Rising Above Mediocrity
by Benjamin Geiger

[Originally posted here, on the UserFriendly.org web forum.]

(In Which The Author Laments The Dichotomy Of Virtual And Physical Life.)

It’s obvious that I don’t get along well in the Real World. If all you know of me is what you see here, it may be hard to understand why.

I’ve been a regular user of the Internet for approximately eleven years now. I took to text-based communications naturally, for I could hide my true self behind my words. Nobody needed to know I was a fourteen-year-old kid from the mountains, and even now, I’m judged equally with others based solely on the quality of my thoughts and my ability to put those thoughts into words, without letting my physical attributes interfere. I’m able to reveal the parts of myself I want others to see, without the baggage accompanying them, and be judged on what’s important rather than trivial matters.

Needless to say, in my case, the thoughts are of a higher quality than the vessel from which they come. And people in the real world doesn’t judge me on how well I think. All they see is a clumsy stammerer, constantly correcting himself and trying to find the most accurate and precise statement for the circumstances.

The most important advantage of text over conversation is the ability to go back over what you intend to say and reword it (or, if appropriate, delete it). It’s through this mechanism that I can have a “sharp wit”, as a couple of you put it. When forced to speak to someone face to face, I can hardly put together a sentence unless I’m rattling on about some subject nobody else cares about. When I’m communicating in print (whether it be boards such as ARS, or blogging, or even IRC) I can carefully choose my words to reflect how I want to appear. In person, I must instead use the rough draft, limited by time pressure to maintain the flow of words coming out of my mouth. Without the polish given by a thorough review, this reveals too much of my actual nature.

This isn’t even to mention the constant barrage of subtle cues and signals the average person is expected to analyze and manipulate on a daily basis. I’ve said that I feel like a deaf person trying to square dance, but in the more important matters, it’s more like I’m a dance caller unable to hear the music or see the dancers; it’s not what I receive that bothers me, it’s what I give off. And I can’t seem to control that. No matter how hard I try to radiate charisma and confidence, my ineptitude shines through like a beacon. That’s why I’m a social pariah, ‘charming’ though I may be online.

As the infamous cartoon goes, on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. It turns out that nobody knows you’re a dork, either, unless you want them to. That doesn’t change the fact that you’re still a dork when you log off of the Net. And that’s what matters.