#other wise i would sober up and delete them before they got posted & their would be no blog

[systemblr]

stimboards can be too much for me. i need a ‘family vacation to the bahamas’ style powerpoint of pictures of my hyperfixation accompanied by smooth jazz.

[taeguboi]

BTS as... Punks

So hahahahaha idk why it posted my extremely incomplete draft earlier (bug with the app?) So consider that now deleted post as a preview hahaha

Requested: “BTS as Punks please!”

RM

activist

anything that's for a good cause

he's behind it

probably makes his own charity

for something close to his heart

and puts on punk events a few times a week

music

poetry

all kinds of food stalls

suitable for everyone’s dietary needs

the occasional street protest

quite laid back though

but the things he has done have had a huge impact on people’s lives

he feeds the poor at his music events

he takes in donations from people to aid the homeless

basically against those unfair imbalances you get in society

he wants to be in a punk band 

but at the same time it isn’t really for him

so sometimes he just grabs a guitar 

and busks with improvised lyrics 

things that are on his mind

things about the world at present

and the things the talks and posts about to people inspire writers of bands

kind of like a journalist

he knows everyone on the local punk scne

he’s been involved ever since he was a kid

smokes a fair amount like

“cool mate, cool beans... right, I’m just off out for a fag”

not many piercings as you might expect

like mostly his ears

and a few intimate areas...

always has colourful punk hair

probably a low key mohawk

several meaningful tattoos

because his family is everything

so is this one person in his life

some drunken tattoos also hahaha

couple of face tatts

always a gentleman to girls

if there’s a creep on the scene 

just tell him

that guy will be exposed 

and gone for good from this local punk scene

and beyond as far as his contacts can take him

he just wants a safe scene

will fend for anyone though really

has a local watering hole

go down to that pub on any afternoon 

and there’s 90% chance he is there

mostly just for the people

maybe buys only 2 drinks the whole time usually

but if he gets drunk

get your notepad and pen

he’s gonna throw 196489 contacts your way

so if your band are ever in need of a gig

you know who to call

Jin

at first, doing punk music is merely a hobby

but then it turns into something more

his pleasure in busking turns into a passion

a dream to make it with a band

so he gets together the best people he knows

and they fucking rock

no one can say a bad thing about Jin’s punk band

they rehearsed diligently for so long

so they sound so tight

he rocks the denim jacket

with all the patches

some badges too

a ton of badges are on his bag though instead

and stickers on his guitar case

a fan of every band he performs with

his guitar case is choc a bloc with local band stickers

so he doesn’t have a mohawk

but his bangs progressively get messier

occasionally he dyes them [example, like V’s green bangs in hyyh era]

he changes loads in little ways

like you leave school and he’s this ‘ordinary’ lad

but then you bump into him like 7 years later 

and wtf he’s stunning

like his aura changed

you thought maybe he’d go into like a business job

but he’s rocking the stage most nights a week

you can’t help but go support him more

and maybe something happens from there but that can be a story for another time

and so maybe he doesn’t get BIG with this band

but he earns a sustainable income

and that’s more than good enough

life is good

music, booze and girls

no drugs tho

wise in that sense, contrary to some punk stereotypes

kind of fluffy actually

some say he’s a poser

but he just likes to look good

and is aware how certain rougher looks just really don’t suit him

so that’s all there is to that 

actually that’s all there is to this

the end :P

Suga

probably a performer too

maybe more into the dub / ska kind of genre

full of stage presence and hype

when he has a message

he fucking gets it across

because he’s so assertive

as well as those catchy melodies

just messy af hair

doesn’t care for it to be any particular length or style

just keep it natural

in fact, fuck visuals

no dress sense whatsoever

like he has a green shirt on with pink jeans and yellow converse

sound is all that matters

so what else?

solitary

like he could be backed up by a band

but fuck that

if he has the equipment that can do it all then why not?

it’s easier to work alone

so he supports like 876 charity events

and has a big share of festivals

headline material

especially at the proper hippie festivals

great for people high af

great for drunkards

great for sober peeps too

you get it, great for everyone

apart from perhaps kids 

cos swearing

sometimes you need that bit of aggression in lyrics, right?

he’s not as aggressive as he might seem on stage

but something is pent up in there

and he is one rough boy

actually, a lot like badboy!suga

can handle anything

but can you handle him?

J-Hope

idk why I always imagine him as a skater

but here we go

in a skate punk band

bass player

can also do drums tho

backwards caps for life

that one band member you think is shy af

cos he seems so quiet

but the moment you say ‘hey’ and congratulate him on a good show

he can talk your ear off for hours

again no drugs

but plenty of beer

cos getting drunk is funnier

the world is a more enjoyable place with skate punk and alcohol

seriously it really is, take that from me hahah

graffiti projects

either for promotion

or to help like restless kids as a distraction or something

let’s just say that’s something he can relate to

may or may not be how he got into this whole skate punk stuff

so yeah will take any charity gig

doesn’t mind if venues pay him in beer

he would have spent the dollar on that anyways

all about living it up with his mates

bros before hoes

has a side band that’s like party punk

any excuse to get bros together

for a good old knees up

only bands of his close friends get played in the car

girls are quite interested in him

but lmao he’s having none of it

he just wants to embrace life

don’t need anything more than mates and family

but he writes really cool songs on the topic of love

you know without being too soppy with it being punk and all

but it’s fucking amazing

but no one knows where he gets the ideas from

no one knows where he gets his energy from either 

will jump off everything and anything

on certain days, he’ll climb everything and anything too

just a fun loving cool punk

Jimin

more or less that one guy you see everywhere on the scene

he’s not in a band

doesn’t really do his own music

but he’s a fan of his scene

every weekend, he’s somewhere to see punk music

be it the local pub for one of his faves

or a town centre for a punk charity thing

or even miles away to see someone he knows getting bigger

leather

with a few patches

piercings

all the ear piercings you could imagine

lips and tongue

used to have an eyebrow one

but decided he looked too generic

or like a chav

something or other

he knows he doesn’t have the most original look

but he can’t stand being too similar to someone else

if anyone in this room tonight is wearing a leather jacket and completely black clothing

he might just tear it off himself and / or burn it

abs and tatts are a good look anyone so doesn’t matter

probably works out to punk music

high school drop out

because he started to realize how useless it is

so he’s generally clever where it’s more relevant in life

saves money well

good paying job

can fund his love for punk basically

and each and every band he supports fully appreciates it

I’m sorry guys I swear there isn’t a not fluffy Jimin gif for me to use hahaha

V

so yeah I’m sorry if this turns out too similar to

badboy!V

because I literally made him a punk in that hc

I’m thinking he’s a lead singer of a punk band

that raspy voice works to his advantage

capable of hardcore punk genres

but prefers and sticks to a more rock n roll kind of punk

long hair

whatever colour he feels like this month

piercings galore

tatts galore

will put a needle anywhere on his body

lives on the edge

lives in the moment

yolo

arrests

protests

he’s done it all

cos fuck the law man

if something about society bothers him

he will speak up

fearless boy

will get his band a gig anywhere in the country

he has things he needs to say

thoughts to spread

only uses social media for punk

his profile is just of gig pictures of his own and sharing events

not your typical singer

kind of writes everything

the band just copy / pick up what he shows them

busks alone sometimes too

may or may not make extra dollar from sneaky acoustic gigs

but it’s not out of selfishness, no

he will always have a goal in mind

and good intentions

like he wants to band to afford professional recordings

or he wants to set up and event

that kind of thing

pay attention

to the things he talks about in his music

you’ll learn a lot

Jungkook

drummer

just needs to hit something

so as long as it isn’t people then great

basically the world screwed him over in some way at some point

and it made him rethink his views about the world

for ages it was restless frustration about it all

but then he discovered punk

the day he discovered his local scene

he wrote random poetry for days

the words had flow to them

but they were unconventional

and then a mate sees it

and he’s like “dude this is sick”

and a band is formed

likes a bit of everything

has friends he can go to the skate park with

has mates to mosh with at hardcore gigs

has friends he can chill with for ska

quite a late learner with the drums

but he must have a natural talent for it

because he becomes amazing in just under 2 years

can do any genre of punk

everyone wants him in their new projects

he’s the guy everyone needs if their guy quits

you know, the demand for Jungkook’s drumming is insance

fortunately he’s wise enough to just stick with the first 3 bands

cos like I say not only does he drum for them

but his creative input for lyrics is huge

just sit him down, give him a topic and bam

he’s just written you a verse and chorus

what else?

