; for instance, I trust enchantedmelody significantly less far than I can probably throw her in this particular catagory of trust, because she's as good as said that her idea of self-defence is to point me at the threatening person, and also because despite the amount of time I've spent with her I still don't think I actually know her, or at least not the her I suspect she is on her own territory.) Some examples of my faliure to be sensible about this: the sheer amount of panic that this guy *who I'd known IRL for a whole year, who had never seemed anything other than reasonable and sensible and generally not MadAxeMurdererIsh* giving me a lift home caused - but I happily got into the car just yesterday with the lab tech from school who I've never exchanged more than two words with in the past when she offered me a lift.A less rambly summation of the problem: now I've met
jaq and he doesn't seem particularly untrustworthy, why does it still not feel like it'd be sensible to go visit him without one of the ScaryFriends along, and why do I feel that they're any more trustworthy? dr_vannacutt also seems like a rational human being, and a pretty nice one at that, so why do alarm bells start ringing in the 'you're *so* stupid if you even think about this' catagory when I think of meeting up with him and his friend in Chelmsford for lunch? marble seems quite definately harmless and nice, but still the 'that would just be *dumb*' flags wave when I think about just randomly visiting him without backup of some description. And as I said, I'm just about plain out of backup over here, and I'm not quite sure what the procedure is for recruiting new backup, given that the criterea has either been 'same age and gender, been around them every day for months on end' or 'responsible Christian type person' (and mostly 'and has been cleared to be on a SU team too'), and neither of those seem to be likely to be good rules for the future, especially unless I want to be very limited socially.That was quite rambly too, actually, but I think you've got the idea. I'm interested in your opinions - what's the line you'd draw between a stupid situation to put yourself into and a sensible, reasonable hardly-a-risk-at-all thing which people have to do if they're to make life work (like crossing the road)?
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ScaryFriends and NonScaryNonFriends
Date: 2002-09-28 03:07 am (UTC)From:Obviously the solution is that you're going to have to wait till I get back to Cambridge and then take me out a lot at weekends (I need regular exercise donchaknow) ;-) (I'd quite like to meet Marble too ... otoh he might suspect me of being a MadPickAxeMiner (but of course he'd have
Anyhow: being more serious. I wouldn't go to place I don't know with people I don't know on my own.
i.e. I wouldn't get worried about meeting up with
So, I think it would be silly worrying about that.
Otoh, I wouldn't go to his house for food before getting to know him a little (I think the same idea applies to cars: it is effectively a private space so a little more trust is required).
I guess I'm comparing it with starting as a student when you don't know anyone[3]: you get to know them at the public events, because the worse that can happen at the tutors party is that they whip out an axe and suddenly find 5 irate students pinning down each limb and porters running around crazily, then you hang around outside in a group of students discussing operating systems (where the worst that can happen is someone might favour windows[4]) and chat to them in hall over dinner (where the worst that can happen is burnt toast). And then, once you've built that trust up you start visiting on anothers[6] rooms.
Anyway, I've rambled on long enough: in summary I'd rely on having one of the following: people I know (just one will do, goodness knows why just one more feels safe, but it does) or a public place that I know.[7]
What do your parents thing (because I'm not entirely sure what to say, but when I know that they think I can happily vermanetly disagree with them. That way you'll at least get a balenced opinion).
Neil, who wonders if this comment is going to turn out to be too long
[1] This is presumably a special subset of the group WikiWords (under goodness knows what operation, concatanation perhaps?)
[2] It could bec arugued that murdering rapists isn't so bad ...
[3] Escaping to Marn's house because I couldn't cope anymore aside ...
[4] Or in the case of Jonny be 25% compsci and not know what an array is ...[5]
[5] Or in the case of Neil keep ending footnoes with '...'. Hold on, how's that going to happen during an irl operating system discussion?
[6] I can't shake the feeling there should be an apostrophe somewhere around here ...
[7] You might form a special case for people known very well by people you know very well. For example you might decide that that was sufficient. e.g. suppose you hadn't met my parents and were comming to visit me and (for some reason) I was going to be later than you, you might feel safe with them on the grounds that I know their trustworthy and you trust my judgement[8]. Personally I'd not be comfortable unles sthe person I knew them through was at least vaugely 'around', but perhaps I'm just of a nervous disposition.
[8] If, indeed you do trust my judgement.
Correction
Date: 2002-09-28 03:10 am (UTC)From:You knew there'd be some comic relief along sooner or later and you were right ...
Neil, and ...
Re: Correction
Date: 2002-09-28 03:53 am (UTC)From:Re: Correction
Date: 2002-09-28 06:29 am (UTC)From:Can you persuade them to change their opinion? 'Cos I said I was going to disagree with them and I'd be a lot more comfortable advising caution.
(And I don't understand .. were they jumpy before DWCon? You gave the impression that they weren't, what changed their attitude?).
Neil
Re: Correction
Date: 2002-09-28 02:40 pm (UTC)From:Re: Correction
Date: 2002-09-29 08:59 am (UTC)From:Julia: "Hold on, you're actually going to be living with random people?!?!"
Neil
Re: Correction
Date: 2002-09-29 09:30 am (UTC)From:Re: Correction
Date: 2002-09-29 09:43 am (UTC)From:Re: Correction
Date: 2002-09-29 12:25 pm (UTC)From:Re: Correction
Date: 2002-09-29 12:38 pm (UTC)From:Neil
Re: ScaryFriends and NonScaryNonFriends
Date: 2002-09-28 03:54 am (UTC)From: