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Following are 10 reasons for which you can avoid American Airlines, as of 2007. I am going to avoid American airlines for these very reasons, and a few more. The list below is not supposed to be in a chronological order: I will go back and forth in my trip to show you different aspects of how American Airlines operates, and how their operations affected me. This is also a way to tell you of my trip: you will find out where I was going and some brief details as to why I was traveling, among maybe a few other things.

1. Their in-flight food service is bad

   There used to be a day when you could eat all you want on a plane. “It’s ok, I will eat on the plane“, I used to think. Now, while the top executives reap in millions, customers are not served food so that the airline can save money. American Airlines only gives out a few soft drinks on most flights.

   American Airlines does allow you to bring your own food, but nowhere is this policy about bringing your own food printed on tickets or mentioned on their website. Only when you are in the terminal or sitting inside the plane do you slowly find out that people can bring their own food. The hunger at that time can drive you into thinking “If I take one or two of her Oreo cookies while she is sleeping, will she notice when she wakes up?” Wondering about that question enabled me to survive the journey while being extremely hungry.

2. Their baggage care and service is bad

   American Airlines lost my luggage when I was flying from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Then, after more than a day when the luggage was found, I found out that my luggage was missing items that were inside it. I had around $1000 worth of 3 items and a gift from someone that went missing. Not only that, my luggage had a few things and garments that belonged to some other passenger: noticeable, a man and a woman.

   After 3 weeks of phone tags and giving me an investigation numbers, American Airlines sent me papers to fill out to tell them the exact same story. Hopefully they can find my things. Here is the funny thing: American Airlines did not take the items from me that did not belong to me, telling me to hold on to them and someone will get them from me. It has been 4 weeks and I have someone else’s trousers, bra and a few other things. I keep forgetting everyday to drive to the airport and throwing them in front of the American Airlines baggage counter. Throwing them into the trash seems like a bad thing to do.

3. Their prices are bad

   American Airlines supposedly has the largest fleet, and still they charge more than others. Their planes are usually full. One good thing though: they have deals with different airlines, so you can probably find a good time to fly, most of the time, if you are willing to pay the price. Even with all the money coming in, they still complain of losses and other things. Where is all the money going?

   All of the money is definitely not going back into the service they provide, that is for sure. Nowadays they do not offer anything extra, serving only some soft drinks and water. Even when you ask for water 3 times on a 6 hour flight they make a weird face as if you were a kidnapped refugee who was not supposed to ever ask for water.

4. Their in-flight entertainment service is bad

   No TV, no audio jack, nothing. They do not even carry magazines or newspapers on both short or mid-long flights anymore. I remember the early 90’s, flying on several Asian, European, Middle East and a probably-then-Russian airline, and they all had TV’s, audio jacks with local radio, and lots of newspapers and magazines.

   Yet, American Airlines does not offer any of those. You just sit there, bored to death. I guess American Airlines can say “We are in the transportation business, not in the entertainment business.” If you want to avoid boredom, bring your own laptop and see if you can use it while in the air, or fly any of the several other airlines in America, like jetBlue or Virgin America. I tried to play text tags with Valerie while on the plane.

5. In my experience, majority of their staff’s attitude is bad

   Was it just my experience, or does the American Airline staff going from Texas to Alabama not greet or say bye to anyone who is not “white” or “black“? Was it just my experience, or does the American Airline staff going from Alabama to Texas not greet or say bye to anyone who is not “white” or “black“?

   Similarly, at the baggage claim counter in San Francisco, the staff acts as if they were kidnapped and forced to work there, and that they are letting out their frustration on the customers. Sure, when you work long hours you may probably be the person who bites others, but that is probably one of the exact reasons why American Airlines has staff with bad attitude: they do not hire more people to replace the already moody people. Again, where is all the money going?

   How about the attitude of the minority of their staff? I can say that ranged from no moodiness to being very happy to help. This is a very small minority from my experience. There was this very serious old guy who was working near the counter when I was checking in to fly from San Francisco. He was very serious and kept yelling at me to “not go to that counter” or “go to that counter.” Even though he was serious, he started asking me about my flight and started yelling at the top of his voice “You young person, you gonna miss your flight, hurry and don’t be lazy! Run to the gate. Don’t walk, RUN RUN or you cry!”

   It was like me being scolded in front of everyone at the airport as I was the youngest and everyone thought I had upset him or something. A young girl started asking her mother “Mommy, did this guy do something wrong? Why is he [the guy] yelling at him [me]?” Well, since I was younger than most people at that time the old guy sincerely wanted to help, thinking I was not aware of how serious it was for me to hurry. If I had not listened to him and had not run to the security check point and then to the gate, I would have missed my flight as within minutes of me passing through the security check point, dozens and dozens of people passengers started pouring in, and very long lines started forming.

   I prefer this old guys’ attitude and willingness to sincerely care and help instead of all the fake and forced smiles and serious faces that I saw on majority of the faces of American Airlines staff, who did not even care whether or not I am going to get my lost baggage or items back, let alone caring about me missing my flight. If that young girl ever finds this site, she is probably going to grow up to tell all her future kids “I saw Bes getting yelled at, hahaha! Hurry up or you will get yelled at too by someone!“

6. Their “shortage of staff” reason causes massive delays for customers after landing

   When I landed at San Francisco, Los Angeles, then San Francisco, Dallas, Birmingham, Dallas, and finally San Francisco again, the plane had to wait a long time before being able to connect or get near any terminal, each and every time at every airport. Sometimes the wait was as long as 40 minutes. We just sat there, on the runway, waiting for the American Airline or any other staff to prepare a gate for our arrival.

   The pilot gave this as the reason: “Due to shortage of staff in the entire airline industry, we have no one to work on our terminal gate, just like other airlines, and thus we have to wait for a while. Sorry about that.” Sure, it is not the pilot’s fault as he probably has to read the lines that American Airlines tells him to read, but I have rarely experienced such delays, after landing and being stuck sitting inside the plane, on 4 other airlines that I have flown at least 50 times last year alone within and outside California.

7. The probability of accommodations for missed or possible flights is very bad, even though American Airlines promises otherwise

   I wanted to meet Valerie going on my 2nd trip. When I was booking my flight, I called American Airlines over the phone and after hours of negotiation, I was told to fly to Dallas in Texas early in the morning, and to try to see if there was an available seat ona ny flight going to Missouri. I was told that there were usually no full flights going from Texas to Missouri, and that if I asked all the that went from Texas to Missouri, I would surely find something to take me to Missouri as part of a connecting flight that stayed for several hours in Missouri, and then onto Alabama.

   Well, I arrived in Dallas and realized that American Airlines staff there had a thing for beggars. They wanted me to beg. I reasoned, I pleaded. They kept telling me all flights are full and that even if they were not full they could not change my flight to have an extra connection. I told them I was “guaranteed” over the phone that if there was any seat availability I would be able to get it, specially I had paid extra to find a later flight to Alabama just in case I could not find any connecting flight to Missouri. “You would have to talk to the person who told you that over the phone.” Such answers seemed typical of American Airlines. After spending about 7 hours trying to get a connecting flight, I gave up, and flew to Alabama on the last flight for the day. Sorry Valerie for making you drive and keeping you waiting!

8. If you get your luggage but are missing items that were inside your luggage, American Airlines’ solution tactics are bad

   When my luggage was missing, I told the baggage claim counter at San Francisco International airport [SFO] about it. They filed down everything in the computer. Then, a day later, early morning, they called and asked the same information again. I told them the information and they said they have completely different information from what I was telling them. So I had to retell them the whole information. I kept asking them how they could mess up the information, and the lady on the phone kept repeating “You would have to ask those people you told about it.” Great answer, American Airlines. That answer is one of the worst examples of customer service.

