No topic name is good enough
I joined intramural tennis this week. I had my first game on Thursday. The guy who I was supposed to play got there a couple minutes late, and all the courts were taken up, so we had to play a doubles match. The problem was that the guys we played against had already warmed up and were ready to play. The guy I played against and I had like 4 minutes, which totally isn't enough time. We lost. Afterwards, the intramural guy wanted the two of us to play so that we had a record of us playing. He won 6-2, 2-6, 6-2. If we had actually had time to warm up and get loose, the outcome might have been different. Oh well, I'll make sure to warm up like half an hour before my next match starts.
Right now I'm upset at people in general. I'll start off with what just happened a couple minutes ago. I was coming back to my dorm, and I see there's a big group of people outside. A fight is being broken up by other guys, so I take the stairs on the side of the building. On the men's side of the hall, which is away from where the fight is, the doors don't open from the outside, but someone on our floor had put something to block the door from closing, allowing us to enter from the outside. I find out when I reach the top that someone took it out. I get inside another way, and find out that the guys in the fight are near the elevator. I have to take a set of stairs somewhere else, and take another set on the other side of the building, then come back to the side of my building where my room is, just to get back to my room. All the people outside were drunk or had something to drink. I wanted a giant piano to fall from the sky and land on them to make them all be quiet.
I hope no one takes this the wrong way, but to be honest, I'm upset with people I call my friends. I'm not looking for sympathy, and I'm not blaming people specifically. I try to treat each person special, and I put some effort into maintaining my friendships. I usually expect them to put some effort back into it. I understand that some don't do it as well, or that some friendships don't work out. That's fine. However, I see a constant trend with a lot of friends where they don't put much effort into being friends. Maybe it's me, I don't know. I have other friends who do simple things like say hi first on IM, try to keep a conversation going, or tell you why they can't keep one going. I appreciate things like that. There are times when you only want to talk to certain people, or don't want to talk to someone, that's fine too. But there are things that annoy me, like if I come back to my computer, and the other person says something like "yay", and then doesn't talk. It's like not talking to me when I'm at my computer is more exciting than not talking to me when I'm not at my computer. Yes, I've done that a couple times too, gotten caught up in other conversations, but there has seemed to be a rise in that sort of behavior. I also bet that if I didn't initiate any IM conversations, and let people say hi to me, I'd talk to about 10% of the people I normally talk to.
I probably sound somewhat irritated, and I am. I'm doing what people said they would after the shootings: telling people how I feel about them. That brings to mind another thing: after the shootings people said they'd tell each other how much they care about each other. I didn't see much of that, or at least not many people didn't tell me they cared about me. Either way, I wasn't surprised. The average person is afraid to say what they mean, and say it like they mean it. It's hard to tell someone how you feel about them, and the fact that we still hide our feelings tells me that most of us aren't mature enough to tell others what we feel. We're afraid of rejection, or hurting someone else's feelings. We shouldn't be offended by what others say. Our mission as Christians isn't to make everyone happy. Is it worth stretching the truth to make someone not feel bad? Do we have to sugar coat everything we say, and run the risk of not getting our point across? There are right and wrong ways to say things, but sometimes you just need to go out and tell someone something.
I too have been working on this. I don't want to sound like I'm putting others down, even though I might come off that way, but that's because I'm not sugar coating things. I could talk to the people that do some or all of these things one on one, but I figured that posting my thoughts on my blog would give me a better chance to organize my thoughts, and let the 3 people that read my boring site know what I'm thinking.
If I had talked to some of my friends about what I said above, some might agree. Presenting my ideas in this fashion, where many (2 or 3 would be many, right?) people can read it, might make me look like I'm preaching, but I'm not. If you have a problem with what I said, tell me. I didn't mean to offend anyone, but if I did, let me know. I needed to vent, and at the moment, the way I worded things seemed right. I should probably end now, so goodnight everyone.
