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a word of warning: this is a long and long-winded post, in part due to the complex subject matter i am using this blog as a rubber ducky to figure out for ourselves. if you have no personal interest in us you have a get out of jail free card to skip this one. also we use singular and plural first person pronouns throughout, in case it gets confusing.
a few days ago i pledged to, every single day, either make one post or one git commit on lesbiaboard. this was a resolve that had a lot of buildup to it. bear with me while i try to explain it
i have always been out of place, since the earliest i can remember. with the exception of a changing very small circle i am intimate with (currently, the two other people in our polycule), i have yet to feel like i've fit in somewhere, including my attempts at building my own communities, which in hindsight have been in part misguided.
away from keyboard, during what should have been my formative years, i have always been subjected to groups of people either outside my age group, wealth group or both. this had the intense othering effect of never being in the loop of any subject, and often mistreated as an outsider when these people were less than kind (as human kids are often said to be). i wouldn't have something generally considered a friendship until well into what would be generally considered adult age
this had, in turn, the effect of pushing me to explore the information superhighway, at first simply as a means to fill in the understimulating world away from the keyboard, but soon making me realize it could connect me to others in a way that i otherwise couldn't. there are many reasons this could be, there are plenty of articles outlining the common trope of social outcasts flocking to the internet, but that's besides my point
being thrust online as my first and only means of socialization was arguably harmful as it led to kinds of aggressions both towards and from me that don't need to be elaborated upon. miscommunication stemming from the internet being an inherently and oppressively english-first space while i still had a rudimentary grasp on this language was also less than helpful. many of those unkind situations continue to live in my circuits replaying themselves every now and then as the remorse keeps me from recharging at night
it didn't take me long to realize how my resulting stunted emotional maturity affected myself and others, but it is still an ongoing project to this day for us to grow from it and compensate for it. we have burned plenty of bridges in the process navigating double-speak and others' ulterior motives.
social media has so far seemingly irreparably modded how my circuits think about socializing. there is a constant fire hose of individuals who you are urged to see as equals, parasocials, yet have a much stronger social reach than you. this might be because of an engorged follower count resulting in statistically more replies but also because of people who already had ties outside of the platform using it as their living room to talk to each other and when compared to the silence you get, it makes you feel like you have no friends
since at least 2013, when i got sexually harassed off of then the last space online i frequented daily (with the website's owner's endorsement, encouragement and contribution), i've been trying to create my own communities to fill the void of not being accepted in any existing ones. (fun fact, that was the year the computerfairi.es domain was purchased, which used to host a telnet bbs before becoming a mastodon instance in april 2017). i have yet to find any perceived success in this as few (if any) people use the spaces i create as their main community.
many people have argued against me that i should stop viewing this sort of engagement and participation as "success" and instead to focus only on making things for myself. for several years i have been pushed down by the rhetoric that i shouldn't be expecting anyone to ever even know about anything i ever make or do and be content to live in agonizing silence. as a being that painfully, incandescently feels the need for social connection and feedback, this is a bewildering way to view the world, especially when presented with people who on average get to receive more than zero messages in their inbox every single day.
we've handled that driving need badly in the past. we've demanded attention from people who were happy to pronounce themselves friends in public but who wouldn't give us the time of day in private, causing commotion and strife. there are many things i could've done better and most of them i don't fully regret. but i do want to improve my condition going forward.
websites suck today. connecting with others sucks today, at least for me. i'm sure others will tell me it's just a skill issue. but personally, i want to do things to improve this. and i figured the best thing i could do right now to do my part is to put my metaphorical money where my allegorical mouth is and be the engagement and activity i keep asking of others. i will work or post on lesbiaboard every single day (or, at least, the closest to at least one post/commit per 24 hour period i can reasonably achieve) regardless of external factors. and maybe doing that would've been obvious to other people, people who consider themselves more normal than me, but like i pointed out, my circuits got messed up somewhere along the way and just rationalizing about it logically doesn't equate emotional let alone concrete change.
if there's any take away that i want someone reading this post to have is that you should engage with what people make. tell an artist if you like their work, or thank someone for developing a tool you found useful. connect with people in a way more meaningful than mindlessly pushing a button that's shaped like a star or a heart. break away from that jail that you trap yourself in with the lame excuse that you don't know what you would say and just say anything.
i'm not used to writing this much about anything, least of all such vulnerable personal subjects, so i apologize for meandering and maybe not making a lot of points. in a way, i guess i finally made something that was entirely self-serving and not necessarily for anyone else to directly engage with as a main purpose. if you made it this far, thank you.
and if you're wondering where i'm at after writing this entire post, please refer to this post by twistcmyk.