   When my bag arrived after more a day, after midnight, I found that it was missing stuff and it had some guy and a girls’ stuff in it, mixed with whatever of my stuff had survived the journey, as I told you earlier. I filed a report about it on the spot, and called and filed another report about it over the phone within 4 hours.

   After 4 days, while I was on my trip in Alabama, I called to ask about my missing stuff from my baggage that had already been found. I was told that American Airlines had no information about me filing such a claim. I was told to contact the baggage service counter at the airport where I had landed, at the time the baggage went missing. That meant I had to talk in person to the people working at the American Airlines baggage counter in San Francisco. I could not fix the problem from Alabama. That was not a bad thing, as hanging out with Ronald in Alabama turned out to be more than a great experience.

   After I got back from my trip and immediately when I landed at the airport, I filed the report again by talking to the American Airlines baggage counter in San Francisco, who also said they had no information about me filing such a claim, and that the people who were present on the day I had originally filed a claim were not working that day. I was told that American Airlines would send me a single paper in the mail that I only needed to sign and send back. When I got the papers after 2 weeks, I found out that they were claim papers, where I had to fill out everything from scratch. I even had to report what items I was missing. Why was I told to file my claim in all those other steps and departments then?

9. The communication between different departments of American Airlines is bad

   The American Airlines phone support did not know that I had filed a claim for lost luggage in person at the American Airlines baggage claim counter at San Francisco Airport. The lost and found baggage warehouse of American Airlines, about 4 miles from the San Francisco airport, did not know about my claim of missing items even though the baggage claim department over the phone did later on. The American Airlines phone support was not aware of me filing a claim for missing items from my lost luggage that had been found, and about some other passengers’ items in my bag. The American Airlines baggage claim department at San Francisco airport was not aware of me filing a claim for missing items from my luggage, which was previously lost, which I had previously filed at the American Airlines lost and found baggage warehouse and also over the phone with the American Airlines lost and found baggage.

   Confused? Imagine what I was going through, running around for almost 2 days from my first flight so that I could recover my lost stuff and baggage before my 2nd flight to Texas only 2 days later.

   I contacted the American Airlines phone support, phone baggage claim, headquarters over the phone, San Francisco American Airlines baggage counter on the phone, San Francisco American Airlines baggage counter in person, the American Airlines lost and found baggage warehouse over the phone, and the American Airlines lost and found baggage warehouse in person. I did not contact these departments on my own. I was told in each case by American Airlines staff to contact these departments to file the claims for the different headaches that American Airlines had brought to me and my traumatized luggage.

   Thus, I followed the proper procedure that I was told, and even after contact them on all those levels, I was sent through all the loops where different parts of the loop did not know I was doing things the loop itself had told me. Now, I have been sent papers to file my claim and start all over again.

10. If you believe American Airlines advertisements, your expectations may be destroyed because of reality, which is not that good

    There is probably no doubt that if all you want is to fly and you do not run into any issues and you do not want any extra service and you do not run into any issues and you fly from less popular airports, American Airlines may do a better job that many other airlines because of the number of flights they have and the number of cities they operate. However, anything more than the most basic, and you can run into issues.

    You know those ads they show on TV, which show the American Airlines staff remembering all the customer names and talking to them like friends? Well, I met and talked with at least 6 people at least 7 times, and every time each of them would treat me as if they saw me for the first time. No one remembered anyone’s name, even the names of passengers at San Francisco terminal who were yelling at American Airlines baggage staff that they had been “waiting for 6 hours to find my luggage, as I have no clothes and nothing to go to my hotel with, and you keep asking me the same information!” Where are all the smiling and caring people they show on American Airlines ads?

Well, that is it for now. These are the 10 reasons I will try to avoid American Airlines in the future unless I book at the last minute and/or American Airlines is the only airline to fly to the city I want to go to. Can you think of more points?

What do you think? Have you ever experienced anything similar?

Thank you for reading

I really, really appreciate you reading all of this. I hope some of this information can be helpful in some manner to you, should you run into any issues with American Airlines.

Thank you.

