MTG Salvation

...have you checked your sig lately?

Except I'm laughing at the crazy things people say to me when they decide they don't like me, I'm not whining about not being universally loved. There's a bit of a difference.

@Tekno: when he comes back about four more times within the next half-hour after I IP ban him, no.
@Saph: This is a problem I have. I mean, it's like whenever I see something like that, my first reaction is to ***** about it and complain in around 10 different places. I know that it's wrong, but I really can't resist it. I mean, the correct reaction would be to get off the computer and do something else for a while, or at least look at something funny instead of sinking myself into this ****. I honestly don't know. I think I should look for some kind of psychological help.

Quote from TeknoLink »

Also, what is mtgd?

It's a forum site he runs with a few other people. It's about Mt:G, obviously.

I think you need to seek help:) This obession you have on this is really unhealthy. You want this crap to end BUT yet bring it up every other thread now. Umm Thats actually the exact reverse of changing this.

@Listen Here Now: Thank you. That post was truly helpful.

@MikeyG: You're right.

It may benefit you to remove the "Spamming/Flaming" portion from your public profile. When those two are considered sins on the internet, it is not very advantageous to confess them to the public.

Every small bit counts.

(Tone doesn't come across well in text, so here's a preface. I have typed several versions of this post, but deleted them all. Please believe me when I say that I am trying to be genuinely helpful with the following words.)

To start, here's a quote from John Steinbeck. "No one wants advice, only corroboration." I have found this pithy line to be a great guide for introspection. Maybe it will help you too. Ask yourself: when you make posts like this, do you really want advice? As in, are you willing to take suggestions and see if your life improves? Or do you just want people to shrug and agree with you and offer platitudes? Take a moment for some real reflection on that. If it's the latter case, then the rest of this post isn't going to do you any good.

(tl;dr: think about what you're looking for when you ask for advice.)

Okay, now on to the rest of the post.

You want to know how to make your internet problems better? Stop talking about them. I think it's really great that you feel responsible for your actions and want to atone for them, but you're going about it the wrong way. When you air your grievances in public, you tick off both the people who are involved (because you've just widened the mess rather than closed it) as well as the people who don't care (because they'd rather just talk about Magic than read that stuff). When you go around trying to "repair bridges" and so on, what really happens is you remind people of stuff they'd rather put behind them. If you still have issues with people, send a PM, resolve it, and say "we cool?"

(tl;dr: keeping everything out of the public eye makes everyone happier.)

Obviously you want to have a reputation, and not as "that drama queen". Build that reputation by making quality contributions, then. Be the kind of person you want to be known as, rather than constantly telling everyone how you don't want to be recognized. People who have never heard of you will form their first impressions accordingly.

(tl;dr: act positively toward your future self, not negatively toward your past.)

Along this same line: you seem to want to be on the fast-track to the in-crowd. After all, they all get to make jokes and spam and insult each other and no one calls them on it because they're all such good buddies, right? Well, when you try to insert yourself into that crowd by engaging in that same discourse, it seems forced and insincere and more than a little off-putting. Imagine walking up to a group of guys you don't know and giving one of them a friendly punch on the arm. That's not going to work at all. If you want to earn your way into someone's friendship, it takes time. See my previous paragraph for a tip on how to get there.

(tl;dr: stop trying too hard to be one of the cool kids.)

I remember being 14, all tormented and emotional. I'm sure a lot of other posters here do too. The real-world circumstances differ, and some people definitely had it better (or worse) than you do now, but everyone has at some level gone through a similar time in their life. Having completed it, it's easy to look back and laugh at how ridiculous it all was. It's even easier to do the same to others.

(tl;dr: some people are amused by/make fun of/are annoyed by you because you remind them of themselves.)

I can't tell you anything about how to fix your family or your school or your life in the real world. Sometimes stuff gets way out of control and all you can do is ride it out, miserable as it gets. I'm sure plenty of people have told you "life gets better". It does, but you don't notice until you're able to look back. Until then, I recommend keeping your personal life separate from your hobbies.

(tld;dr: deal with it.)

This is the Internet. People supposedly get to act how they want but doesn't mean I support it, but I say this:

As with most things on the Internet, you shouldn't take them personally. Unless someone is really putting a death threat or something on you. Aside from that unlikely extreme, most people don't care (or shouldn't) too much about what happens on said Internet. This goes for forums as well.

Provided people care about some things that are on the internet, obviously. But I don't think they would care too much about hating on a teenager more than the next teenager.

Also, what Mikey said is true. Don't dwell on it so much. That'll just make people dislike you more than they already do. Focus on someting positive (like mtg ) than something negative.

Edit: And if they're still insulting you and such after you've gotten by it, then that's they're on fault/waste of time; just ignore it.

I mean, this just hits me really hard. I suppose I really couldn't expect anything beyond this; after all I "Trolled PBG". Yeah, well, you know what? I didn't recognize that until later, and then I tried to make amends. What more do you people want from me? Is it the spam? Notice: I have not been spamming lately. Is it the fact that my poetry sucks? Notice: I know. Thank you. Is it the fact that I asked to be banned? Notice:...
Yeah, okay, I can't talk my way out of that corner. But you get what I mean, right? It's kind of sad how much energy some of you are putting into making my life even more of a hell as it already is! For god's sake! My parents are divorced, my mom and I are struggling to scrape by, and pretty much the only thing I can really do in my free time is surfing the forums.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't pour my life's story out like that. I just feel like my trust has been broken, you know? I had this feeling when I got here "Oh, what a nice site". I had my mind changed. Then, when I returned, I had that feeling again, because I had missed this place.
But my trust is broken. MTGS may have some really great people ('Rax, AoK, Les, Sakura, Alacar, to name a few), but I really can't shake the feeling that me being accepted is something that will never happen here. Oh well. I would love to put some kind of last words here, but I really don't have the mental stamina to do so. This takes it out of me.

Oh wow. Please stop. You're every melodramatic teenager cliche rolled up into one blog post.

I'm going to be honest, I didn't really know about you until recently. I was vaguely aware of your situation here and the problems, but I didn't really get what was going on. Now I do.

Have any advice?

Yeah, stop making such a public show of everything. Be cool, Sodapop. People are a lot less likely to treat you like an over-dramatic social outcast if you stop going on about it. Contribute to discussions. Stop worrying about how many people you think hate you and worry about putting an end to behavior that got you in this mess. Be patient. The social order will find a new pariah to pick over eventually.

Have any advice? I AM a pariah. Seriously. If there was a poll, "Who is the most hated user of MTGS", I would come about ten votes below spambots! So what do I do, huh? How do I address the problem? I have no idea.

Actually, that's probably a good topic for Real Life Issues.

Why don't you spend less time crying and a bit more time actually trying to address the problem? Constantly posting about how much people don't like you, how you're a social pariah and just just can't do anything right really doesn't help your situation. It'll probably just make people sour on you.

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