Right now I'm upset at people in general. I'll start off with what just happened a couple minutes ago. I was coming back to my dorm, and I see there's a big group of people outside. A fight is being broken up by other guys, so I take the stairs on the side of the building. On the men's side of the hall, which is away from where the fight is, the doors don't open from the outside, but someone on our floor had put something to block the door from closing, allowing us to enter from the outside. I find out when I reach the top that someone took it out. I get inside another way, and find out that the guys in the fight are near the elevator. I have to take a set of stairs somewhere else, and take another set on the other side of the building, then come back to the side of my building where my room is, just to get back to my room. All the people outside were drunk or had something to drink. I wanted a giant piano to fall from the sky and land on them to make them all be quiet.
I hope no one takes this the wrong way, but to be honest, I'm upset with people I call my friends. I'm not looking for sympathy, and I'm not blaming people specifically. I try to treat each person special, and I put some effort into maintaining my friendships. I usually expect them to put some effort back into it. I understand that some don't do it as well, or that some friendships don't work out. That's fine. However, I see a constant trend with a lot of friends where they don't put much effort into being friends. Maybe it's me, I don't know. I have other friends who do simple things like say hi first on IM, try to keep a conversation going, or tell you why they can't keep one going. I appreciate things like that. There are times when you only want to talk to certain people, or don't want to talk to someone, that's fine too. But there are things that annoy me, like if I come back to my computer, and the other person says something like "yay", and then doesn't talk. It's like not talking to me when I'm at my computer is more exciting than not talking to me when I'm not at my computer. Yes, I've done that a couple times too, gotten caught up in other conversations, but there has seemed to be a rise in that sort of behavior. I also bet that if I didn't initiate any IM conversations, and let people say hi to me, I'd talk to about 10% of the people I normally talk to.
I probably sound somewhat irritated, and I am. I'm doing what people said they would after the shootings: telling people how I feel about them. That brings to mind another thing: after the shootings people said they'd tell each other how much they care about each other. I didn't see much of that, or at least not many people didn't tell me they cared about me. Either way, I wasn't surprised. The average person is afraid to say what they mean, and say it like they mean it. It's hard to tell someone how you feel about them, and the fact that we still hide our feelings tells me that most of us aren't mature enough to tell others what we feel. We're afraid of rejection, or hurting someone else's feelings. We shouldn't be offended by what others say. Our mission as Christians isn't to make everyone happy. Is it worth stretching the truth to make someone not feel bad? Do we have to sugar coat everything we say, and run the risk of not getting our point across? There are right and wrong ways to say things, but sometimes you just need to go out and tell someone something.
I too have been working on this. I don't want to sound like I'm putting others down, even though I might come off that way, but that's because I'm not sugar coating things. I could talk to the people that do some or all of these things one on one, but I figured that posting my thoughts on my blog would give me a better chance to organize my thoughts, and let the 3 people that read my boring site know what I'm thinking.
If I had talked to some of my friends about what I said above, some might agree. Presenting my ideas in this fashion, where many (2 or 3 would be many, right?) people can read it, might make me look like I'm preaching, but I'm not. If you have a problem with what I said, tell me. I didn't mean to offend anyone, but if I did, let me know. I needed to vent, and at the moment, the way I worded things seemed right. I should probably end now, so goodnight everyone.
posted by Charles Fan at
10:50 PM
3 Comments:
Ian, I have to agree with what you said. It does seem that a lot of us kind of forgot to do the same exact thing we said we were going to do after what has happened this past year. I do remember clearly all the people I talked to afterwards and how we were all going to pull together and be strong and grow closer and say how much we care for each other. I have to say, there hasn't been a similar response, in fact I can say with all honesty that there are cases when you do express how you feel and then you get a weird look or a freaky reaction or no reaction at all. It is kinda sad but I keep praying it'll work out. You hang in there man, we're here for ya!
P.s. Oh, more than 3 people read your blog Ian! It's one of the best ones around :)
By
Martin, at 8:25 PM
Well said. I'll have to think about it some. I could improve.
By
Josh K, at 11:57 PM
I agree Ive noticed what youve been talking about, its something I need to work on too.
By
Tristan, at 9:34 PM
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