50% backwards caps

25% forwards cap

25% lost his cap

somewhat forgetful in areas other than drumming

maybe a bit of a stoner like

“oh yeah man! I forgot about that!

the way his cap is on does often depend on level of alcohol in his blood

forwards for business

backwards for sloshed party animal

breaks a lot of drum sticks by accident

breaks a few hearts by accident welp

I guess girls and guys just notice the muscle 

which he never hides well

cos of course as a drummer, you’re gonna wear a vest really

yeah, that’s pretty much it

[mustafa-el-fats]

in: Featured, Heading Out On Your Own, Money & Career, Networking, Professional Skills

Brett & Kate McKay • August 9, 2012 • Last updated: September 23, 2020

Managing Your Online Reputation

This article series is now available as a professionally formatted, distraction free paperback or ebook to read offline at your leisure.

All the basic life skills we’ve covered so far in this series have been things that your dad, and even your granddad, had to learn when he left home for the first time too.

But today’s young man faces a new challenge that Pops never encountered: managing his online reputation.

Despite the nascent nature of this skill, I truly believe it’s one of the most important things we’ll talk about in this series. As the line between the offline and online world gets increasingly blurry, your online reputation is your reputation. Before you meet your freshman roommate, before you pick up a date, before you shake the hand of a potential employer…you better believe they’ve already Googled you, already formed a first, first impression about you, your interests, and what kind of person you are. Thus, if you’re not careful and conscious about the content you create online, you can end up shooting yourself in the foot in all areas of your life.

Heading Out on Your Own…And Into a Fishbowl World

Leaving for college or another kind of adventure after high school has long been an exciting and heady time. It’s an age where you’re experimenting with ideas and values, testing new freedoms, meeting new people, and often changing your mind about who you are and what you want out of life. One week you feel one way, and the next you feel another. During this process you often make mistakes, and do bone-headed things that twenty years later will still make you wonder, “What was I thinking?”

Just a decade ago, only you, and a few of your closest friends, would have held the memory of those crazy and sometimes cringe-worthy moments. The only record of them could be found by digging up a private photo album or journal.

Today…it’s a whole new ball game.

Now, everything you do and say can potentially become part of your permanent and public record. Everybody’s got a smartphone and can snap a picture of you anywhere, anytime and post it online. And things that go up online about you and from you can remain there forever. Mistakes you made when you were just 19 can haunt you for the rest of your life. Being a young man used to mean you could entirely reinvent yourself by moving to a new place and making new friends, but now your online reputation will follow you wherever you go.

I don’t mean to sound all doom and gloom about it. But that’s the sobering reality of living in the Internet Age, and it doesn’t help to bury one’s head in the sand and try to whatever that reality away. It absolutely doesn’t mean that college can’t still be the fun, spontaneous experience it’s always been; it just means you need to take a conscious, proactive approach to taking responsibility for what parts of that experience end up online and in the public eye.

Why Is Proactively Managing Your Online Reputation So Important?

One of the greatest things about the internet is that it is a giant pot that people can both add to and take from. This puts the most enormous wealth of knowledge in human history right at our fingertips and provides an endless amount of inspiration that can be added onto and “remixed.”

The downside of the big internet pot, is that the moment you put something into the pot, you pretty much lose all control over it. Many viral embarrassments have started out as something someone just wanted to share with a few good friends. But those friends shared it with their friends, who shared it with their friends…on and on until it ended up on Tosh.O.

There are essentially no guaranteed take backs when it comes to what you put online. You can erase your Facebook status, blog post, comment, tweet, or video, but someone else may very well have already shared it, copied it, taken a screenshot of it, or downloaded the video and reposted it somewhere else. How websites looked on a certain date in time are captured and archived on sites like the WayBack Machine (take a look at AoM circa 2008!). Emails that you thought you deleted forever can still sometimes be retrieved, and just because you deleted an email doesn’t mean the person you sent it to didn’t archive it. If someone else wants to post something of yours, you may not be able to get them to take it down without suing.

All of which is to say, pretty every piece of digital content you create can potentially exist forever. And this digital record can be accessed by any of the 250 million internet users in the US, not to mention the 2 billion online all over the world.

What’s on that record can have a big impact on both your personal and professional life.

Your college’s admissions office may have Googled you when they looked over your application. As soon as your freshman roommate knew you’d be bunking with him, he Googled you. When you network with someone at a party and tell them about your great idea, they’ll Google you later. And 81% of singles say they Google or check the Facebook page of someone before meeting him or her for a date.

Even though only 7% of Americans think their online reputation influences hiring decisions, in reality, 75% of US companies have made an online screening a formal part of the hiring process, 85% of recruiters and HR professionals say that having a positive online reputation influences their hiring decisions, and 70% of recruiters say they have rejected candidates based on something they found about them online. And since those numbers come from a study done in 2009, they’re undoubtedly even higher now.

What kinds of online discoveries cause recruiters and HR personnel to push your resume to the trash? This chart shows the most common red flags employers look for:

As you can see, it’s not just content you create that employers are checking out, it’s stuff your friends and colleagues post too. Be careful who you associate with.

Some young folks may be tempted to respond by saying, “Well, if a company is going to reject me for posting pictures of my drunken revelry, I wouldn’t want to work for them anyway.” But that’s pretty short-sighted. I’d venture to say that these companies aren’t rejecting candidates so much because they like to drink or swear, but rather that their willingness to show off these behaviors publicly shows a lack of judgment and wisdom. Not at all an unreasonable assumption.

The information that new friends and potential employers can find about you online may not even be true. Some people will try to verify it, some will not. And what they see will often come without any context – maybe you were being funny, maybe it’s an inside joke, but they won’t know that, they’ll simply make immediate judgments about what they find. This is why when it comes to managing your online reputation, you must be both proactive and defensive — deleting anything inappropriate,  wisely choosing the digital content you create, and purposefully creating positive content about yourself.

Self-Reflect Before You Self-Reveal

“Young people in particular often self-reveal before they self-reflect. There is no eraser button today for youthful indiscretion.” –James Steyer

There are some practical ways to manage your online reputation, and we’ll get to them in a moment. But the first step in taking responsibility for your online presence is creating a mindset for how you want to approach your online life.

Matt Ivester, the author of lol..OMG! (despite the silly-sounding title, this is actually a great book, with solid advice from the guy who learned about online reputation management firsthand from his misadventures in founding Juicycampus.com), suggests three questions to ask yourself before you put something online:

1. Why are you doing this?

Why? This is the most important question of all, and one that unfortunately usually goes unasked and uncontemplated.

Today’s colleges are welcoming the first “digital natives:” they’ve never known a time when the internet wasn’t a huge part of their lives. And even for those who are old enough to have used encyclopedias for elementary-school research papers, interacting and participating online has become so ubiquitous that it’s hard to imagine that life was ever any other way. This is just how things are, and we do what everyone else is doing, so much so that we hardly ever ask why we are doing those things.  Once we do start asking why, the answers are surprisingly hard to come up with and articulate.

Why do you update your status or share a link on Facebook? Do you want to share news? Are you bored? Do you want to be thought clever? Are you trying to make someone else jealous? Do you want to see if people feel the same way as you? Why?

Why do you care how many likes or upvotes something you submit on Facebook or Reddit gets? Is it confirmation that you shared something with value? Why?

