On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 6:12 AM, Brolin Empey <bro...@brolin.be> wrote:
> Hello list, > > Like most of the members of this list (AFAICT from the first names I > recognise as sex/gender-specific), I am male. I am 22 and still live with > my parents. I have never lived away from my parents. I am planning to hire > a support worker to help me live away from my parents (I have another > meeting later today) because I continue to indefinitely defer trying to live > away from my parents. I named my form of procrastination “priority > inversion” because what is, in practical terms, my lowest priority, becomes > my highest priority. For example, I choose to spend my free time playing > with my computers, including my FreeRunner, instead of learning about human > biology and/or nutrition, which will affect me every day of my life, and at > least trying to live away from my parents. When I say I play with my > computers, I do not mean gaming: I almost never play games anymore. Even > when I decide I want to play a game again, I spend all of my time reading > about games, viewing screenshots and videos, and trying to decide which of > the endless games I should play (or rather, obtain if I do not already have > a copy and make work on my PC) instead of actually playing a game. I feel > like I am always overwhelmed and/or overloaded with information and > stimulation in the Too Much Information Age. I always feel like the NET > Effect is that there is Never Enough Time because time flies faster than > ever because I am always overthinking, overwhelmed with overchoice, etc. I > recognise my mind is a word and pattern recognition engine, which is > constantly adding new stimulations/experiences to its database. I have > Asperger’s Syndrome, but can function much better, at least in terms of > interacting with people in person, than when I was in high school, for > example. I used to often feel like I had social anxiety disorder because I > would get so anxious and/or worried even when calling someone on the phone > (on my parents’s landline because I did not have a cell phone until 2008) > that I could not speak clearly enough for the person on the other end to > understand me, so I would always have to repeat myself at least once for > every turn of the conversation. I am a purist and have been called the most > pedantic person in the world by Jamie Zawinski, of Lucid Emacs/XEmacs and > Netscape/Mozilla fame. :) Imprecise usage and redundancy bothers me even if > know what is meant from the context. For example, I am bothered by people > mentioning a “standard” transmission in a vehicle (it is a manual > transmission. Standard depends on the vehicle. Automatic is standard for > some vehicles.), calling an LCD monitor (a flat *panel*) a “flat screen” > (high-end CRTs have flat glass too!), common redundancies, such as PIN > number, ATM machine, LCD display, people who assume all cars use crappy > gasoline engines and use fuel-specific terms, such as gas station (it is a > service station), gas tank (it is a fuel tank), gas pedal (it is an > accellerator), gas pump (I have used a diesel pump at Shell that told me to > “select octane” instead of “select ctane” (sp?) or “select fuel grade”. My > car has a diesel, not gasoline, engine. I have been highly influenced by my > father, Brian Empey. Brian is a Professional Engineer (Electrical > Engineering). He founded Technical Solutions Inc. (Techsol) in 1996 with > his second wife (my step-mom), Karen Empey (nee Schellenberg). Techsol is > an embedded computer hardware company specialising in Linux on ARM > architecture. I am very fortunate to be able to work at Techsol. I am a > Linux + Windows System Administrator/Web master/IT person/general computer > person. I think my responsibiles are more important than my title(s). I > know I am very dependent on my parents, but at least I own my own car (which > I bought from my dad), have a Class 7 driver’s licence (the Novice stage of > the Graduated Licensing Program in British Columbia, Canada. I live in the > Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada), my own credit union account, > debit (Interac) card, MasterCard credit card, personal cheques > (*not*checks!), which I almost never use (I think I have written a total of 3 > cheques in my life), cell phones (Nokia 6103b + FreeRunner), PayPal account, > domain names (brolin.be + others), Virtual Private Server (VPS), which > hosts my personal Web site, PCs and peripherals, far too many original/boxed > PC games, which I almost never play anymore, bicycle, ... I am definitely a > relatively rich/wealthy person in Canada and extremely wealthy compared to > less fortunate people in both developed and developing countries. I know I > should not complain because I am very fortunate; I know my life could > always be *much* worse, even if I lack much first-hand experience of how > much worse it could be. > > Anyway, enough rambling. I need to