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Your friend may expect you to comment on their site, whether or not your current friendship with that friend is solely based on the online world. You can talk to your friend via the phone or even chat with them online, but if you do not visit or comment on their site regularly, they may retaliate by not talking to you that much or by talking to someone else who visits and comments on their blog.

It is as if the friendship is solely based on the number of comments you leave on a blog. A blog can be considered someone’s personal property, thus you have to see whether or not your friend is justified in getting upset over you not commenting on their site. Your friend getting upset over the absence of your comments on your site can either be like your friend expecting you to support them in unrelated things in order for the friendship to continue or like your friend expecting you to support them in a passion they may have.

Of course, such confusion can be solved if you ask your friend what they want, or if your friend tells you what they want. However, I wonder if it is always easy for everyone to tell a friend “You know what, I don’t like commenting on your blog or reading it, because of this and this reason. Is that going to upset you?”

Business and non-business contacts expecting comments

Business and non-business contacts can be different than your friends. Sure, more and more people are calling each other friends, but no one is there for each other in anything from which they themselves do not benefit, or when a business deal is not around. Thus, let us briefly focus on the idea of non-friend contacts expecting comments from you: a random person or a business contact may show you their personal or some other blog, and thus may expect you to regularly visit or participate that blog. What happens if you do not fulfill their expectations?

Well, from my personal experience, several things can happen. I have seen business contacts doing less business simply because I do not comment on every post of theirs. I have also seen some very famous business contacts being non-communicative until they need something, which can appear to be beyond unprofessionalism in many cases. I have also heard people complaining about their business contacts becoming more aggressive and unfriendly in business deals if those people post a disagreeing comment about something on a blog. Getting upset in different ways over other contacts not commenting on some site can be signs of people not being able to differentiate between their expectations from their own blogs and their business and other deals with other people.

How do you fix such a thing? You cannot fix such a trend and mentality until you find out what the business or some other deal expects. You entered into a business deal; did it include in any direct or indirect manner your participation on any site? Did the other person get any kind of a hint in the beginning that you will continuously participate on their site? It is best to not mix business with personal life or something like your passion for comments unless you know the people involved in a business deal are willing to be true friends or logical contacts who will not let things get affected by something like the number of comments you post on a blog not related to the business or some other deal in question.

What to do?

It depends. I personally do not want to be obligated to comment on any friend’s or non-friend’s blog. I comment when I want to. Otherwise, I try to communicate with people a lot outside of a blog, like via the phone, e-mail or even chatting online on different im’s. I actually prefer to communicate more offline than online in many cases.

Do you want friendship to continue? Do you want a business or some other contact to continue doing business or remain a contact with you? Do you want a random contact to keep in touch normally? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you can think of ways to come at a solution that satisfied either you, the other person, or both of you. Whatever solution you come up with, you should feel comfortable enough to actually stick to the solution if the other person agrees to the solution also.

What do you think? Please let me know, thank you.

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1. Laundry

   If you share any laundry machine with any of your neighbors, you can easily annoy them. Leave your clothes in the washer or the dryer, and do not take them out for hours. The next person who wants to do laundry will probably check repeatedly, every half hour or so, to see if you picked up your clothes.

   I currently have many laundry options, including shared laundry with a few neighbors. I decided to do laundry while talking to a friend in Europe. After washing my clothes, I noticed someone else’s clothes in the dryer. I waited for that neighbor to come and pick up the clothes. After almost 4 hours of waiting, I knocked at my neighbor’s door and asked politely if she could help. She had just woken up from sleep, sincerely apologized and took out the clothes from the dryer. That was fine and really nice of her. I told my friend all of this, and he said I should blog about it. This very post is because of that friend and that situation.

   I put my clothes in the dryer for 70 minutes and told my friend I was going to take a nap. I woke up very late, about 2 hours after the dryer had finished drying. I went to the laundry room and noticed the same neighbor waiting for me to take out my clothes from the dryer so she could put her newly washed clothes in it. In my friend’s view, I became the very inconvenience for a person that I may have felt only a few hours ago from that very person. That was a good example of how sometimes a random thing, like sleeping a bit longer than usual, can result in others being inconvenienced even though we did not intend to. When I talked to my friend again and told him what had happened, he could not stop laughing. I wonder if he is going to make fun of me using that example forever.

