What is wrong with me?

[dougo]

Last week, aroraborealis hosted her annual LJ Confessional where people were encouraged to post their confessions, anonymously or not. There were a fair number of Post Secret-style deep dark secrets, but many of them were about crushes (it being the week before Valentine's Day). After I posted a comment on someone else's confession, someone anonymously commented that I was hot. It was flattering, of course, but it made me realize that I was actually more interested in getting negative comments than positive ones. (That was the only one I got either way.) It may just be my natural pessimism that makes me believe negative opinions more than positive ones, but mostly I feel I can learn more from criticism than from compliments. I always want to improve myself (I may not always be capable of it, but I always want to), and learning about a perceived fault of mine gives me more actionable information than a perceived strength.

So with that in mind, I am hereby inviting you all to say something negative about me here, anonymously or not (IP logging is off, as always). Constructive criticism would be preferred, but if you just want to insult me, go for it—as long as you really mean it! If you can't think of something to criticize, tell me something about myself that I might not know. If for some reason you don't want to broadcast your complaint, you can email me at dougorleans@gmail.com, perhaps using an anonymous remailer or something (just make sure it doesn't look like spam).

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

For someone who is inspiringly brilliant (in my opinion), you have no drive to know people other than your immediate circle. And... yes... you don't treat others back when you have been treated reasonably well. Either you are oblivious to it, lazy, or simply don't care.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Thank you, this is more the sort of response I was hoping to get. I would like to be gracious and just say, "you know, you're right, I'll work on that" and stop there. But I'm not really sure what it is you've seen me do that would make you draw these conclusions. I like meeting new people, and I often try to strike up conversations with people I meet at parties (though I am introverted and sometimes too shy to approach people). And there are quite a lot of people I've met whom I'd really like to know better, but I haven't figured out how without being too forward or nosy. On the other hand, it's true that there are a few people I've met whom I would prefer to keep some distance from, because they make me uncomfortable or we just seem to have incompatible personalities, but honestly this is a pretty small set.

As for not treating others back, I'm sure there are times when I'm oblivious to being treated well (or just absent-minded and forget to return the favor), and I apologize for that. But there have also been times when someone does something for me thinking they're being generous, but it only makes me uncomfortable, so I choose not to return the favor so as not to encourage more uncomfortableness. I realize this may not be the best way to handle the situation, but I think of it as the other side of the Golden Rule: don't treat others better than you want them to treat you. And, again, this is a pretty rare situation.

Regardless, thank you for making me think about this, and I will keep it in mind.