Yeah, issue is I'd dox myself

Well the trouble is that I don't really have much regard for what people consider my 'status' to be, especially if they haven't really done much to prove that they are people I ought to listen to.

Put simply, I need to know reasons why (for example), I should listen to El D's advice that I'm a poor writer, over that of say, a college professor who says that I have a talent for writing, because until he proves it so, there's absolutely no reason why I, or anyone else for that matter, should take him seriously.

Self-image isn't important to me on the internet. Its anonymous. There is no 'self' as such. Besides, isn't the 'school of hard knocks' approach a good idea? I want to attract criticism and directness.

is any of your writing hosted/viewable?

None of that matters. By hanging around, you are admitting you have nothing better to do than voluntarily interact with a peer group that doesn't respect you (almost daily!). You have to lack a certain level of self-respect to do that.

Criticism of what?

Well, your forum posts are kind of shaky. Grammatical mistakes aren't uncommon, and awkward and bloated phrasing is the norm. Some of your longer posts could be a lot more compact, and you could lead the reader from thought to thought with better pace.

Your polished material -- what your professor has seen, what you write for a living -- is probably much better, but you haven't linked to it or anything, and El D is judging what he has actually seen. If you are well-written, it doesn't really show in your posts.

@Bryce: some of your posts were drama-queenish, but the mall pictures from Kansas were awesome: funny, interesting, even perhaps poignant. You're one of us.

@Rasta: If you stop focusing on yourself and focus on what the community wants, you could be too. I think, anyway: it's not clear that you quite have Bryce's sense of the absurd.

You're just going to have to take my word for it but I really do have a very thick skin when it comes to anonymous forums.

I'm not interested in whether I'm respected or liked or not because what I wanted to achieve from the very beginning of posting on 2+2 was get the opinions of a cross-section of disinterested parties.

I'm not worried about my 'status' here. I'm don't see it as 'hanging around' with people. This isn't a social exercise for me. If someone PM'd me and asked to meet IRL then sure, I'd grab a beer with them and it would obviously change everything, but online that's just not how I see it.

I don't mean to appear smug or straw-man you here, but if you take into account all of the above, it almost seems as if you're just arguing that somehow, my feelings ought to be hurt more by people being 'mean' online.

Whilst I've received personal messages on 2+2 telling me otherwise, this idea that I'm actually not a particularly good writer and that I'm mistaken about my potential is certainly something I've been very willing to consider for a long time. If anything, its one of the main sources of my laziness (not to make any sort of an excuse), but I do slip into the 'there's-no-guarantee-of-success-so-what's-the-point-in-trying' mentality.

The trouble is (and to be fair, you have now admitted this yourself) is that many people on this forum who care to respond to my posts do dislike me on a personal level. As such it can be quite hard to identify whether their criticism is in any way constructive or just a veiled insult.

Yeah, sure, they're obviously going to gleefully pop up and say words to the effect of "Oh no! Oh no no no! I don't dislike you at all, you really are just a ****ty writer!" but you get what I mean.

Trouble is that what the 'community' wants is misrepresented by the posters who personally dislike me, who just want someone they dislike to either go away or be reduced to what they consider to be a second-class citizen on the forums.

Take the beginnings of the Sexodus thread for example. Most people on here are fairly liberal, feminist people and clearly wanted me to be proven wrong, humiliated and have my ideas utterly discredited.

So, when Anais posted a study supposedly supporting the idea of internalised, universal misogyny, and I pointed out that it was unscientific, had less than 200 participants, failed to establish a controlled study and was clearly agenda-driven it annoyed people.

(This was the one which claimed that internal misogyny caused people to show a bias towards men when looking across a range of CVs, and threw in the completely unevidenced claim that 'men lie on their CVs more than women'.)

In that example, 'giving the community what they want' would simply have consisted of not challenge his misinformation in order to let him win the debate as people were hoping he would.

