rpanons | oh, dreamwidth park is lonely in the dark/all the horny memes have no tag-outs

oh, dreamwidth park is lonely in the dark/all the horny memes have no tag-outs

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i am literally agreeing with you you illiterate fuck

and even if they are having a great holiday and have a happy family and all that "hallmark" crap mentioned upthread, it could be the only time of year that they aren't miserable. they could have a crappy job, they could be heading home to a shitty lonely apartment they hate on january 2nd, they could have massive depression issues year round despite things seeming nice

tl;dr you don't actually know how good those people have it when you compare yourself.

in meme settings then i think people are less likely to go with slow burn because of the sense that meme threads are ephemeral and chances are high that folks will end up flaking before the smolder is set aflame as it were. i've had better luck kicking up slow burn stuff through dedicated psl setups/kywtp sorts of scenarios

sorry just got back from a family christmas party!! it was pretty fun ngl... there you go anon!! enjoy your holidays too

for what it's worth, i think there are different levels of socializing and it's totally possible to make friends oocly and occasionally chat about threads or whatever without feeling obligated to engage in endless idle chatter. i also have a weird schedule and low social battery. i'm not a small talk kind of person, i don't plurk as frequently as most people seem to and i don't do many plurk memes or talk to most people regularly. but i'm happy enough leaving the door open and chatting if someone happens to respond to something i plurk about or if someone else's plurk pings me for whatever reason. i have close friends i go long stretches of time without talking to at all. there are rp friends i barely talk to oocly at all. to me, "wanting to be friends oocly" is less about expecting regular socializing and more about establishing a certain level of comfort, like i know it's fine to joke around in narration a bit or that i can shoot them an ooc message if something makes me think of their character.

it was years ago but i'll always remember

conheir for having such a perfect john egbert username.

The difference is that a parasocial relationship isn't a fake or unrequited relationship. It's one where one party literally barely knows the other exists. Like a celebrity and one of their fans. That's what makes "Parasocial obsession" nonsensical because two rpers are at least directly interacting with each other.

Is this the right place for this? It seems like it?

So I joined a game. I liked the premise of this game. I have a problem with inertia, personally. If I suffer from failure to launch when I start a game, it's very hard for me to pull that character up from their faceplant and get them going again. When my tagging speed is slow, I get angry at myself and lose even more motivation because I'm sure that I've blown it and the person interacting with me just won't respond next time because they can't be bothered with slow responders.

I recognize this, so I went into the game full-throttle.

I tagged out, I made posts, I participated in the IC memes and tagged everyone I could even conceivably justify tagging. I participated in OOC discussion and plotting as well. I figured if I start with a flurry of activity, I'd be good. And initially, it did seem to work. I got a lot of engagement both IC and OOC.

I was a little worried that I might be grating on nerves being too outgoing, or making everything about my character by constantly trying to seek out CR, so I tried to off-set this by making it very clear that if you don't want to talk to me or interact with my character, I totally understood. If anyone found me annoying or didn't like something, then I was happy to adjust my behavior. I was told in response that I was fine every time I would say this.

Then one day I tried to react to a message from someone I'd been interacting with, and found out they'd blocked me.

The thread we were in the middle of never received another response. Another person suddenly changed their mind in-character and disengaged with a thread. It wasn't dropped per se, it was just hastily ended. The person behind this was still friendly OOCly, though, and talked about having future threads, so it may just have been they were too busy to continue the thread.

Nevertheless I decided that these two events close together meant I must have done something wrong, and tried to adjust my behavior to ensure I was bothering people less. I looked over everything I said closely, multiple times, to make sure there was nothing I could have done or said that caused this, and my only conclusion was that I was being annoying.

Then an event happened in game. This was my first really big event and I was excited to participate in it, because it was really good for establishing plot threads and getting CR.

There was just one problem: the plot REQUIRED characters to be put into pairs - no partner, no participation, your character would be comatose instead - and the method for setting this up was that players themselves had to contact other players. The mods did nothing to ensure everyone participating had their own partner, you needed to find your own (and on a time limit, because if you found one after sign ups closed, it would not count).

I did try, but everyone I approached already had another pairing in mind, and any time the discussion came up and I said 'hey my character needs a partner' I was just ignored. While the event was going, everyone was only posting in the event, and only talking OOCly about the event.