Why do you leave comments on blog posts? Do you want the author of the blog to know that you appreciated the article? Do you think you have the insight to add that might help another reader? Do you want the author to know how and why they are wrong? Why? What do you hope to accomplish? Do you think it will change their mind? Is it because the psychological angst you feel when you think someone is wrong needs to be discharged? Why?

Why do you participate in online forums? Does it provide a feeling of camaraderie? Do you like to hear others’ opinions? Why do you respond when you think those opinions are wrong? Why do you care what a stranger thinks about you? Why?

When you ponder the why behind creating any kind of online content, from a status update to a YouTube video, you may come up with a reason that you find satisfactory and worthwhile. Or you may find that your motivation is hard to make sense of and decide it’s not worth your time. Either way, by asking why, you’ll become what Ivester calls “a conscious creator of content.”

2. Is now the right time?

The internet creates a perfect storm for impulse control: at the same time that it actively solicits impulsive communication and make satisfying those impulses incredibly easy, it makes taking back the results of those impulses incredibly difficult; it’s easy to hit “send” or “submit,” and quite hard to un-send and un-submit something.

Facebook asks, “What’s on your mind?” while Twitter wants to know “What’s happening?” They owe their existence to people’s desire to share their thoughts, videos, and photographs – and they need to be constantly fed to survive and grow and make money. And blogs (including ours) want to engage readers and build community and so ask for comments. The internet is set up to encourage you to share whatever thought crosses your mind, and taking that thought from your cranium to the walls and screens of the digital world only takes a few clicks.

But just because you can share your thoughts on impulse doesn’t mean you should. Not only because you probably haven’t thought through the why behind wanting to share first, but because strong impulses are usually born from strong emotions: anger, depression, and grief, or from chemically-altered states (like being drunk). When you spout off and share personal feelings while emotional or trashed, you will likely come to regret it once those strong emotions fade or you sober up.

The best thing to do when you feel you’re dealing with an impulse to put something online that you might regret later, is just to sit on it. The internet creates a false sense of immediacy, giving you an overwhelming feeling that you have to respond now. But what you’ll find is that something that felt super urgent and mega important to say in the moment, will seem totally pointless when you wake up the next morning.

One method I use to thwart impulsive responses is to imagine myself living before the internet. If I feel a burning urge to tell the author of an article what a chucklehead he is, I think of reading a magazine in the 80s, and how I would have had no outlet to express my opinion about it besides writing up a letter to the editor or talking to my wife or close friends about it. Or if something annoys me and I want to rant about it on Facebook, I think of a time before Facebook when I would have had no choice but to keep my rant to myself. It makes me realize that just as sharing whatever crosses your mind wasn’t necessary then, it’s not necessary now. The fine-folks of the 80s, while they made some questionable fashion-choices, weren’t any less happy than we are now that we’re able to shout what we’re feeling and thinking to everyone 24/7.

3. How controversial do you want to be?

The younger generation  (including those my age) was raised with a lot of rhetoric about how special and unique they are, how important it is to be “authentic,” and that it’s good to be “transparent.” This can lead folks to throw caution to wind about what they share online because, “I’m just trying to be me! And if other people don’t like it, they can bite me!”

But just because you can now display your opinions and personality to a greater number of people than ever before, doesn’t mean you should, or that the more you share, the more authentic you are. Going back to my suggestion of thinking about life before the internet, people used to only be able to share their quirks with a close circle of family and friends, and they weren’t any less themselves than we are (actually they were probably more themselves since they didn’t get instant feedback on all of their quirks).

Examining the meaning of authenticity isn’t within the purview of this post (although it will be a future series), but suffice it to say for now that the ideal for many of the great men of the past was not transparency, but sprezzatura – only revealing themselves to others slowly as a relationship of trust developed. You may want to “be yourself” by trumpeting your religious, social, and political beliefs online every chance you get, but if those meme’s you keep flooding Facebook with is the only thing new acquaintances know about you, they may decide they don’t want to get to know you before they even do — they’ll miss the complexity of your character that would have shown through over time…that you’re both a liberal and a rabid gun owner, or a fervent Christian and a scientist, or a zealous vegetarian and a Marine.

The three questions above can go a long way to helping you judiciously choose what and what not to post online. A final question to consider is what the general public might think of the content if for some reason what you post went viral or you were suddenly thrust into national prominence. Would it embarrass your family? What impression would a stranger have of it? You and your friends might think it’s funny, but would others find it offensive? You never know who’s going to see your post, what’s going to be dug up on you later, and who might be looking at your phone.

How to Manage Your Online Reputation

Managing your online reputation involves both deleting content you don’t want out there and creating content you do. Follow the steps below that Ivester and others have suggested, and complete each step right after you read it. This is the kind of thing that’s easy to put off indefinitely. Do it now.

1. Google yourself.

Before you can know what actions to take to manage your online reputation, you need to know what’s already out there. To do this, first deactivate Google’s customized search – when you typically do a Google search, the results Google brings up are based on things like your location, what you’ve clicked on before, and things your friends like. But you want to see what would come up if someone else searched for you. Here’s how to take off the customized search feature.

If you have a common name like “Rob Smith,” then search for your name with a qualifier like, “Rob Smith St. Louis,” or “Rob Smith Tulane University.”

After you look at Google’s results for you, check out other search engines like Bing and Yahoo as well.

When you look at the results that come up for your name, try to imagine what conclusions someone might reach about you if they had no other context for that content, and knew nothing else about you.

2. Try to remove content that you don’t want showing up in search results anymore.

After you do a search for yourself, it’s time to try to delete things that showed up that you’d rather not have out there anymore. Maybe you signed up for an internet forum with your real name. Maybe you left a comment on a blog post under your real name. Maybe you wrote a review or a blog post that you now feel is too controversial. Some of these things you can delete yourself.

If you can’t delete something yourself, like a blog post comment on another person’s blog, then try to contact the owner of the site to see if they will remove it for you. They may or may not, but the nicer you are about it, the greater the chance of them helping you, so make your request as civil and appreciative as possible.

If you can’t find the contact information for the site owner, try the site WHOis. Website registrars are required to publish the contact information for the person who registered the domain. Oftentimes when you look up a site on WHOis, you’ll find that the owner has decided to keep their direct contact information private and have instead given a proxy email address. Either way, your email will end up in the same place.

Understand that even if you’re successful at removing the offending content from a site, it may take a few days or even weeks before it’s reflected in search engine results. Also, understand that the offending item really hasn’t “gone away.” There’s a chance that it has been archived on the WayBack Machine. Remember, what’s put on the internet stays on the internet forever.

Moving forward, be extremely judicious when using your real name online.

3. Proactively create a positive first impression online.

Your best bet in managing your online reputation is proactively creating positive content about yourself that pushes the bad stuff off of the first few pages of search engines. Set up accounts with large social networking sites that typically rank high on Google and other search engines. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+ profiles are often on the first page when you look up someone’s name. Set up accounts with them and post stuff that you’d be proud to have your name associated with.

The best thing you can do to ensure positive stuff associated with your name is at the top of search results is to start a blog and update it regularly. If you can, try to secure a domain name with your given name for your blog. What should you write about on your blog? You can publish your resume (redacting phone numbers and addresses, of course), write posts sharing insights in an expertise you might have, or use it to create a portfolio of your work if you’re a freelancer. Whatever it is, make sure it’s stuff you want associated with your name.

Cross-link your blog and all your social networking profiles together: put your link to Facebook and Twitter on your blog, a link to your LinkedIn profile and blog on your Facebook account, and so on.

Even if you don’t plan on using Twitter or Google+ or even putting anything on your blog, it doesn’t hurt to have your name registered with those accounts and domain. You don’t want some Joe Schmo mucking up your good name with a bunch of crazy online antics.

