I did a post not so long ago about attention seeking behavior.

I have issues with attention seeking behavior.

Serious issues. Like… it makes me want to drive a fondue fork into my eye, run shrieking thru the streets and bleed all over the person doing it; cover them in eyeball juice then smack them in the forehead.

Maybe it’s because my parents never rewarded us for behavior that was intentionally attention seeking. Maybe it’s cuz my dad worked second and third shifts most of my childhood and I got told to “shhhhh” a lot. Maybe it’s my problem, my “girl, you’re whacked, go get therapy now” mental problem. But, holy shit, that doesn’t make it any less real to me, doesn’t make it any less irksome.

I’ll even reiterate what I said in the last post on this topic.

We all seek attention sometimes. Blogging, Twitter, Facebook. Pictures in our profiles. Links to our newest posts or reviews. All of this stuff is intended to get us attention in one way or another. It’s human nature.

But.

Huge but.

There is a LINE, people. Not a line you must stand in to get your daily attention. Not a queue. But an apparently invisible line in the metaphoric sand that you just don’t cross when you’re behaving like a… I dunno… human being with at least SOME measure of social skills?

I’m blunt and brash and hardly subtle. My social skills are both good and bad.  I’m comfortable in a crowd and can make conversation easily. I can mingle.  I can be alone just as easily and sometimes act like a reclusive old mountain man.  I also like to argue and debate and I’ll blurt stuff out that I probably shouldn’t.  I’m not good at sugar coating anything.   I’m not perfect but I do okay.  I’m cool with you saying my hair looks good and I’m cool with you not noticing my hair at all.  I’m even cool with you saying you liked it better the other way or that you don’t much like it at all.

But some folks.

I just.

I.

Jesus H.

Some folks just fucking astound me with their neediness and lack of dignity in screaming for attention all the time.

I enjoy interacting with people on Twitter and forums and Facebook (for the most part) and via their blogs.  And I can’t think of a single time I felt like stabbing my eye out over what someone types in their blog – mostly because if they get all drama queen attention whore on me I can just stop reading them and, hell, it’s their blog, they can write what they want.

But when that type of behavior carries on to everywhere they post?  It makes me insane.

Honest to fuck, people, I heard you the first time you told me (and the world) you bought new kicks.  No one is going to give any larger of a shit if you post it twenty two more times.  Honest.  BELIEVE ME.

And that new tattoo is really cool.  But, yanno, we can think so without telling you so.  Seriously. Just cuz I don’t comment doesn’t mean I didn’t look and appreciate.  It probably just means I don’t have time to comment on every picture, blog post and twitter update I read all day.  And posting ten more pictures?  Separately?  It’s like watching a begging dog; possibly cute the first time, maybe even the second, but aggravating as a mother fucker when they do it every time you open a bag of chips.

And, yanno, you’re NOT going to build traffic for your site by coming across like that.  That’s NOT good marketing or networking.

Nor are you going to make actual friends.  Cuz most of us grown ups just don’t need friends in our lives who are that fucking needy.  We have family and jobs and a freaking life that doesn’t revolve around spending vast quantities of time pacifying someone else’s neediness or feeding into their drama.

I think some people just don’t have a filter in their heads that helps them distinguish one sort of behavior from another.

Like…  it’s entertaining to have someone post pictures of their dinner, course by course, if they’re eating in a fabulous place.  But it’s not so entertaining to have someone post the same picture of a butter pat in their ass cleavage – or even six different pictures of the butter in the ass cleavage – sixteen times just so someone will say “oh, my, your ass cleavage is looking lovely tonight, nice thong”

I think it’s that it comes across as desperate and grasping and desperation and grasping grosses me out.  I simply find it unattractive and icky.

I dunno, man. I’m rambling on and on and I don’t know if I’m even making sense.  Or maybe it’s just me that is bothered by this shit.  Maybe I should unfollow a bunch of people on Twitter and weed out my Facebook and FetLife friends.  Maybe I’m coming across as attention seeking by doing this ranting instead of just quietly vanishing these people from my life.  

Maybe people feel the same way about me as I do them.  ha.  Wouldn’t THAT be almost fabulous in a bizarre sort of way?

I’ll stop ranting now.  At least doing so has made the stab myself in the eye feeling go away.  And I promise not to rant about this topic again for at least six months.  Honest.