I flailed around, tried to keep my motivation up and fight inertia, but as time went on, responses seemed to get shorter, less people responded at all, and they were less engaged and friendly. I decided I was probably just spamming in my effort to be active OOC, and pulled back out of interacting OOC pretty much at all.

In retrospect, this was a mistake. If you don't engage OOCly, you don't get IC engagement. So my plotting posts were ignored because I didn't reach out to theirs first, my IC posts got fewer responses, and my motivation tanked as the inertia I was trying to resist settled in.

Events started happening that really focused on a small group of people, and you could in theory crowbar your character in without pre-established CR, but it was really obviously written with the assumption anyone participating already knew and were close with the people in question. In retrospect, I should have crowbarred the character in, but by then I struggled to get motivation to post.

Then people started making things that addressed 'everyone' or 'was personalized to everyone' or etc, and it really wasn't everyone, it was just that group of people. And I understand why - I'd been devoured by social anxiety and inertia, withdrawing more and more because I felt unwelcome as a player, so why would anyone address my character?

Still, it sucks that people say 'everyone' and they really mean 'this group of friends'. If it said 'everyone' I still checked.

I'd like to say it's just a cliquey game, but I know I'm at fault. I overcompensated for ways I'd struggled in the past and clearly must have annoyed people, and my attempts to fix it only succeeded in isolating me.

No one ever told me they had a problem with me, no one told me what issues they had with my behavior.

And...honestly, for some reason I find it very very hard to tell when someone dislikes me if they don't say so outright. In person and especially online. I actually find it extremely hard to tell when people like me, either. I've had people I thought were neutral declare suddenly they hate me, and I've had others ask why I'm being cold to someone I thought was neutral toward because 'don't you know that person wants to be your friend?'.

I recognize this as a weakness, so I try my absolute hardest to recognize what to me seems like subtle cues of discomfort or annoyance. If I see anything at all that might indicate dislike or discomfort I immediately disengage or back off.

Maybe this time this worked against me and I saw shadows that weren't there. I really don't know.

Still...I'm sad.

It's my fault I ended up in this situation.

I'm frustrated with this game (that will remain unnamed both because I'm not trying to create drama and because it would certainly out me) because of that event, but it was still on me that I let it ruin my momentum and become demotivated and depressed over it. And that's why I'm not annoyed, I'm just...sad.

I really tried to be a good player, build CR, and make it work, and in the end I don't even know why I failed. I can only guess.

And vent anonymously, because I don't want to annoy anyone I know with listening to my whining.

And yes, I expect that people might think I'm trying to omit some kind of bad behavior because that makes the most sense, but I can only assure you - I didn't do anything.

wow that's so much longer than I realized it would be. I apologize, it didn't look that big in the text box...

anon i mean this is the nicest way possible

literally none of what you just wrote is healthy

I worked 24 hours over the past 2 days, and New Year's is going to be similar. It saps my creative drive so much. The inside of my head feels sunburned.

Ah, perhaps not. All the more reason to remain anonymous about it, so I don't make myself more trouble.

from an outside perspective (i'm not in any games): it sounds like you jumped the gun and made some assumptions because of anxiety. without seeing specific wording, i am going to assume here that you're correct in guessing that you overcompensated. most people won't come out and tell someone they're being annoying unless they're close enough with that person to speak to them that bluntly or they're an asshole.

a majority of players want to avoid confrontation and will disengage/unfriend/block people that are bothersome to them rather than say anything. i think where you went wrong was misinterpreting people engaging with you ic and ooc as doing it out of some feeling of obligation. most people around here don't tag in or reply to tags or talk to people ooc when they don't want to. it isn't hard to just not reply to someone that you don't feel like interacting with. it's much easier to do that than to come out and tell someone they're being annoying or you don't like their character.

in the future, consider journaling or doing something else offline until the feeling of insecurity passes. try to remember that if people are interacting with you it's because they want to. a lot of people in dwrp have had bad experiences with overly anxious people so that may have triggered some people to check out once you sent out the "do you like me? check yes or no" memo. imho messages like that reek of someone seeking constant buttpats and reassurances, and that can become exhausting for people to deal with on a regular basis.

