Hello, my name is June.
No, I’m not a newbie. In fact, I’ve been an on-and-off lurker since 1999. I remember the days when Wally was still alive and Scylla was writing about Evil Nazi Groundhogs.
I was registered under a different name (which I will allow to die a safe, anonymous death), but I didn’t post more than 100 times in all my years as a member of the Straight Dope, and consequently, I was never very well-known. I left for a spell when the board went to paid subscriptions; to be honest, I didn’t think the scheme would work.
Call me a deserter if you like, but I was very happy to find the board thriving when I stumbled on it a few weeks ago. I’ve decided to put my money where my heart is and become a charter member. I’m going to try to make it worth my $14.95 – considering my long history as a lurker, I’m probably going to have difficulty posting more than once every couple of days. It’s not that I can’t write or I don’t have anything interesting to say, it’s just that I enjoy reading much more than I enjoy writing, and I also have somewhat of posting phobia that I’m sure some of you are familiar with.
During my other incarnation, I would often compose several intelligent, well-written posts a day, but I’d spend so much time editing and rewording them that I’d gradually begin to lose confidence in the thesis behind the original post – so much so that I’d rarely reach the point where I was confident enough to hit the “submit” button. Instead I would simply give up (and berate myself for wasting time writing something that nobody would ever read).
What was I afraid of? Several things, I suppose. Making grammatical and spelling errors. Not sounding smart enough. Being ignored or worse – ridiculed. Saying something embarrassing that I’d regret later.
In short, I was guilty of thinking too much, and I want to avoid that this time around. In recent years, life has given me some much-needed self-confidence, and I have enough faith in myself to realize that, if I have interesting ideas/observations which I feel compelled to share with other intelligent people, chances are, at least some of them will share that interest. And even if I do post something stupid or embarrassing, so what? Even the most valued posters on this board have committed such crimes on occasion.
So welcome me! I will try my hardest to be a credit to this board.
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