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But one tires of hearing only themselves speak or of talking just to make sure they still can. Now if you've been in this place in the cosmos tell me you have never picked up the telephone just to make sure the dial tone is still there. You know the difference between alone and loneliness right? Oh, everyone says they do and alone is fine but to be lonely isn't. At some point in this self-imposed journey the two do become one and human contact (as no pets are allowed in my apartment) actually begins to creep onto the list of secret desires you keep hidden from view. But after weighing the risk involved as opposed to the not so obvious benefits, if you are askew to begin with, you would hold off just a bit more. Well, I did that but eventually the "No Man is an Island" cliché clicked in. Funny how those clichés seem to be based in some shrouded truth isn't it? So after exploring all my options, wrestling with all my demons and consuming vast amounts of anchovy pizzas I came upon a solution relevant to the style of today. The Internet and all it's charms. The key to a world not available in REAL life (or IRL as we net freaks have learned to call it). Where else can one go and be whatever they choose, do whatever they want and meet as more people than humanly possible with limited cash resources? So I got myself connected to the internet and away I went, off on my journey of exploration and font contact. Ok, so a font isn't a real person but it's about as close as I dared to venture at the time. Now I will not go into a long diatribe as to the merits or foibles of the net but I will say it is a lot easier to meet people and strike up a conversation when all you see is your reflection staring back at you in a monitor. You can be anything you want on the net if you choose to do so but one of my downfalls is honesty so I chose to be me. Sounds simple right? After surfing the net and finding about 99% trash I took to exploring chatrooms. NO, please don't jump to THAT conclusion, ok? I was looking for font contact but I was not interested in becoming a "self made" man at this point. At least not unless it meant oodles of riches for me. Having no riches cast upon me, I kept honest to myself and began the chat room buzz. And what did I find right off the bat? Well, for one, I used my real first name as my handle or nickname so people would have something to call me when they were typing obnoxious vindictives directed towards me. And I found that using my real first name yielded the very same first impression block of granite attitudes I had experienced in real life. Drop into a room and say hello and see how many people don't take notice. The name wasn't flashy enough and didn't catch their eye. Hello wasn't witty enough to draw attention to myself and not posting a picture of me with rippled abs and slicked back hair meant I was just a blip on the screen. After a few weeks of being pretty much ignored or shunned I decided to experiment a little. Being somewhat of a logical being I knew that I needed to control as many variables as I could to make the test valid. I remembered back to when I was in the Air Force with only two stripes. I was an Airman 1st Class, low life, 2nd class citizen until the day I got promoted to three stripes, sergeant, wonder boy. I had been in personnel the day before I sewed my third stripe on my putrid green uniform and been treated like I had leprosy or had dragged some foul odor in with me that permeated the air and made everyone wince. I spent two hours sitting and waiting for someone to help me with my little problem but no one bothered to say or do anything other than direct me to my seat. I left, came back the next day with that third strip, approached the very same person that shunned me the day before and got a smile, hello and a "What can I help you with today, sir?" response. Coincidence you say? No because there in the corner sitting in the chair I used the day before was a forlorned Airman 1st class, low life, 2nd class citizen waiting to be shunned for two hours. I snickered and went about my business feeling full of myself of course. The only change was a strip on my sleeve. A symbol of my standing in the food chain yet it made a difference in perceptions. I used that remembrance to temper my experiment. I selected a new handle and changed nothing else. I entered the rooms in the same fashion as before, said "hello" as before and didn't offer a picture to go with my name just as I hadn't done before. So I must have picked a really provocative new handle right? I had changed from a one syllable first name, I.E. Tom (I'm not divulging my real first name anymore because no one seemed to care), to Locutus. That was the one and only change. Needless to say I soon found out perceptions changed. People who had never even acknowledged my existence began to say hello and not just hello but complete sentences of greeting. Their opening remarks became an indicator of what they thought my personality was just because of my handle. And, before I forget, I got more than my share of first time messages from ladies who used the line, "Resistance is futile... You will be assimilated", as if I would forget that right? So I had become someone or something they perceived me to be. I replied like I had always done before and yet people who had bothered to speak to me under my old handle didn't recognize it was me any longer. I was someone else to them. Someone more exciting, more interesting than the old me could ever be in their monitors. That first surface impression again. That block of granite cast under a different light brings different images to the same stone. And all because I changed my name. Lesson learned, people. Real life has been much different since I learned the game. So what is in a name? Really? |