4. Adjust privacy settings on Facebook and clean up your Facebook Profile.

To ensure that potential employers or love interests only see the best of you when they look you up on Facebook, make the following adjustments:

First, take a look at how your profile page looks to the public. If you see any information visible that you don’t want strangers to see, make a note of it.

To change what’s visible on your profile page, click “About.”

Click “Edit” on the next page.  On each segment select “Friends” if you don’t want anybody who’s not your FB friend to see a particular piece of information. For networking reasons, I’ve left my job and school information visible to the public.

Visit the Facebook Privacy Settings page and adjust all your privacy settings so only your friends can see photos and status updates you make.

On the privacy settings page, update what your friends can share about you under “Timeline and Tagging.” Enable the ability to review and approve posts or photos that you are tagged in before they’re published on your Timeline. You can also disable Facebook’s tag suggestion when your friends upload photos that look like you. You don’t want your name tagged in an unflattering photo or post.

While you’re on the privacy settings page, limit who can see posts from the past. Even if you used to post everything publicly, this will retroactively make those posts private.

Review the photos that you’re tagged in and untag yourself from any unflattering photos. While you’re at it, you might ask your friend to remove the photo if it’s something you don’t want out there. Even if you’re not tagged in the pic, it could come back to haunt you.

Leave groups and unlike pages that may be seen as controversial…or just dumb. At least set the privacy settings on them so only your FB friends can see the pages you like.  how.

5. Be more conscious of what you share and whom you share it with on Facebook.

Ask the three questions we covered above before posting something on Facebook. That will save you a lot of grief.

Also, take into account if what you’re about to share is appropriate and relevant to ALL your Facebook friends. You don’t need to share your weekend plans with your old boss and former professors. In real life, you adjust what you talk about depending on your company — do the same on Facebook. Create lists on Facebook for close family/friends, acquaintances, professional colleagues, people that are the same religion as you, people you enjoy talking politics with, etc. Before posting something, ask yourself if this is something all your friends would be interested in or is better for a specific list of your friends. And even if you’re only posting for a list of close friends, still keep in mind what others would think if that status or photo got shared with people outside the list. It could happen.

6. Create strong passwords for your accounts.

If the recent story of tech writer Mat Honan’s online life being completely demolished by hackers doesn’t motivate you to strengthen your online security, then I don’t know what will. Create strong passwords for all your accounts and change them every six months. A strong password is at least 8 characters long and includes at least one special character (&!#) and both upper and lower case letters. Your passwords shouldn’t be the same for all your accounts. To manage all your passwords, use an app like LastPass.

To reduce the chance of getting hacked, enable two step authentication. Here’s how to do it on Google (if you use Gmail) and Facebook.

7. Use passwords on your laptop and mobile devices. 

An unattended laptop or mobile device provides a devilish opportunity for friends or random strangers to mess with your online life. I know several people who had to do a lot of scrambling to recover from an offensive tweet sent from an unattended iPhone by a mischievous friend. Avoid that. Enable password protection on all your mobile devices.

8. Set up a Google Alert for your name. 

Keep your finger on the pulse of what’s said about you on the web by setting up a Google Alert for yor name.  Just enter your name as a search query and Google Alert will email you a digest once a week (or daily if you want) of all the new content that’s hit the web with your name in it.

Conclusion

The internet is an amazing educational, social, and networking tool — you just need to use it wisely. Using it too little can be just as damaging to your personal and professional life as using it too much. Be a “conscious content creator” and use sound wisdom and judgement in deciding where you personally want to draw the line between your public and private life.

Any other tips on managing your online reputation? Share them with us in the comments (only after asking yourself why you’re commenting and making sure it’s the right time, of course)!

 

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[sudanesestoic]

A Fleeting Fortnight

Oftentimes we visit places, meet with people and, by mere happenstance, encounter events which occupy a short space of time, yet they eerily inhabit exceptional spots in the far reaches of our memories. Rarely invading our awareness, whenever these ephemeral past moments come to the fore, whether involuntarily or by whatever triggers their recall, we can be forgiven for mistaking them for figments of our own imagination before the switch is flicked in a fraction of a second to realize that they actually took place in that illusory part of our consciousness we refer to as the past. Intriguingly, they trigger an even more acute nostalgia than our long term life-defining experiences. A mere glance at a photo steals us away from the present to relive a moment that lies buried in the distant past with an imperceptible sense of longing. And even though traversing the path that lead us back to this moment then becomes truly appealing, an implacable sense of wistfulness strikes us to counterpoint the genuine desire to succumb to it. Upon discerning that those moments and the way they made us feel then are long gone, an overwhelming gloominess haunts us; specially if the people involved are no longer around or the venues, for whatever reason, won't be seen or visited again. And so as a hedge against this wistfulness I have subconsciously developed a penchant for keeping my past locked away and just staying in good terms with the spontaneity of life right where my 'present' cursor is pointing at. At this very moment, however, an air of valiance surrounds me as I am about to take the audacious step of reliving a bittersweet experience and willingly bear its inherent melancholy: a two-week trip to Thailand to meet with my Thai ex-girlfriend which, according to what the inexorable rigidity of the mirrors of my past reflect, happened for real. Obviously, it will be a burdensome task to conjure up, at length, years of a long distance relationship. Hence I feel it will suffice to provide an abridged account, if you will, of this tempestuous relationship by revisiting its landmarks and turning points and then segue to the lowdown of the only trip I took to see her in the flesh.

💠💠💠

As it is superfluous to point out our inability to foresee the coming to existence of the myriad experiences that would later coalesce to shape our lives, little did I know that this arbitrary encounter would pivot me towards something deeply profound.

It was a quiet evening in the winter of 2012 at my friend's apartment in Chennai, India, where I had spent five years as a student and earned my bachelor degree in Electrical & Electronics Engineering. Out of sheer boredom I whipped out my cellphone and started browsing through my facebook feed. Contrarily, I never was a facebook admirer; as a matter of fact, I despised it to the point that I eventually deleted my account. But it was a time when social media started to get rampant, perfectly coinciding with the outset of the smart phone era and thus being excited about my first ever smart phone, I didn't mind using it for whatever purpose merely for the sake of holding it in my hand. Ironically, it – facebook – proved instrumental in bringing about one of the most notable highlights of my life.... I digress! While scrolling down I paused at a post from a page — I vividly recall its name to be 'positive thinking' — that I was following at the time. I posted a comment and went through the already posted comments before hers in particular caught my attention. I instantly gave it a 'like' and sent her a friend request as I had a feeling she could make a perfect acquaintance. Shortly afterwards she accepted my request and started texting me on my facebook messenger. She seemed rude right off the bat – or feigned rudeness as I could tell – to which I was nonchalant; It actually struck me as funny more than anything. I shrugged off her discourteous remarks and kept responding in a rather cool and indifferent manner. My patience was rewarded though as the convo picked up and before I knew it her manner shifted to one of personable and we started to get along pretty well. I had learned that she was originally from Thailand but resided and worked in Australia (she still does). We came to know briefly about each other and went on to share our thoughts and views in some random topics. We connected sporadically since then but the eagerness to check in and catch up was evident regardless of who reached out first. Five months had elapsed since then. Feeling too gung ho about finally reuniting with my beloved ones after a period of separation that stretched to five odd years, I made my anticipated return to my home country, Sudan, on May 2013 only days after I had obtained and attested my certificates. As it is superfluous to point out our inability to foresee the coming to existence of the myriad experiences that would later coalesce to shape our lives, little did I know that this arbitrary encounter would pivot me towards something deeply profound.

A few weeks after my homecoming we exchanged our contact numbers and other social media accounts and the intimacy between us started to deepen at a rapid pace. There was a burgeoning enthusiasm to chat for longer hours, letting each topic resolve of its own volition before switching to the next one without a trace of boredom. There was a sense that what was going on between us was starting to morph into something which is more than just a mere acquaintance; a subtle uncontrollable attraction. We both seemingly had a visceral conviction that something profound was unfolding judging by the progression of things. A sufficient period of getting to know each other and allowing our feelings to fully mature ran its course before we built up enough courage to open up to each other about our feelings which were equally, and not surprisingly at this point, reciprocated.

