Socially Maladjusted People

Journal Schezar's Journal: Socially Maladjusted People 2

Journal by Schezar on Thursday June 12, 2003 @02:45PM

Something interesting happened today.

Under a story about gamers, I posted an anecdote about someone I knew (of) in college. It was somewhat exaggerated, and written more to be funny than to prove a point. The gist of it was that this guy, whom I dubbed "Loser" in the post, was addicted to Asheron's Call. I wanted to get some laughs, and I seemed to have (+5 Funny and all).

But then, an Anonymous Coward replied with this. If you follow that thread, you'll find a rather interesting exchange. It appears that "Loser" read and responded to my post. In sum, he seemed to blame me for not reaching out, as opposed to himself for not doing the same. He was "shy," so it was apparantly my duty to engage him.

One quotation in particular interested me. At least the people playing took the time to say hello once and a while.... unlike somone else who was actually there and couldn't be bothered to even say hello to another human in the same room not 6 feet away.! So indeed, he actually found the social interactions of the game to be better than those of the real world.

What bothers me is the second part of that statement. This man is angry that other people can't be bothered to seek him out. No mention of the possibility that those people likely saw no reason to do so, just a wide swath anger directed toward the world-at-large. It's their fault he doesn't have friends.

This attitute seems very prevalent among the various stripes of social misfits. They seethe in silent anger, yet never consider the fact that they may indeed have a problem, that there might be a reason people don't reach out to them. Perhaps they don't make eye contact, or they smell, or they're rude, or they're genuinly uninteresting to talk to. Or perhaps they just sit there, waiting. Waiting for someone to "save" them, to befriend them and magically whisk them away into the social world they've never known.

That saviour is never coming.

Now, I could write at length about this issue, or even this specific case, but I won't. These are mere symptoms of a larger problem. You see, this man and all the other socially maladjusted people in the world had to have come from somewhere. What could possibly make someone so shy, or so boring, or so socially inept, that they end up this way? Bad parenting? Video games? Drugs? Poor schooling?

Large numbers of people are entering the world, fresh out of high school, with little or no social skill. They aren't integrating into the culture of their species. It's somewhat frightening. Quite frankly, I'm not sure what to do about it.

If you have any doubt, and you happen to live near Rochester NY, stop by RIT's campus some weekend and take a walk through the dorms. Or stop by one of the large clubs for a meeting. You'll see a good number of funny, interesting people interacting and having fun (myself included). But, you'll also see a large number of outcasts either sitting quietly by themselves or attempting (and failing) to interact with the more social groups. In the dorms specifically, you'll come across closed dorm-room doors and sounds of Counterstrike through the wood... and nothing else.

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