Your twenty seconds are up
Let's compare… As always, usernames not changed, for purposes of ridiculing the guilty.
| lovingupassntly: | how are you? |
| me: | Quite well, thanks. |
| lovingupassntly: | this must be another name for you |
| me: | ? |
| lovingupassntly: | i imed the domestica name domesticat01 i guess |
| me: | Yes. Name squatting. |
| lovingupassntly: | name squatting? never heard that term, lol |
| me: | One is my old username from college. The other coincides with the name of my website. As I'd prefer that no one else have access to either, I keep both. |
| lovingupassntly: | i see |
| lovingupassntly: | what is quallsac from or what does it mean? |
| me: | Usernames were created from surname + first initial + middle initial. |
| lovingupassntly: | i see so your maiden name was qualls? |
| me: | Yes. I hyphenated when I married. |
| lovingupassntly: | ok how long have you been married? |
| me: | Forbidden ground there. Sorry. |
| lovingupassntly: | why forbidden? |
| me: | Because my personal life is something I discuss on my own terms. |
| lovingupassntly: | are you interested in chatting? |
| me: | It depends. It helps if you have something to say. Your nick implies a type of conversation I'm not even remotely interested in. |
| lovingupassntly: | your attitude is not something i am remotely interested in as well…have a nice day |
I have an attitude. Sigh. I wonder, should I be crushed that this random stranger decides after a few minutes' online interaction that perhaps he isn't quite lovin' me quite so passionately as his nickname implies?
Compare what was being written in the other window:
I had more trouble with the first ten minutes of the movie than I expected. I was a bit dizzy trying to get all the names and faces straight, but once that sorted itself out, I was just fine.
I was gratified by the casting and costuming. As I've gotten older I've found myself more frustrated with the Hollywood system of casting perfect-looking people in every role, no matter how obviously imperfect the character is supposed to be. (You know, Sandra Bullock syndrome**.) There's a good deal of burnished perfection in period pieces, and I have to admit that it drives me crazy.
People weren't like that. They never were, and outside of Hollywood, they never will be. The *ordinariness* of the people in the film made it a bit more real. This wasn't Cinderella waiting for a fairy godmother; this was an intelligent, shy woman who was never likely to light up a room for anyone except the one person she cared about.
While it's true that part of my reasoning in matters like this is partially that I'm a literary snob at heart, it's just that most online conversations are the most banal, ill-spelled, grammar-free uncompositions I've ever seen. I've been online for eight years; I tire of uninteresting people in approximately twenty seconds.
Someone should post a warning sign on my IM accounts: "Warning: this user has a full command of sarcasm, wit, and the English language. Send messages at your own risk."
But that would so take the fun out of it.
** Sandra Bullock syndrome: the Hollywood monstrosity perpetuated in movies like Miss Congeniality, which depict an alternate universe in which Sandra Bullock cannot get a date. Whatever.
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