You know what I mean, right? You’re out in your car or on foot or in bed, anywhere but ensconced in front of your computer, and you’re thinking, for, like the seventh time, “Oh yeah, I should totally post about that to the Straight Dope”.
And you keep forgetting, that would be Type A forgetting where you just don’t think about making the post that you’ve been thinking of when you weren’t at the computer.
But then there’s the more frustrating Type B forgetting, where your’e finally remembering that there’s this post that you want to make to the Dope and yeah you’re actually at the computer. And…um what was it, that post, umm… smackface
Happens to me all the time. Three that happen most often are “commercials I hate” ,“misheard lyrics”, and “things you discover in a creative work after seeing it for the millionth time”.
I also think of new thread topics that seem great at the time and then when I remember them, I can’t quite recall what I wanted to say that seemed so interesting.
And then there is 'I really need to get around to responding in that thread. I can see where this person got that misconception. I think. But I need to find one or two good cites to go with it. Last time I had this discussion I used that cite but the link is broken now. I’ll get back to it later . . .
write the thing in my head six times over the next week while doing something else . . .
come back and realize what I wrote in my head doesn’t address x . . .
go on a netwalk looking for the right cite, find a good one too late at night to compose anything . . .
realize it’s been two weeks since anybody posted to the thread and do I really want to get back into it?
Since I’m so full of anecdotes and bursting with TMI about crap that happens to me, I can’t say I have this problem exactly.
I do think of things while otherwise occupied. I often revisit them several times before I’m actually online and it’s in my head, at the same time.
For me it’s more… I have something I want to say or ask, but then it just doesn’t come off right or all I can think of is all the ways someone is going to take it wrong. It sounds too stupid or whiny or passive-aggressive or arrogant or I find that the anecdote needs too much background before it makes sense and it ends up being long and rambling and losing the point.
So it’s not so much a lot of forgotten replies or threads as a lot of aborted ones.
I even listed three of them here and then deleted them . They don’t really come off any better in brief summary than they do in full post form.
Y’all should be down on your knees thanking Allah, Bhudda, AhuruMazda… and leeettle naked baby Jeebie… that I don’t post all that stuff that I’m just SURE you’d LOVE to hear about.
You’d be bored to death, and the mods would immediately start rationing the number of consonants that a poster can use each day.
. They don’t really come off any better in brief summary than they do in full post form.