Changing the subject slightly, there was an interesting discussion yesterday on the LC thread and I replied with a little insight that did indeed provoke a brief discussion/debate. It was only a short post, but it fulfilled every single standard of what I've been told qualifies as a constructive and reasonable one.

I'm sorry it seems like I'm dwelling on the cricket post but its something that pretty much conclusively justifies what I've been saying. People objected not to what I was posting, but to the fact that it was me posting it. Fabien and El D wanted me to go away and told me to piss off to the containment thread despite the fact that I was making what was demonstrably an on-topic contribution that contributed to the debate, that people responded to and that had nothing whatsoever to do with me personally.

I did everything that was asked of me. I still got the same response.

Put simply, there's nothing wrong with disliking me, but just be honest about it. Tell the mods that you dislike Rasta and that you want him to be removed because you don't like him.

Or failing that, try and hone your keyboard warrior skills to make things so unpleasant for me here that you drive me out, but don't be a little bitch and act is if you're somehow doing favours for 'the good of the forums'. Doing the latter only helps me laugh at you when you resort to the former.

Oh and...

Anything really.

At first it was my ideas about feminism, then it was my outlook on how attainable a relationship was given my situation, then it moved on to managing my mental state and overthinking, now its moved onto my overall goals in life.

Contrary to what a lot of people would like to believe, the Sexodus thread (though I have a lot to thank the contributors for), didn't provide the cookie-cutter instruction manual to finding a gf/relationship that a lot of people like to think it did. Indeed, there were even certain pieces of advice (eschewing Cialis for example), where had I followed them, I wouldn't be in the beginnings of a relationship now.

However, huge credit where its due. The thread not only convinced me that it was worth at least attempting to put myself out there, but also gave me a mish-mash of invaluable dating and texting advice that provided a great learning resource.

(Hell, I didn't even think it was worth following things up with 'Lucy' after the first date until 2+2 (and an IRL friend) convinced me otherwise. There's no way any of this would have happened without 2+2.)

Long story short, putting my **** out there attracted exactly the kind of deluge of mixed responses and advice that I was hoping for, and picking through them, identifying the better ones, mixing them up and then applying them in real life is one of the best ways of using the fantastic learning resource that an online forum (particularly this one) can be.

Honestly? I just want to continue using it as such.

Rasta,

LOL @ the idea of people in that thread supporting Anais over anyone.

You'll never escape mediocrity until you drop your persecution complex and this idea that anyone criticizing you is merely doing so because they dislike you.

Why are you writing the same whiny **** over and over again here rather than writing blog posts that can help further your life goals?

It's not about feelings. It's about interacting with others in a way that I think it's healthy to be ashamed of. The self-image angle is "I don't want to be capable of that. That's not me."

This part for your post explains it though:

(For most posters, especially the regulars, it has a social component, at least a slight one. I see that as a good thing.)

Rasta,

As to why you're not a very good writer, Rei explained it very clearly in his earlier post. But I guess he's prob wrong and just dislikes you.

Then why did you and Fabian object to my contributing to a discussion, as appropriate, in the LC thread? This isn't a whine, its a direct question for which you've so far avoided answering.

Before I begin posting and asking for advice with particular detail and specificity, I need to evaluate how qualified certain posters are to give it.

I may be what you'd call a loser, but I'm afraid I still have no tangible evidence to suggest that your advice is something I should follow.

Several (not all, but several) of your posts on the 'sexodus' thread proved to be well wide of the mark, and I was wise to ignore them.

What makes your opinion on anything worth more than the average man on the street?

Part of the problem is that you seem to believe that you're entitled to be considered an expert without having to actually show it to anyone, and that's why you mistakenly see my scepticism as arrogance or confidence, and probably why you've found comfort in immersing yourself on an online forum.

What do I have to be ashamed of? I haven't done anything to harm, hurt or insult anyone. My conscience is clear.

Nothing wrong with that whatsoever, I'm just explaining why I've viewed it differently. I came on here to have my views challenged.

