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theferrettI'm usually fairly meme-allergic, since a series of random questions ("What's your favorite Spice girl?") tells me next to nothing about you. This one, however, requires a little more digging, and since I'm feeling low-content today, I figured "why not?"
Day One: Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.
Day Two: Nine things about yourself.
Day Three: Eight ways to win your heart.
Day Four: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.
Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever)
Day Seven: Four turn-offs.
Day Eight: Three turn-ons.
Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day Ten: One confession.
1) I'm not quite sure why you defriended me on LJ. I assume you had your reasons for not wanting to read me any more, and it would be kind of weird to email you and go, "What did I do?", but I'd thought we were friends. I've looked at what I wrote on that day five or six times, and I can't see anything that would have infuriated you, but I'm still left with a continual feeling that I screwed up.
2) I know it's always rough after a breakup, and I think you're putting on a more positive face than you feel sometimes - but I also think the core truth of a lot of breakups is that you feel better because you don't have to live under the shadow of all that fear any more. And I'm watching you grow now that you're in the sunlight again, and I'm really proud of you.
3) I wish I'd spoken to you on the phone more. Now you're gone, and there's not much I can do about that.
4) I wish I hadn't frozen. I know, the deadlines for the project were tight anyway, and it would have been tricky in the time we had, but at some point I just got paralyzed by my own fear of looking stupid - I really hate self-promotion - and then I just let everything slide and didn't follow up the way I should have. Now I feel so dumb I can barely talk to you. Which is silly, but there it is.
5) On one level, I wish you wrote more emails to me. I miss you, and I always feel like I never get enough of you via text. On the other level, if you did write back to me all the time, I'd spend a lot of time replying, and then I'd probably be the slacker here. So it kind of works out.
6) You'd told me we were never really friends. Actually, I was your friend right up until you told me that. I often wonder how many other people you've lost that way.
7) I see all the other people critiquing your stories, and I know that at one point I was one of them. Then that stopped. I know that critiques are a deeply personal experience, and there are people in my own crit groups whose opinions I overlook because they're not understanding of what I'm trying to do with my tales. Still, it feels a little weird not to be asked any more, and I wish I was stronger that it didn't feel like a personal failure that I'm no longer in your critting circle. Or that it didn't feel like I'm sitting on the far side of the lunch table, watching the cool kids laugh and play.
8) Look, I like you in the brief time we've known each other. But you're dating a friend of mine, and if you break up then we have very little in common. So friending you on Facebook sounds good on one level, but on another level it could lead to a weird atrophied relationship five years from now. So I'm conflicted.
9) You are my writing hero, having labored so long for so many years without a scrap of positive reinforcement. Yet you don't know who I am, and as a busy guy you don't have time to know who I am, so I just feel ridiculously fanboyish when I see you online.
10) Every time, you're like, "You don't know who I am, but..." I do know who you are. You comment regularly enough that I have a sense of you, and what nobody ever gets is that I pay enough attention to my journal that I know a disproportionate amount of the people who talk to me. I have a good memory for things like that, because you matter. So stop implying you're nobody, and let me tell you that you're a somebody.
Day One: Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.
Day Two: Nine things about yourself.
Day Three: Eight ways to win your heart.
Day Four: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.
Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever)
Day Seven: Four turn-offs.
Day Eight: Three turn-ons.
Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day Ten: One confession.
1) I'm not quite sure why you defriended me on LJ. I assume you had your reasons for not wanting to read me any more, and it would be kind of weird to email you and go, "What did I do?", but I'd thought we were friends. I've looked at what I wrote on that day five or six times, and I can't see anything that would have infuriated you, but I'm still left with a continual feeling that I screwed up.
2) I know it's always rough after a breakup, and I think you're putting on a more positive face than you feel sometimes - but I also think the core truth of a lot of breakups is that you feel better because you don't have to live under the shadow of all that fear any more. And I'm watching you grow now that you're in the sunlight again, and I'm really proud of you.
3) I wish I'd spoken to you on the phone more. Now you're gone, and there's not much I can do about that.
4) I wish I hadn't frozen. I know, the deadlines for the project were tight anyway, and it would have been tricky in the time we had, but at some point I just got paralyzed by my own fear of looking stupid - I really hate self-promotion - and then I just let everything slide and didn't follow up the way I should have. Now I feel so dumb I can barely talk to you. Which is silly, but there it is.
5) On one level, I wish you wrote more emails to me. I miss you, and I always feel like I never get enough of you via text. On the other level, if you did write back to me all the time, I'd spend a lot of time replying, and then I'd probably be the slacker here. So it kind of works out.
6) You'd told me we were never really friends. Actually, I was your friend right up until you told me that. I often wonder how many other people you've lost that way.
7) I see all the other people critiquing your stories, and I know that at one point I was one of them. Then that stopped. I know that critiques are a deeply personal experience, and there are people in my own crit groups whose opinions I overlook because they're not understanding of what I'm trying to do with my tales. Still, it feels a little weird not to be asked any more, and I wish I was stronger that it didn't feel like a personal failure that I'm no longer in your critting circle. Or that it didn't feel like I'm sitting on the far side of the lunch table, watching the cool kids laugh and play.
8) Look, I like you in the brief time we've known each other. But you're dating a friend of mine, and if you break up then we have very little in common. So friending you on Facebook sounds good on one level, but on another level it could lead to a weird atrophied relationship five years from now. So I'm conflicted.
9) You are my writing hero, having labored so long for so many years without a scrap of positive reinforcement. Yet you don't know who I am, and as a busy guy you don't have time to know who I am, so I just feel ridiculously fanboyish when I see you online.
10) Every time, you're like, "You don't know who I am, but..." I do know who you are. You comment regularly enough that I have a sense of you, and what nobody ever gets is that I pay enough attention to my journal that I know a disproportionate amount of the people who talk to me. I have a good memory for things like that, because you matter. So stop implying you're nobody, and let me tell you that you're a somebody.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 10:21 pm (UTC)Unexplained endings frustrate and haunt me. I don't know why some people stop talking to me or emailing me. But I've always figured it would be pointless to ask--they may not even tell me the truth, or it may be something I refuse to fix or change.