Lets see, Diablo II FINALLY comes out, I’ve been playing it a lot in the last few days so I havent been in chat, and ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE! <sigh> “Tune in tomorrow for the next chapter of “As the MB Turns” and find out that Silo is Vix’s long lost twin brother, who married Anth and drove her to women!” Let’s see here.
Techie,
You know I love ya babe, and I find what you are doing with Silo to be admirable. I myself am actually trying to bring Oscar along, so I understand. You meet someone, for some reason there is a connection, and you try to help them reach their potential. It is very easy to get personaly wrapped up in their growing pains and struggles as they learn to be an adult. That being said, I think Anth has a point. Step back for just a bit to get some perspective. You have invested a great deal of emotional resourses in this cause, and I would venture to guess that your bullshit avoidence mechanism, the thing that lets you shrug and turn away from little things, is running on empty. A few days, a week, away from all this crap will do you a world of good. Take a long weekend with your friend the webmaster, you’ll feel a lot better. Silo will manage on his own. In fact, he’ll grow from it. Sometimes the baby birds just gotta be pushed out to fly on their own.
Silo,
Man, if you only know how much I identify with you. When I was 21,( 12 years ago, yikes! ) I was much like you. It is possible to take an obnoxious personality, one that uses a lot of double entendents ( sp? ) and make it work IRL. Doing so depends on the intangeables of human interaction, and these are sadly missing on the net. Strangely enough, word on the street is that you are kinda shy IRL. Maybe you see this as a place where you can just let loose and “be yourself” more. The unfortunate thing is that the part of yourself that you have given free reign to here is not an effective online persona. Like TC, from what I know of you, you can be a very nice kid. Unfortunately, a lot of time you seem to speak without thinking first, and thus impress some people as a person with diarrea of the mouth and constipation of the brain. What I see from you is often bravado. Bravado is the poor cousin of pride. It’s pride that dosen’t really believe in itself. Here’s a piece of advice. DON’T try too hard to impress people. STOP trying to by funny, witty and suave. BE yourself. I know it’s a risk. If people don’t like the real you, what are you left with? Trust me on this one. People will like you if you stop trying to impress them.
Doob,
Hey! I thought you were only out in chat. I see you are here too.( unless I missed it before )Congratulations. Now, I have no idea of the predujidces that you must face every day, and would not presume to tell you how to handle people reacting badly to your orientation. I was not in chat, and I missed the conversation. That being said, based only on the info given in this thread, perhaps Silo ment something else. I can see how he MAY have simply been saying that he is uncomfortable with homosexuals who are militant about it IRL. Accepting someones lifestyle and warding off a pass can be different things. For myself, when it has happened, I just shrug it off, make clear, in a polite way, that I am flattered, but not personaly interested. I then walk away knowing I have met someone with a fetish for ugly men. 
I realize that dealing with the predjudices that you face everyday, it can be easy to be sensitive, but I am only suggesting that possibly you read more than was intended into a simple statement. I don’t know, I’m just giving food for thought.
The Movie Star and the rest,
I have a suggestion. Think about this. How hard is it to ignore someone in chat? You can block messages on ICQ and, I believe, AIM. Refuse any dss chat requests in the room, and skip general messages in the room. I sometimes have a hard enough time following all the people talking in chat when I want to. IF Silo, or Urge or anyone says something outta line, either ignore it, or take a moment to say, nicely, that you thought it was in poor taste and perhapse why. I am willing to bet that 9 times outta 10, the offending person will apologise and state that he/she didn’t mean to be offensive. The upside is also that this person (hopefully) will learn from the exchange. We all benefit from that as the OL expierence becomes better. In my own life, I once said something that was so vile, so offensive, that I still feel deep shame over it ten years later. I realized immediately that what I had said was flat out evil, and apologised profusely, but that experience has tempered my tongue since then, and I am a better person for it.
Finally, Vix and anyone else who is not willing to give Silo et al another chance,
I understand. I have a suggestion here too. Why not, privately, agree between the two of you to ignore each other. If you are both in chat, DO NOT address each other, no PMs, no nothing. Just avoid the friction by avoiding each other, but let the rest of us enjoy the interaction with those we chose to. I am not condeming any of you IN ANY WAY, for feeling that way, just suggestion that y’all let it lie in the name of benifiting the peaceful nature of chat.
And that’s that. Now if y’all will excuse me, I gotta go negotiate peace in a small African country.
Cheers!
Dave