And so throwing caution to the winds we took things to the next level. A full-blown long distance relationship finally materialized precisely a year after we first met online. Falling head over heels for each other, despite the seven-hour time difference we would text or video call for hours on end completely oblivious to our surroundings until she would realize it was an hour or two past midnight on her end and that it was time she went to bed (not before saying to each other 'I love you' a multiple times). Likewise, I would stay up past midnight so we could catch up and confab for sometime before I went to bed. The quintessential honeymoon phase that most relationships go through in their nascent stages — an overwhelming excitement amplified by the state of being half-way around the world apart and yet yearning to be within an arm's reach.

• • •

Twists And Turns

Like being awakened all of a sudden in the midst of a beautiful dream by whatever damnable reason, the honeymoon did not last long before a downside to this relationship began to manifest. I was utterly discombobulated as I noticed her demeanor change as suddenly and as unexpectedly. She became temperamental and volatile in a way I would have never imagined she would as if this side to her was obscured by her alluring facade all along, laying in wait for the right time to be unleashed. I was increasingly driven up the wall with her inexplicable immaturity and my attempts to placate her were virtually futile leaving me sometimes with no other option but to ignore her. It was only when I reached the end of my rope, which was more often the case, did she switch back to her charming mode. What truly perplexed me was that after all the frustration she put me through she could always ever so cunningly make me feel good — as though she knew she was my weakness — and my goodness was she industrious when it came to that. I could have sworn she drew pleasure from roiling things deliberately just to keep me perturbed and exasperated. At times I felt the urge to give her a piece of my mind but instead ended up biting back my words as a tradeoff for the contentment I felt from the consolatory recognition that things were back to normal. In retrospect, by doing so I had unwittingly pedestalized her and gave her permission to step all over me. I never looked at it this way until I was later bit by the sobering reality that she was not anything like the picture I painted for her. Anyway, I grew impatient with her incessant emotionally draining gear-switching and reached a point where I was stuck in limbo unable to decide whether I should exert more effort to fix our issues or just take a break from the relationship with a scant hope of rebuilding attraction. Far be it from me to blame her, but her relentless uncalled-for discourtesy made it difficult to resolve what I can only regard, at worst, as misunderstandings – which usually didn't even amount to much to antagonize her. That being said, through the unceasing clashes and reconciliations my love for her was maintained in the backdrop and the hope that things would settle in due time never dissipated.

In the midst of this turmoil — and I wouldn't have asked for a more suitable timing — an unbidden grace happened out of the blue when I finally secured my long-awaited position in my own field of study in a Dubai-based contracting and maintenance company on October 2015 after having spent two arid years in Sudan as a freelance teacher in Maths and English. To my delight, not only was this development a palpable enhancement for me career wise but it also enlivened the relationship and got her ever so thrilled after an eternity of fogginess had taken its toll. The erratic and inconveniencing hot-and-cold patterns suddenly turned into an overdose of charm and sweetness (conspicuously as a reward for this achievement). The honeymoon was resuscitated, only this time it was more intense and lasted a little longer. With this significant step in my life, it is reasonable to think that the relationship must be on the right trajectory now that I was on the way to becoming financially more stable, which should rationalize more maturity from her end so we can seriously start planning our future together. The only thing is, I always seemed to be blinded to the fact that as far as she is concerned no matter how amazing things might appear to be, the shit might just hit the fan at any moment.

Alas, that is exactly what happened!

Only two months into my new job in Dubai another dramatic episode struck and rattled my world. Even though I was in a state of utter shock my thought process was "Well, it is par for the course", while adopting a sanguine mood as a coping mechanism to tackle my disillusionment. Unlike the customary narrative of our previous arguments, I allowed myself this time around to put my foot down and show some fierceness, thinking that a deep conversation where everything is laid out on the table to be dealt with once and for all might just go a long way. Strangely enough I was not surprised by her lukewarm cooperation to reach a compromise. After a sour dispute caused by yet another trivial reason I tried to play things down but she was too stubborn to let go and in just a couple of days I was in for a big surprise. She caught me off-guard when I found out, while I was on duty, that she actually blocked me. To say I could feel the blood in my veins wouldn’t begin to describe the state of lividness that overwhelmed me at the time. "This is just about the last straw", I thought to myself. For the first time ever I had truly contemplated a breakup, having endured a lot already, with no intention whatsoever of reaching out to her as a last-ditch attempt to save the relationship. Besides, I knew full well if I called her she would not pick up. In fact, if anything, she owed me closure since she was the one who pulled away, but that too seemed far-fetched given her disposition.

Paradoxically, despite my resolute stance of not pursuing her, a part of me hoped that she would reach out sooner. Facing up to the fact that it might well be the end of the road for us admittedly left me beyond shaken up and despondent, specially after how we had so naively romanticized our future. Almost two weeks of unyielding silence mixed with an agonizing wait for her call or text message, I conceded that it was a reality check. I somehow convinced myself it was about time anyways and parting ways was perhaps the most optimum resort now that the relationship had seemingly reached a stalemate. Keeping a stiff upper lip, I removed her contact number, our chat threads, photos, voice recordings, videos and pretty much everything that reminded me of her from my phone. I consider myself blessed to have the mental strength that enabled me to assert myself with the belief that she was not the be-all and end-all and thus making it easier to leave the disenchantment behind me and move on.

• • •

An Unforeseen Return

Just as I resigned myself to the fact that I might never hear from her again in this lifetime, she appears as abruptly as she cut me off!

Separated by the width of an entire continent, it will be fitting to assume that my feelings for her will slowly but surely fizzle out and in time I will be well over her. Completely subsumed in the fast metropolitan life — the challenges at work, the commutes, the quotidian indoor and outdoor activities and the occasional convivial social activities — seven months were sufficient to erase any lingering thoughts and memories of her. I seemed to be doing pretty well getting myself accustomed to being single and enjoying life with a sense of freedom whìch was marred by the disquietude that I had endured for most of the time we were together. Things stayed that way until one evening when the unpredictable happened. As I was on the metro on the way back home from work, all exhausted, leaning against a pole and looking out the window with my headphones on, my phone rang. I looked down at the phone screen and raised an eyebrow when I observed that it was an unknown number starting with +61. I was completely flummoxed knowing that the call was definitely from Australia. "Is it her?" I asked under my breath, "who else could it be? I do not know a single soul in Australia other than her". I froze for a few seconds before I hesitantly took the call. My heart skipped a beat when she cleared her throat and said 'hello' in a low voice. Just as I resigned myself to the fact that I might never hear from her again in this lifetime, she appears as abruptly as she cut me off! The timidness in her voice was evident and she spoke with intermittent pauses between her words. Although deep down there was an obscure satisfaction, I tried hard to sound cold and unfazed. I blamed her for the way she ghosted me to which she offered an unconvincing justification. But that did not matter much to me as I could tell from her tone she was desperate to patch things up and be back in my good graces. She made it clear that she still loved me and thought about me throughout the whole time we were separated and that she was more than willing to pick up where we left off. I must admit that was enough to make me feel vindicated and triumphant. Despite the hard feelings that swept me in the past, she managed to talk me into turning over a new leaf. I guess afterall I had fooled myself into believing that my feelings for her must have subsided when in reality I was viscerally missing her, but that subtle feeling was numbed by the day-to-day hustle and bustle until this call happened only to rekindle what was buried deep inside of me.

After almost two hours of talking — starting from the moment I was on the metro, all through the fifteen-minute walk to my building from the metro station and having to stand outside the building for more than an hour — she succeeded in stabbing her hooks into me. Unable to resist the temptation of winning her back, I took a leap of faith and decided to give her a clean slate for which, in hindsight, I consider myself a sinner. Looking back at this decision, I resembled a rehabilitated drug addict who pined for one last dose when it became in their reach. The fact that she could lure me back so effortlessly after having ghosted me for months speaks volumes of how manipulative she was and how I always played second fiddle when it came to determining the flow of the relationship.

