A Grower Not A Shower

The basic reason I don't buy lifestyle mags is that I don't want their constant how-to advice amplifying this irrational performance anxiety.

gah. yr not alone pal, i can give you that much of a biscuit here. i was just meta-whinging to nancy tonite about this: the perpetual cycle of other people being attracted to self-confidence and those comfortable in their own skin. able to "put themselves across" more or less. in pulling as much as in the workplace. my life has become increasingly more cocoon like for that very reason. it's also probably the reason why i *date* very rarely and my relationships are built over time with people i know well before we become "serious" and "together". (and why the jess tha gigolo persona is just that, owing to an odd set of circumstances when i first started posting to ile.) ditto starting new jobs. i've become MUCH, MUCH better at just "hanging" with people, easing and relaxing (and i know this owes a lot to working...i was a wreck in highschool in this regard.) but i'm never going to be the fonz. (i'll be lucky if i pull ralph malph.) but has society ever had time for the creeping accumulators rather than the Take Charge Conquistadors, tom?

(also, maybe if you wanted to come off better, you could not always act like i'm putting you out when i im you.) ;)

I think you're right also about the feeling that the world's too fast for slow growers. I mean, I know in theory that this sense of speeding-up, and its consequences for relationship and community, is a modern/industrial phenomenon (so that the kinds of personal qualities that are privileged are associated with the increasingly dense and often instrumental/superficial relationships that urbanisation makes possible), and each generation re-invents the pressures as bearing particularly intensely on them. But the lifestyle-cultcha feels really shrill to me right now.

As for friends and loved ones ... well, it does take time to build relationships. Then again, I'm not one who really wants to have half-a-zillion friends and acquaintances. Better quality control with a smaller circle. Often gets misinterpreted as "arrogant" or "snooty," and whether that's good or not depends on the situation I suppose.

It seems to be that the less free time someone feels they have, the less time and attention they are prepared to spend on developing their personal relationships.

This is a great shame, because most of my closest friends I've known for ten years plus, and a fair few of those didn't particularly register on me the first time I met them. In my experience, people rarely show themselves from the word go, and the closest bonds are those that grow over time, so I've never been a fan of the "instant fix".

One key thing is that by and large, most people you meet already have a perfectly satisfactory circle of friends. When you're single, there is always the chance of meeting someone and getting together with the, When you're just talking about friendships, it's never that clear cut. There is an big element of effort about making new friends, and cynical, tired people like pretty much everyone around me seem to need to be particularly impressed with something about you when they meet you before you can get a foot in the door.

One of the first posts I made on ILE was about not being the most popular person in my office, and the above is precisely why. I just withdraw, feel sad, and worry about it. It's natural, but it's still a pain in the arse. Sigh.

AM I worthwhile getting to know? Hmm, tricky.

I have a healthier approach now, i'm not scared to sample the other world that people inhabit, their mannerisms, verbal tics, geeky obsessions, whatever. contact has been made.

Me, I'm great at making friends and forming connections and getting people to like me right off the bat. The hard part is keeping them. Or, indeed, KNOWING who you should keep and who you should distance yourself from.

bump

map

hello!!!

v much not what I thought the thread would be about

Apologies to anyone who expected something smuttier from the title.

The basic reason I don't buy lifestyle mags is that I don't want their constant how-to advice amplifying this irrational performance anxiety.

― Tom, Monday, December 3, 2001 1:00 AM (nineteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

thanks a lot tom, btw there's pills for that

theres pills for everything

like introverted personality listicles in the rain

He’s a grower, he’s a shower, I’m a midnight blower

well this was a let-down

A shrinker and a stinker

it's pronounced growr

The hookup app with the saddest dick pics.

A glower but somehow also a shower?

You got to know when to grow 'em
Know when to show 'em

I shower ever day it seems best

Shower what?

Do you mind!

i need a shower, not a growler

very interesting thread! especially in the context of social media bla bla bla blowing up a few years later. a lot of these same kinds of worries and considerations - about what your "self" is and how others relate to it, and which version of yourself do you show to others, and how quickly do you show your "true" self - were made exponentially worse/more intense by social media

most of the talk upthread is about personal relationships, personal interactions. irl. it's kind of a quaint conversation to read. but now, for many/most people, those same interactions - those first interactions - have moved online. instead of having to worry about how that first conversation is going and if you're talking not enough or too little, all of that stuff, the first interaction is more likely to be a profile of some sort. a picture, a couple lines, maybe a link to something you're working on.

maybe not

or, even worse, over a zoom call