Well, I'm always open and humble whenever I receive PMs asking for opinions or advice. I've given out a little bit, but as a few members can attest here (Strangelove), I'm almost pestering with my own PMs and questions, asking for advice.
Now, (And the following is meant in no offense. Read all the way through for an explanation, please.) I can, in complete honesty, say that I have NEVER, in all my times on this forum, sent a PM asking someone for advice. (That sentence had a lot less commas when I first imagined it...)
That is a result of two things, both rather personal, but things I will elaborate on nonetheless to avoid confusion on the matter. The first of these two things stems from my immediate family and the way I was raised. It would be, for me, shameful to ask someone for help when I know I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself. True, asking for help is, well, helpful, but for me it brings more of a mortifying embarrassment than anything else. I was also taught, (This by my grandparents.) that it is very disrespectful to start a conversation or especially to ask for help from someone you don't know very well. Obviously, such a relationship would be a hard thing to accomplish over the internet, so to that extent I've never even bothered.
The second reason, (And the more applicable, to be honest.) is that I have a certain disorder. Essentially, this makes me an uber-obsessive perfectionist, and asking for someone's help with my work would be like insulting myself. It's not easy to understand, I know, but that's just the way I am. Combined with the fact that I'm really a very shy person, always afraid of insulting or disrespecting someone, and you have a rather crippling condition.
Anyway, all that aside, I'm almost
painfully aware that I often come across as cold and distant to those who don't know me. My rather blunt style of writing, and the harshness of some of my reviews do nothing but support that belief, so it's rather rare that I get messages from people. I have noticed that I've been getting quite a lot recently though. Most likely, in my belief, due to my participation both here and in the pinned thread at the top. I've had to empty my inbox three times in the past month, actually.
But now I'm getting off the point. My original intention was to say that people really do need to talk more. There needs to be more of a sense of community, you know? An off-topic thread is unlikely to be allowed, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't talk to each other. So, in the furtherance of that, if anyone reading this needs aid with something they're writing, or wants to speak of something to me, feel free to PM me. I'd say add me on MSN, but I've heard there's been some trouble with that recently.
In any case, I'm off to sleep now. I'm really tired, and this entire post was written on a sleep deprived brain. (Thus all the parenthesis.)
» Sat Mar 27, 2010 10:40 am 