finally address the Subject of this > message (I hope at least 1 person actually read this far!). How/where can I > meet a female companion *in person* with similar interests and > personality? Someone who can appreciate my word associations, puns, sexual > innuendo, jokes, purism, etc.? Someone who can relate to and understand the > computer humour in xkcd comics (I do not understand a lot of the math used > in xkcd, but I still know relatively more about math than non-technical > people because of my interest in computing and computer programming), > someone who analyses everything as much as I do, someone who is interested > by books such as *Consciousness Explained* by Daniel C. Dennet, (personal) > computing history, computer art scenes such as the demoscene, The Scene > (warez groups, etc. even though I no longer use much unlicensed software > because I prefer to support Free Software projects instead of using > unlicensed proprietary software), computer music (module music, chiptunes). > > I have a tendency to isolate myself from face-to-face contact with my > peers, even though I know meeting people requires being in the same place as > them. I have few friends (well, at least peers) I know in person. I choose > to spend most of my free time at home, either alone or with my parents, > instead of trying to meet new people in person. I am too shy and > self-conscious in public. > > Can anyone relate to me? What should I do? I know I have volunteered a > lot of personal information in this post, but much of it is already publicly > accessible for those who know my real/legal name and know how to use tools > such as Google Search. I have been considering writing a post like this for > months (maybe already >1 year), but I ended up stopping writing early > because I felt uncomfortable about volunteering so much personal > information. What do I have to lose, though? I need to stop being so > self-conscious. > > Why are most of the peers with whom I can relate well male? Do females > have the same problem? Are there even any females reading this? :) > > Thank you for reading this far! > > Brolin :) > > PS: As you can probably tell, I prefer to write properly (with correct > grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalisation, typographical quotation > marks and em dashes instead of ASCII typewriter quotation marks and ASCII > approximations of em dashes, etc.), even in informal contexts and for SMS. > I also prefer to say SMS instead of “text message”, but you could probably > have guessed that from my previous examples of my purism. I also prefer > logical, simple, and unambiguous ISO 8601 (e.g., today is 2009-09-10 13:37 > ;)) international standard date and time notation, especially instead of the > illogical 12h time notation, which many people insist on using in fuzzy > and/or ambiguous ways, such as “quarter to one” instead of “12:45” (24h). I > know HH:MM (00:00 – 23:59) can be interpreted as ambiguous 12h when the hour > is <= 12, but I do not like to use HHMM (without the separator (the colon)) > because I prefer to separate the components of the time of day. I > originally used an ASCII minus character (‘-’) as a range separator, but I > decided I should use gucharmap to copy and paste a proper en dash because > otherwise I would be hypocritical for using proper em dashes but using an > ASCII approximation instead of a proper en dash because I am too lazy to use > gucharmap. (fail) > > PPS: As you may have noticed, I use the same convention as the C > programming language for usage of single and double quotation marks. C uses > only ASCII characters, though; I use both ASCII and Unicode (yes, I know > Unicode includes ASCII) for e.g., typographical quotation marks and dashes. > > PPPS: I also highly prefer communities such as this mailing list, where > posters use their real/legal names and are consequently accountable for > their actions (messages) and write properly instead of e.g., Web bulletin > boards frequented by the ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), “tl; dr” (“too > long; didn’t read”) crowd, most of whom use nicknames instead of their > real/legal names. > > -- > Sometimes I forget how to do small talk: <http://xkcd.com/222/> > > “If you have to ask why, you’re not a member of the intended audience.” — > Bob Zimbinski, <http://webpages.mr.net/bobz/ttyquake/> > > Seriously ... Brolin - good luck in your quest ... its a hard road and being in my third marriage I know. Don't be disheartened and you will find someone one day. Some things are - the harder you seek - the harder it is to find. Now! ... this is totally offtopic for this list and I am tempted to put a filter in place. Time to give this topic up in this list! Dave > _______________________________________________ > Openmoko community mailing list > community@lists.openmoko.org > http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community > >
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