Rasta,

All the questions in your post have been answered repeatedly in either this, the LC thread, or other threads you've posted in heavily.

Rasta,

How's that coming along? My guess is you haven't done anything and haven't made any posts.

Here's a challenge for you. Start a new website today, using a pseudonym. Link to it here. Write a quality post today. Make a new post every day. See if you can keep up with just that very simple goal.

If you want to be a journalist, you need to strive for much more clear, condensed writing. Just like nobody in OOT wants to read your 500-word posts, nobody on the internet is going to want to read you ramble on and on. Tighten up your writing.

So far today you've written about 1,200 words in this thread. That's enough for 2-3 posts on your politics blog. You should have no trouble making 2-3 politics blog posts a week.

Yes, you did -- for one single post, but you then immediately washed away the goodwill from that by continuing a discussion criticizing you. Rinse and repeat this one thousand times, staying well away from responding to criticism, and I guarantee you'll have a different reputation around here.

As an aside, Anais is an obvious ideologue whose opinions on misogyny etc. are highly predictable and not really taken very seriously.

Ok ok ok. Fair advice, but surely you understand that the logical extent of this is that you're telling me to essentially just sit there and take it when I'm insulted and requested to be made a second-class citizen on what you yourself argue is a social environment.

Surely you can understand why that might tick someone off slightly and provoke a response? Even if you (somehow) see a relatively polite objection to an insult as equal to the insult itself?

Its a very good point and a constructive criticism that I'd do well to take on board. Thank you kindly, I humbly accept your advice

I don't know why I enjoy posting on here so much, because you're quite right, my time should certainly be better spent elsewhere.

Rasta,

When are you going to challenge Custer to that survivor? Might be a quick and easy way to get more posting privileges.

I challenge you to reply to this post in less than 25 words.

-Saklad

No idea who he is. How did he wind up pissing people off?

If only -- ONLY -- you could do that.


ETA: And no one dislikes you. If anything, they dislike your posting style because you seem to have no idea how to fit in.

I know that the way to fit in to a forum is to have a tacit respect for those that have been there for a long time and have high post counts. I don't actually mean that as sarcastically as that might sound either, I mean its fair that established members of any community ought to command a degree of respect from newcomers.

I just think that its taken a little bit too far when I'm told to be grateful for people's insults. Especially when I haven't yet been given evidence as to why their advice ought to be so precious. Again, I don't mean that in a 'well-what's-so-special-about-you?!' type of sulky way, I mean, I just truly need to know why I should pay particular attention to the advice of someone purely by virtue of their long-term presence in the forum.

When followed, the advice of OOT has led to drastic positive changes for a number of posters who have started threads complaining about their life. Re: El Diablo, he has often offered advice that has been instrumental in helping people make these changes, and as much as he amuses himself trolling bad posters and making fun of them, he usually doesn't do this without also offering genuine and good advice.

Howard and Tyler are pretty successful people with a lot more life experience than you. To get defensive and argue with them rather than take their advice to heart is letting a valuable resource go to waste. They're both old and more respectful to other posters than most people on 2p2, so I'd be surprised if they're insulting you much, and if they are, you must have really earned it.

Rasta,

"I know that the way to fit in to a forum is to have a tacit respect for those that have been there for a long time and have high post counts."

Wrong. People not liking your posting style has approximately 0% to do with you "respecting" anyone.

OOT, as well as El D personally, has also given bad advice that I've been proven correct to sidestep. (I can give examples if you really want them). It also provides good advice, sure, which is why I came here.

However, I'm not quite sure it provides the flawless walkthrough instruction manual that you seem to think it does. Picking the correct course of action amid a swathe of sometimes conflicting advice is part of the learning process that I feel OOT offers, and is it's strong suit.

Forgive me for saying this, but your faith in the might of OOT can sound rather cultish at times. Any success is down to the advice of OOT and any failures are down to straying from the path.

Yeah they seem decent enough guys. I see their ruder comments as more impatience than actual maliciousness.

Circular argument (sorry )