Lo and behold, the reconciliation proved different this time! She showed great zeal to take the major step of meeting up which made me believe that she came back with a serious consideration to fully commit. Also, the realization that our feelings, against all the odds, were still very much alive lead me to the firm conviction that we were definitely meant to be together. With my annual leave looming, she suggested it would be the perfect opportunity. We vacillated at first as to whether she should apply for me to visit her in Australia or whether she should fly to Dubai. We finally agreed to meet halfway in her home country, Thailand, as in doing so we would tremendously economize on our travelling expenses. We coordinated to arrive at the same day and we were fortunate enough that the arrival, at Bangkok, of the flights we booked were only about forty minutes apart. I had successfully obtained the visa three weeks prior to our scheduled flights — which were meant to coincide with the first day of my two-week leave. We talked over and over in the last few days leading up to our imminent meeting about how upbeat we were and how we could not wait for that moment to arrive. It was immensely astonishing how things escalated from months of absolutely no contact to actually travelling to see each other in a span of weeks.    

• • •

The long-awaited moment finally arrives

Four years of an emotional rollercoaster boiled down to the evening of Friday, October 28th when we touched down at Bangkok International Airport. I recall it was around the time the king of Thailand who was highly revered by the vast majority across the country passed away and so, just as she asked me to, I donned a black shirt, a black suit jacket and a grey pair of trousers. I stood near the exit gate where she should be awaiting me (she arrived earlier than I did). To say I was at once excited and extremely nervous as I was looking around to spot her is one heck of an understatement... There she was! Sporting a black dress that accentuated her figure, she was fairly exhilarated as she crept up on me all of a sudden and hugged me while her cousin was filming the incredible moment. Her cousin then stepped up and put a garland around my neck as a welcoming gesture. It felt surreal. We were both thrown into a state of euphoria as if no one else was at the airport in that instant other than the two of us. Shortly after we snapped back to our consciousness we met with a friend of hers, a Sydney-based Thai-Australian transgender model, who also happened to fly in from Australia that same evening. To wrap up that spectacular occasion the four of us dined in a restaurant inside the airport. I relished every second talking to her and watching them schmooze in Thai while enjoying every mouthful of my noodles.

After the meal, we parted ways with her friend and took a cab to a hotel which she had already booked beforehand. Her cousin sat in the passenger seat. I sat by the right window while she was lying down with her head resting on my lab and her legs half stretched to occupy the width of the back seat. We didn't talk much on the way. It was more of making eye contact and smiling while I was caressing her brown to golden dip-dyed chin-cut straight hair. I suppose we were still acclimating ourselves to the reality of being able to actually touch one another after having gone through a seemingly endless abyss of gadget communications — characterized by a cycle of emotions that passes through the whole spectrum — made it difficult to envisage that this moment was likely to materialize. We reached the hotel in about fifteen minutes. Her cousin wished us good night and took off in the same cab to her home which is quite a ways from the hotel. As we stepped into our room, in the spur of the moment, we hugged tightly, plumped ourselves down on the bed and I proceeded to plant a long, passionate kiss on her lips. It was already nighttime, so obviously after a long journey and a constellation of feelings, bathing and a long sound sleep would do us good. Something else however - conceivably more likely to happen - was sandwiched between them. Apparently the craving we had for each other couldn’t be subdued by the exhaustion. The moment we came out of the shower we went to that cozy bed, failing to hide our uncontrollable desire for each other’s flesh, and started making love. It was worth every second despite the effect of the combination of exhaustion and excitement of our long-awaited meeting. That was just about the last thing we did in that dream-like evening; The first of what would later turn out to be a memorable fortnight. Here is the most intriguing part though, that fortnight was typically a compressed version of the three preceeding years during which we were distanced by thousands of miles. All the fascinating moments in this short vacation were cancelled out by intermittently recurring tensions and heated conversations. Not surprisingly though provided her disposition.

We spent our first three days in Bangkok. The first day in particular was the most notable. Accompanied by her cousin, we took a train to the city center, wandered around and then had an early lunch in a food court. I wasn’t familiar with the names of the places we've been to for all the signposts, the maps on the train stations and even the announcements were in Thai (and why bother much when she is around?). After the meal, we hit an aquarium which I recall to be just nearby where we spent hours on end - one of the most mesmerizing and captivating you can ever come across. Excitement was never killed for a second given the succession of things we did from boat riding, to watching the penguins swimming and shootig themselves out of water in terrifying speed and sauntering in a labyrinth of tunnels where glass barriers separated us from innumerable types of fish and mammals in basically all directions. We were ever so ecstatic, took pictures, held hands and even kissed. Hours passed before we realized it was time for us to return home, not before we loitered for quite sometime in the city streets and bought a few things though. It rained heavily just as we took the train back. Timely right!

The next day I invited her for lunch in an Arabic restaurant. You can very rarely come across Arabic restaurants especially in that region, but we were lucky to find one a few hundred meters away. Just as I mentioned earlier, it wasn’t meant to be pretty all the way. Her mood was far from right ever since we woke up. In fact, she was the complete opposite of the lively person she was the day before. Well, that is indeed par for the course. She blamed me for waking up late that morning and hence missing breakfast at the hotel's buffet. Only after we finished the meal and left the restaurant she started to interact with me normally. I seriously expected her to at least try to act nice and behave in a more appropriate way for the sake of this short vacation and above all 'our very first meeting'. But alas, expectations aren’t always met. She just cannot control her mood swings no matter what the circumstance or situation might be. I was shocked to realize how hostile and inconsiderate she could get, making a fuss out of trivial things and refusing to talk to me for hours (or even a whole day! It happened!), whether we were shopping, dining, taking a walk or even lying on bed!

On the third day she suggested we go to Rayong which is a four-hour road trip from Bangkok. The town where she grew up and spent most of her early years and also where her family’s business and some of their properties are established. We took a mini bus from the bus terminal around fourish and reached Rayong at night time. She made a reservation beforehand in a very decent condo where we spent the remaining days of our vacation. A period I may describe as exquisite and also equally stressful and dramatic. On the one hand, we saw places and did plenty of activities that I truly enjoyed. On the other hand, our quarrels were so heated that I decided to return to Dubai a week before my actual return date to end this nightmare once and for all. I made this rash decision because I couldn’t bare the incessant irrational quarrels. I went by myself to the agency and booked a flight back to Dubai on the evening of the very next day. Only while we were having lunch the next day, only hours before my flight, she made efforts to convince me not to go. She cried after the meal insisting that she was just being emotional and that she didn't expect me to react so fiercely and take the drastic step of leaving without a second thought. I am amazed how she could switch gears between her personalities and roil my emotions in the process.

I must admit her tears and confessions got me a little lenient and sympathetic and compelled me to retract my decision and continue staying for the remaining days of my supposed vacation. As she triumphed, which is usually the case, she contacted the agency and postponed the flight date for another week (the actual return date I previously booked) and of course paid the booking cost in consequence. This incident was a turning point I must say. And it happened unfortunately after a string of squabbles over silly matters spoiled moments that could add up to the remarkable memories. I fully reconciled myself to the fact that she would never change and in any second her mood might just swing the other way just like a pendulum to start another fuss out of the blues. Things started to get better and yet deep down I was still very cautious and alert around her. Anyone in their right frame of mind would agree that such kind of affairs is far from what is generally perceived as ‘love’ where a couple can reciprocate their feelings candidly while working out things together. I just couldn’t find my rhythm around her and felt like I wasn’t myself most of the time as though she is some sort of emotional vampire. 

