Re: Socializing
Yeah, I remember when chat rooms came into existence. I never got into the AOL ones, but I did try my hand at Accessible Chat back when that was still a thing. My dad walked in on me interacting with that one night, and you'd think he caught me viewing child porn or something. I was grounded for at least a month. Granted, I was 12, and some of the stuff people were saying was somewhat inappropriate, but to this day, whenever someone comes near my computer, I reflexively minimize whatever it is that I'm doing so that they don't see it, no matter how innocent the thing is. I don't exactly regret this, however, because it's made me a lot more wary of things like social media than most people of my generation. Like, I don't think it's OK that my niece was allowed to use an IPad starting from the time she was 2, thank you very much, and it sickens me that most kids of school age are waving around the latest generation of smartphones like they're the holy fucking grail. The only reason I got a cell phone in high school, and I stress that this phone was nothing to write home about, considering it wasn't even a flip phone, just one of those old flat Nokias with no accessibility features to speak of, was because I went to live at the school for the blind I went to, and my parents wanted a way to keep in contact with me which wouldn't incur long distance charges. That was in 2005. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that, had it not been for that circumstance, I wouldn't have been allowed to have a cell phone during my high school years. If I ever had a kid, and keep in mind that this is purely hypothetical since I never plan to, and want to take permanent measures to make sure that can't happen if I ever get into a serious relationship again, I wouldn't allow them to have a cell phone until high school, and even then, I'd tell them they would have a flip phone, if they still existed at that time. This is one of many reasons why I would be a terrible parent, because I'm selfish, and believe that I was bullied because of things I couldn't control, i.e. my lack of sight, and if they're going to get made fun of because they don't have the latest and greatest phone, well, I'm sorry, but I have zero sympathy for that. The truth is, though, that what would really happen is that little Johnny would come home crying because he didn't have the latest $2000 Iphone, and I would have to seriously restrain my rage so that I didn't go after the kids responsible and beat them into submission. Not because I really think Johnny should have the latest Iphone, but because I never got closure for incidents that happened in my childhood, and thinking of them floods me with so much anger that I can't think straight a lot of the time. Protecting my child would be dangerous, in other words, and I know better than to ever put myself, or anyone involved, in such a situation. Luckily for me, and any future bullies or assholes, there's only one person in this world who I view as the love of my life, and ever since he decided to move onto what he considers better things, I've never once considered being with someone else, so it's probably a moot point.
-- Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