it's probably a cliquey game or the players are already saturated with cr and not looking for anything new. no idea why someone would block you - could be they don't like your character/canon or maybe they think you're friends with a wanker or maybe you're playing the character their bbf wanted to play or maybe your character gives them war flashbacks for some reason. who knows.

i'd say drop the game and try out a different one. not every game is going to be a good fit for everyone. sometimes it takes a few tries to find the right one.

anon, i say this with love and i hope you'll take it the way it's meant (not judgmentally), but maybe seek out therapy/medication for social anxiety if you haven't already. it sounds like you expend a lot of energy thinking about social situations and that can't feel good. lots of us have been there, it's common but it doesn't have to be your reality

You know, I didn't think of the fact that the messages might be considered as some kind of nagging 'do you like me' thing, I was just trying to be as courteous and open as possible so that people who didn't want to engage could avoid it and not feel like I was pressuring them or not giving them the opportunity.

I'll try to adjust my behavior going forward to avoid such issues in the future, and remember your advice. I don't think there's any helping this situation now but in future situations I'll apply it.

hence my original comment saying

look up what parasocial means

twilight zone shit

I appreciate that. I really don't want to take up resources for others, though. While I can't argue this situation is clearly rooted in social anxiety, there's people who no matter what can't stop being overtly anxious. For me, I can turn that anxiety off and just not care what anyone thinks about anything. It's just doing so makes me a very abrasive person. Which isn't conducive to interacting in groups. It's when I try to make friends and be social and accommodating that I utterly fail at what is apparently basic social cues, and trying to compensate for it twists me all up into this awful spiral of anxiety.

Perhaps that is something therapy could indeed help, though.

Honestly, it may be that. I have for a while been tempted to look for another game and drop the current one. I don't know why I feel so bad about the idea of dropping, though. I suppose I just keep convincing myself if I try I can overcome and get back on track. I'll probably feel better if I stop trying and just go elsewhere.

Probably not gonna do that until this post gets buried in detritus though, lol. I'm not going to do myself any favors if people in my new game think I'm going to run to an anon comm and complain if they don't pay attention to me.

DA

I'm not unsympathetic to the anxiety that pushed you to do this but I think anon above is likely right on the money on what went wrong here. I second their suggestion about journaling out these feelings, and also, I would encourage you to do your best to relax and just enjoy threading with people who are engaging with you.

For an example of this:

Fine behavior: having an opt out post clearly marked and posted on your journal, checking in when threads and plots touch on potentially triggering topics
Tiring behavior: reassuring your rp partners every time they plot with you that if they don't want to play with you they can back out at any time

Were you leaning more towards the second option? If so, after a certain point you will be doing your rp partners a courtesy if you just trust their reassurances that they want to play with you and believe in their consistent tags as evidence that they are having a good time.

That said your game sounds like it has some issues with cliquiness if so many event posts truly are written with only a handful of people in mind. It might be best to let this one fade and try again with another game.

SA

sorry about the double post, dreamwidth wigged out for a minute there

Original DA and I just thought it would be funny if anon got two p words mixed up but my bad joke fell flatter than Florida, oops.

A is a teenage girl (13-16). Her parents move into a new place, either an apartment or a house in the suburbs.

A is a little lonely and doesn't have many friends her age, but the person who *is* cool is B. B is their new neighbor, an older woman (late 20s into 40s) who is an independent, self-made woman. She's openly gay, maybe a little butch-y (though how hard she is on the femme-butch spectrum totally up for discussion), and goes through girlfriends like tissue paper, wrapping girls around her fingers and getting bored of them quickly.

A thinks B is super cool. A's parents are glad that there's a next door adult who can watch out for A, since they're often out of town or get home late.

Now, we can do this one of two ways:

* A starts crushing hard on B, who notices it but doesn't mind it, but is surprised when A makes a move - and doesn't resist
* B starts getting a kind of predatory interest in A and slowly pushes the envelope to groom her into becoming her next lover, but A is smitten with B anyway so doesn't resist

Either way, A and B both get a thing for each other and become secret lovers. If they live in an apartment building, maybe they discover a secret tunnel between B's apartment and A's bedroom closet or something? So A can sneak out when her parents think she's asleep, etc.

Looking to play A! Give me a PM!

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oh, dreamwidth park is lonely in the dark/all the horny memes have no tag-outs

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+1

ayrt

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da

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f/f, agegap, underage, hidden romance