The following days amazingly passed without any trouble that I could think of. Not only were our daytimes wonderful, but even between the sheets we had mind blowing sex and cuddled and talked till we fell asleep. Not incidentally, as our quarrels significantly lessened, the inclination for sex intensified and even our climaxes got more pleasurable.

She took me to the plaza where their business is set up in a fine evening. A well-established electrical shop managed by her mom and sister-in-law and a repair shop run by her brother side by side. We then went to a quiet restaurant bar, along with her brother and two of his pals, in motorbikes (I rode with her brother and she rode with one of his pals while the other rode on his own), had dinner and heineken beer to wash it down and played some games to keep things interesting. It goes to show you that verbal communication isn't the only imperative means to having a meaningful connection between people. Afterall smiles and friendly gestures are part of the rudimentary universal human interactions.

The fact that the frequency of conflicts has palpably diminished was such a relief for me and allowed me to find more meaning in connecting with the person I traveled thousands of miles to spend time with. Although her mood swings could be a worrisome distraction, her spontaneity meant excitement was always in the air and coming up with ideas to occupy the daytime was never a concern; shopping in malls, buying fruits and vegetables from local markets, going out for traditional meals or simply strolling hand-in-hand and having dinner in a cozy wooden hut by the beach.

Of course the evening she hired a bike and took me for an exquisite dinner in a hotel perfectly situated in a hill is still and will ever remain fresh in my mind. It was a spectacular ride in an enchanting road that led to the hill. Eerily, we rarely came across a vehicle along that road as though we were heading towards some abandoned village uphill, giving her the freedom of turning around to flash a smile every now and then. Well, ruin was the complete opposite of what I saw when we reached. The entrance to the hotel was a museum of some sort where some old-fashioned cars were standing to the side. We proceeded through a long passage where antique pieces and pictures were kept in shelves along the way. The quietude and heavenly ambiance of that place almost felt like a temple that alters your consciousness altogether, so mesmerizing in a way that is tremendously suggestive of taking some snaps, which we did. The passageway led to a spacious dining area that is situated out in the open for the hotel residents with a different range of cozy dining sets overlooking the eye-catching heights in the vicinity, the lush greenery and a coastline (not sure what that body of water was exactly). As we sat, I took a moment to glance at the windows and balconies of the hotel rooms and saw no one standing in the balcony or any light emerging from the windows despite the fading away of the sun in the horizon. There was no sign that those rooms were occupied as though it was some sort of a ghost hotel. Had it not been for the several waiters standing outside I would have easily thought that the unoccupied tables around us are in fact occupied by ghosts. Perhaps the road leading to the hill and the hotel that evening were deliberately emptied out in anticipation of our visit to complement the lovely atmosphere with an undistracted romantic dinner. 

Time – seemingly dilating and contracting with the succession of wonderful and stressful moments – passed and I was suddenly awakened to the fact that in less than 24 hours we will part ways. The next day would be my flight and hers would be a few days later. The one thing I regretted as I reached this realization is that we failed to have meaningful conversations through all these days, conversations that would decide our very possible bond in the near future. All we ever did was going out, eating, fighting, reconciling, having sex and sleeping. Fourteen chaotic days ended up with a quiet dinner and evening with the only exciting prospect of sex later on in our last night.

I always had the impression that the day of travelling is a short one bearing in mind the preparation time which always seem insufficient, the final packing, the trip to the airport itself and the check-in and departure procedures. Surprisingly, after days of serenity, squabbles erupted again in the dying moments as we were all set to start our journey to the airport. The last few hours I thought would suitable for a meaningful discussion were tainted by a meaningless argument over yet another trivial matter, just what I could do without. Throughout the journey she was picking at me and I was responding, a familiar vignette that was only intervened by brief moments of silence when she was well aware that a few hours are separating us from my departure. Her cousin met with us at the airport as soon as we arrived and we went to a cafeteria for some desserts and coffee. We were all talking, laughing and taking pictures but at the same time deep down I felt shattered and lost. Nothing sapped my energy and tortured me emotionally in my life as much as she did. Just how inconsiderate of her to ruin the atmosphere so callously and flagrantly and send me back home in such a miserable mood. Every time I looked upon her the only words that crossed my mind were “you are not the one for me! I deserve better than this”. I kept looking at my wrist, counting the minutes to start my check-in process, feeling so eager to say goodbye. I felt an inner peace as I hugged her, kissed her goodbye and gazed at her eyes that that was arguably the last time we ever touch.                                                                                

A fine evening by the beach...

With an eye to the idiosyncratic way in which our paths have merged for a period of time and then diverged I wonder whether our past and current circumstances, the places we go to, the people we meet and our interactions with them came to exist by accident or by an intelligent design that forms the paths which we are peremptorily assigned to traverse. My firm conviction, however, is that whatever we shared - the lengthy phone conversations, the unstable long distance relationship that still managed to prevail despite the many arguments and uncertainties until we met, the things we did, the meals we had, the places we’ve been to, the very beds we made love on, and our final breakup - were all meant to happen as they came and in them are surely lessons to be heeded. That fortnight was an adventure unlike any other I’ve encountered. Nevertheless, it is but an illusion now just like last hour, my final year in university, and my tenth birthday. If life is perceived this way, then we can describe it as a series of grievances over dead experiences falling away like sheer cliffs. The aliveness of the moment, however - regardless of its beauty or dreadfulness - with our eyes fixated on the moments ahead, is a consolatory recognition that will perennially keep nullifying these grievances with newfound hope and drive for fresh experiences.              

[totallyinedible]

Alcoholics Anonymous

This entry has been in the works for a month now. I haven't written anything in a while, but that doesn't mean I haven't been going through anything. I started this post a month ago and I stopped midway. I did not want to write this down. I wanted to share this with a real human. A week later, I couldn't open my mouth and blurt out the words. So I started a rewrite to include new developments. But once again, I stopped. And once again, I felt a stronger need to talk to a real person. I ended up talking to a person I wasn't expecting talking to. It wasn't very helpful content-wise, but I felt like some weight has been lifted.

A month later, here I am once more for another rewrite...

2 years ago, I started watching a show called Mom. I can't say I was aware of the premise. I wanted to watch it simply because Anna Faris is the lead actress. Yes, the same Anna Faris from some of the most ridiculous movies that have ever existed (Scary Movie series is enough proof). For some reason, I found her to be entertaining in the most ridiculous of ways. So when I found out that the plot follows a mother, and her daughter, and her granddaugter - all of which are victims of addiction, I was taken aback. I was not expecting such an intense show, and certainly I wasn't expecting that Anna Faris was going to pull off her role.

More importantly, I was not expecting to ever relate to their story whatsoever. I have never tasted a drink, or tried any sort of drugs. But along the way, I've come to realize that I have my own form of addiction that I should worry about; the millennial hook up culture.

A couple of days ago, I've come across an article that talks about the hook up culture among millennials. The article discusses how our generation is scared of love or commitment, simultaneously not wanting to feel lonely. Hence, a no-strings-attached hook up is the answer. For the longest time, I thought I was the only one who was noticing how toxic this is. All other people I know who are part of that culture embrace it. I, on the other hand, despise every bit of it. I might have been curious about sex 6 years ago, but in this time and day, I'm more than happy to shut my cravings with my hand. If anything, the hook up culture makes me spiral down an endless hole.

It's a cycle that for the longest time, I could not break. The dating apps, just like alcohol or marijuana to other people, are my escape. I know they harm me, but they give me a sense of comfort I cannot find elsewhere. The thrill of finding a match, talking to a stranger for the first time and getting to know them, finding out they love Jigglypuff as much as you do... it all plays into the escapism of it all.

This year, I wanted things to be different - just like many times before. The only difference is that this time it was a conscious decision. It was a decision made after understanding myself, rather than out of regret. I had to go through self-monitored rehab. There is no other way for me to improve the quality of my life and get myself out of the rot I'm in. This is when I deleted the applications and started going through my list of friends and followings on social media for a cleansing session.

