Tao and Zen

There's a phenomenon I encounter on the Internet every once in a while, and it's something I don't understand. Maybe there's a part of my brain missing or something like that; I really don't know. What I'm talking about is the concept of gratuitously making fun of people you don't know at all, simply because they are different from you.

I'm not going to say that I've never been guilty of being mean to people on the 'Net. I've been a real jerk at times. But when I've said mean things, it's been stuff that was to the point. For example, I was in a situation a few years ago where I stuck up for someone who was being flamed in comments on LiveJournal. It just got nastier and nastier, and I was giving as good as I was getting, until all of a sudden, I started getting comments in my own journal...to the effect that I was fat.

Yup. I'm fat. Oh noez! I'm a fat girl. But being fat had nothing to do with the argument at hand, and has nothing to do with my intellectual capacity or the lack thereof. In other words, these people were just pulling random facts about me out of the air, and using them to strengthen their arguments. Uh...what?

I see this kind of stuff all the time. Person A encounters Person B, who is very different from A. By very different I mean something like, say, being a furry fan. B may not be attacking or bothering A, but all of a sudden A feels he must lash out at B. He makes snarky comments about how badly adjusted B is, and perhaps even posts pictures of B to strengthen his evidence. Everyone A knows joins in the game, making fun of poor B -- who probably wasn't even bothering A in the first place. Why does this happen?

This just happened to me again this weekend. Did it make me cry like a little girl? Oh sure. I hate being picked on. Bugs the hell out of me. I'm very thin-skinned. But then I dried my tears and blew my nose and that's that. What, was this supposed to ruin my life? I don't think so, girlfriend.

But the question remains: why do people do that? What is it about me, for instance, that makes people need to voraciously read my website, download or link to pictures of me that they feel are less than lovely, and make fun of me on their own websites or other fora? What is it about the friends of mine that it happens to? Or...what is it about the people who do this, the "Person A"s of this world?

It's not that I've never put anybody else down. Sure, in specific cases, I've done the old high school game of saying, wow, look at that train wreck, I'm so much better than that. I know what it means when I do it; it means that I'm insecure. It means that I'm not sure I am better than that. Ultimately, it means that I need to take a long hard look at myself and ask myself what's up, and work on improving myself so that I have nothing to be insecure about.

What does it say about the A's who don't even know the B's they're putting down -- who just pick someone at random to make fun of? When I think about that, it makes me even sadder than the original insults did. Because really, if you have to go out of your way to make fun of other people, your life is pretty damn sad indeed. Get a hobby, girlfriend.

I had a mini-epiphany recently. One of my friends recently spoke of someone else he knows, and mentioned that that person can't conceive of [two members of the appropriate sex] not having a [sexual] relationship once the friendship reaches a certain point.

The epiphany came when I realized that I'm like that too, or that rather, I can conceive of two people not having a sexual relationship once their friendship passes a certain point of intimacy, but for me, I do want that sexual relationship. Or at least, I want it to be an option. This has led to me "falling in love" with, and asking for or suggesting sex with, most of my closest friends. I don't assume everyone operates this way, but it's the way I am.

Frankly, I don't think there's a problem with being this way, and in fact, I know a lot of other people who feel the same way, that sex is an entirely natural extension of an intimate friendship. When the movie Alexander came out, a whole lot of little fangirls were giggling over the relationship between Alexander and Hephaistion. What they don't realize is that in Alexander's time, such a relationship -- sex between intimate friends -- was normal and expected in most of the civilized world. My world view may no longer be the norm, but it's not too weird either, and as I say, I know other people who share it.

Still, it's caused me trouble. I remember a young man saying to me once, "Mimi, you don't have to have sex with all of your friends," when he politely turned me down. I was too confused to answer. I had never been in the situation before where I felt this way about somebody, and knew he was attracted to me too, but where "nothing" (i.e. nothing sexual) was going to happen. It took me a long time to learn this lesson, actually, and the sad part is not that I was hurt in the process; the sad part is that I hurt other people, utterly without intending to. In fact the one thing that I never wanted to do was hurt these people I loved. I think, in the end, that knowing I've done so is a very fitting punishment for my sins.

About a year ago, I had cold water dashed on me by someone I cared about very much, in the form of telling me how annoying was my (in my eyes, very minor) questing for sex in our intimate friendship. It wasn't the first time I'd been told that, but it was the first time anybody had ever put it so flatly. I finally learned my lesson. Oh, it's not the last time I'll ever let someone I feel deeply about know that I'd be interested in sex if they were. But I think I've finally realized -- odd as it may sound that it's taken me so long -- that the way I see things, while not wrong, is fairly unusual. So, I'll offer it as a complimentary suggestion, and if there's no reciprocity, that is that.

Last night I dreamed about someone with whom I have an intimate friendship, and who does look at things the way I do (or at least, doesn't find it odd). I'm not sure exactly why I had that dream, but perhaps it's a sign that I need to say something about my outlook, as both a public apology to those I've hurt, and an explanation to those with whom I'm currently in close or intimate friendships.

So mote it be.