Posted by Thierry
...I've been reading this recent thread on jul and I have very mixed feelings about it. In a way, I was there. More or less. I lurked around Acmlmboards back in the day, once when I was a kid and once again when I discovered Kafuka. Yet reading this I can't help but feel a massive rush of "missed out on a golden era".
But what really got me was this:Posted by Xkeeper
whether you fit in or not is always up to you, but the one thing i feel about that matter is that i don't want this place to actively push someone away or make people uncomfortable. if someone doesn't feel like they fit, that's fine and expected; some people and places are just incompatible.
Some place and some people. That's the norm.
What troubles me is that I don't fit anywhere. I never have. And I don't know what to do at this point, besides ranting...
I'm gonna be real honest with you - you didn't miss shit. All it stemmed down to was a place to circulate and post like crazy because we were bored as hell between high school or college semesters. The reality is that forums in general have very much been eclipsed by Discord and social media in general, in that respect.
I used to be staff on that place as well as its predecessor, before Xkeeper ever took up the mantle of administration business, and while there were a lot of things I learned and a lot of people I appreciate from it...it ended up boiling down to drama a lot of other things that I don't want in my life. I'm very much reserved in terms of a person so straining myself to make a whole bunch of people happy when I had my life to contend with and jobs to pay didn't really do much for me. I'm just glad I got my terrible 20's done there and IRC because I learned quite a bit from it - who my friends really are.
That's the problem with most places in general - after a while they grow old and out of style. Happens in a lot of places. People change and so do their interests and what they have the free time for. As such, you should never expect any one place to be around forever. You're much better off searching out individuals to share your life with rather than a single community or two.
Granted, I'm not saying don't seek out communities - far from it; it helps generate who you want to talk to and finding friends but don't think for a second that you have to belong to any community either. You can come and go as you please. This isn't a job. People's thoughts about you shouldn't influence that and you should find the confidence to come and go and do with your life as you please. I think the farther removed from college and high school I got, the better I felt, in that respect. I'm close to 40 now and I wonder why I ever wasted the time worry about others negative feelings about me in that respect.
If you're really stumped on where to turn, look at your interests and your hobbies. Find people that like said interests and hobbies and that have low drama thresholds. You'll probably be happy with what you get.