And this was the first time it hit me... how much I can related to alcoholics who are trying to stay sober.

The show Mom presented the characters in different situations, highlighting how difficult it is to actually stay sober, and how some fail at that and end up taking their lives... and this is how I started to relate to the show more and more in recent times.

The week that Osama came back from Qatar and Yazan left to KSA, I kept myself quite busy. I made dinner plans with friends, and had a game night, and I met up with Osama for some coffee and to discuss his issues... Nothing happened that was particularly strenuous on my emotional and mental health. But the week leading up to that weekend, I was going through a lot of reminiscing  Whenever I was driving late at night, I feel an urge to hit up a random person for instant fun. When the house was empty, I felt like I was supposed to have someone over and utilize the empty house. The streets that I left my mark on came back to haunt me, reminding me of times that I felt wanted - even if for all the wrong reasons.

All these negative emotions accumulated until I broke down. On Sunday, I got - not one, but - four different dating apps; one of which I haven't ever used! I practically attacked the app store! It was savage. 2 of them I had old accounts on them, and signing in was not a big deal. The third only offers one way to sign up, which is through Facebook, and that kept it easy. The fourth required a long process, so I decided not to use, but it stayed there on my phone. I can't say they stayed long on my phone. Within one hour, I ravaged those apps once more and deleted them - of course after swiping left on every single profile that I've come across.

Did I feel lonelier at that moment? Very much. Yet, I wasn't desperate. I was aware. I realize downloading the apps once again was a stupid thing to do, but I am proud of how I dealt with the matter soon after.

This is why at AA, they teach alcoholics to take things one day at a time. Thinking way far into the future only makes things worse. Taking things one day at a time is the reason why I have managed to stay "sober" for the longest period ever. Thinking way into the past and future could have led me to do something I would regret later on.

Does that mean I've figured out my sexuality? Nope. Not even close... But more on that tomorrow with the next post that discusses what I'm witnessing around me.

[dalhousiediaries]

Dating Culture: From West To East

♪ Currently listening to Lähedal by Karl-Erik Taukar ♪

So some of you may know that I’ve recently become single again, but honestly that’s the least important part of this story. 

I decided to try my hand at online dating once again, because well, most of my good girl friends here in Halifax had significant others, I was starting to get a little lonely because I don’t go out to frats, parties, or drink with my friends (I was never a huge fan of drinking), and quite honestly, I was sick of only being talked to for assignment help, answers or something along those lines and not an actual conversation.

Of course with my girl friends, I had told them that I wasn’t comfortable drinking, partying or getting drunk; if we could have an alternative event for all 5 of us once every month or so, like drink tea, chill out, chat the night away, sober.  They didn’t really like the idea, there wasn’t much room for argument since it was a 4-1 loss for me, so I decided to find company through apps such as tinder and CoffeeMeetsBagel and Bumble.  Yeah sounds a bit like an overkill, I know, like 3 apps? But rest assured readers (and my Mother, probably) I deleted CoffeeMeetsBagel and Bumble, and continuously used tinder out of the downloaded 3.

Fun fact: In the first day or two I racked up 200+ matches.

Where is this post heading? This is where it gets interesting.  For me, as an ethnic minority (though through statistics, I’m an ethnic majority), as a sociology minor, and as someone that’s new to Halifax and the East Coast of Canada, I had no idea what the dating culture here was, how different or similar it was to dating culture in Vancouver. 

Let me just say that Halifax isn’t a very Asian-friendly city, it’s one of the better ones in Nova Scotia though (as a province it’s not a very Asian/non-white immigrant-friendly province either), but majority of the people I meet on campus don’t really have a problem with Asians, but they’d just “never date them” - or admit they like anime or Asian music. To be honest, I got that a lot, as soon as it seemed like we were getting along, as if they assumed that I was some immigrant wanting a quick opportunity to snatch up a green card, out comes the “wait, you’re great and all but I’m just not into Asian girls”.  

Which is fine, we all have biases and personal preferences, and it’s not really racist because naturally people tend to go towards what they’re familiar with, or what they grew up around, have had more exposure to and etc. 

I understand that.

For a semester and a bit, I kinda felt like, and to some extent was, undesirable - as if no one really wanted to get to know me, or even cared to think that I had feelings and could understand English, therefore all their insults that they thought was totally discreet - I could understand. In a way, that was a big reason why I never went out to parties, never really went out with friends to frats, dorm/lounge parties or even drank, I felt unbelievably awkward and like such a nuisance to everyone around me.  It was as if my body was bigger than my mind could control, that my movements would translate to a grander scale - similarly to the Hulk or a teenage boy finally growing into his body.

Anyway, I had the understanding that my kind wasn’t sought after or even welcomed, especially after really hearing what people really thought about not only Koreans, but Asians in general. I recall browsing through a Yik-Yak like app called Jodel, only to read threads like “wouldn’t it be great if we just took all the Chinese exchange students and traded them for German ones? 😍”.  Which to me, was more weird than insulting - I mean both groups are exchange students, will probably hang around people they’re familiar with or speak their language, most likely they wouldn’t be fluent in English, and looks wise, obviously Chinese/Asians have “Mongoloid” features (which in Western beauty standards equates to “ugly”).  It’s just the appearance and the German accent that people here find sexy/hot - making it what they desire, making that the basis of disregarding the fact that “those Chinks/Asians/Gooks/Japs” actually do have a life, feelings, dreams and aspirations like any other person. 

So back to the dating thing. I’ve actually gotten the whole backhanded compliment thing.  Before moving to Halifax, I didn’t really understand it, or really get why it was offensive - but hearing it over and over again, and being surrounded in an environment where I feel a little intimidated and actually scared to express my passions, interests, favourite music, bands, foods, and the more I thought about how different and odd I was, the more backhanded compliments reared its ugly head and I realized how offensive it actually was.  First month of university, I was talking to someone I thought was a friend, until he said “you’re pretty chill... You’re pretty for an Asian girl, I’ve never banged an Asian girl before”. The last two comments completely stopped me in my tracks, did that mean, if I wasn’t Asian I’d be ugly? Was he just talking to me so he could say he banged an Asian girl? Thoughts of that nature began running around in my head.

That’s where I really realized, Asians, girl or guy, are only seen as a one time thing but never anything more.

So knowing that, why did I hop on tinder? Again, I was lonely, just for companionship - not specifically looking for anything more, because well, in my mind, all Asians were deemed unwanted, just a casual fuck at the most but nothing more.  As Reading Week (basically Spring Break) crept closer and closer and my friends who are either Nova Scotia natives or had family in the province, started to make plans to go home, I swallowed my pride and opened an account, hoping to find friends, because let’s face it - no way would I find anything more.  I’m Asian after all.

We established that people here aren’t really Asian friendly, they will rarely ever admit they like something that’s not Canadian/American.  Say for example, anime, JRPGs, Korean dramas and shows etc... and they won’t ever date them because Asians are “not their type” - totally understandable. My findings, however, were the contrary.  I landed a bit over 70 in the first few hours, a bit over 100 after the first day and then the next day I found out that I had 250+ matches on the app.  I actually had to unmatch people to reduce people I wasn’t really interested in. Majority of the people I matched with found me absolutely gorgeous, wanted more than friends, more than a casual hookup (well, minus a few people), and genuinely were curious about my language and culture.

I had met up with a lovely Italian-Portuguese bloke and he had admitted to me that he really enjoyed playing the card game, Yu-Gi-Oh, liked League of Legends, watching the Korean players and we spent a good time weeb’ing out - which he also admitted to me that he can’t say that to anyone in fear of being judged.

However that didn’t come without the obvious fetishizing.

Though, that’s for another post.

Just like how we say “not every _____ is like that”, not every person in Halifax/Nova Scotia has something against Asians, and even if they say they do, chances are, deep inside, they really don’t.

It was a pretty interesting ride in the dating world of Halifax.

I’m pretty done with Tinder though.