2. Car

   If you and your neighbors have a car, you can annoy them by parking in weird ways to make sure they have a hard time entering or leaving the parking area. Park in the middle of the driveway, or park very close to their car so that they cannot get in it easily.

   Someone has to go to work? Big deal. Let them learn new driving skills, or let them come to your door to make you move the car. Someone has an emergency? Well, if they have an emergency, they will come looking for me and then I can move the car. I had an emergency 4 nights ago and had to leave instantly. A car was blocking my way, and I had never seen that car before. After trying different neighbors, one of them finally came out and moved the car. In an emergency situation where you have to be somewhere immediately around midnight to help someone, arriving 25 minutes late can sometimes be bad. This brings us to the next point, which is…

3. Your friends

   If your friends come over, make sure you let them do whatever they please. Do not keep an eye on their activities, and if you do notice them inconveniencing your neighbors in any manner, do not tell them anything unless the neighbor comes and asks you about it.

   Friends are making a mess? Who cares. Friends are supposedly forever, neighbors can move anytime. Friends are using other people’s laundries or blocking driveways? Who cares. Friends should have fun, and neighbors should stay away. Friends are being loud? Who cares. Friends can be loud in your place so you can be loud in their’s. That brings us to the next point, which is….

4. Neighbor’s privacy spots

   One of the best ways to annoy your neighbors is to be invade their privacy. The entire area is someone’s property, and not your neighbor’s. Even if your neighbor owns it all, they do not own the right to your body, which you can position and direct to do many things.

   Hover around your neighbor’s car while they are in it. Have loud barbeque right by their window. Use flashlights and scream to points things in every direction in the middle of the night and make sure they notice it by their window.

5. Favors

   Ask your neighbors for favors, and then make them regret that they decided to help you. Whatever they do for you, directly or indirectly, abuse such a thing to not directly hurt them but to abuse the actual favor.

   I recently start giving free wifi access to some of my new neighbors who asked for it. They are not paying anything for a $60+ package. One of the neighbors knows how downloading and bandwidth works, and he downloads thousands of gigabytes of movies and other things every few days. He leaves his laptop on and simply goes out to party, leaving me to have an internet connection that suffers at random times during the day. Long live the “Click here to disconnect this wireless user” button.

So, there you have it. If you want to annoy your neighbors, try one of the 5 above techniques, and your neighbors will surely love you in ways you probably never want them to.

Have you or do you know someone who has experienced similar things?

What do you think? Have you run into anything similar or know someone who has? I found Stacee’s housing and neighbors related posts to be very good examples of how some neighbors and roommates can be continuously annoying. You may find them interesting too. Sorry you had to go through that Stacee!

Thank you for reading. I really appreciate it. I have to stop writing now, as I notice that wifi guy to be hogging the entire bandwidth again. Time to find the “Click here to disconnect this wireless user” button.

[update: August 29th, 1:34 pm PST] My friend told me, while he was laughing, that he was laughing at the situation and would never laugh at me. Therefore, for the 3rd paragraph under the list subheading “Laundry“, I have changed the sentence “When I talked to my friend again and told him what had happened, he could not stop laughing at me” to “When I talked to my friend again and told him what had happened, he could not stop laughing“, removing the “at me” part. Thanks Robin. [end of update]

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1. Real name builds a name that others can remember you by in both the online and the offline world
2. Real name adds more authenticity on many levels, where you can be considered the same person offline as the one represented online and vice versa
3. Real name allows you to focus less on the differences of your online and offline representation, meaning you can act almost the same in both the online and the offline worlds and not add complication to your own life

3 random drawbacks of using real name online

1. Real name allows people to easily find you online or offline, resulting in unwanted people to find you online or offline easily
2. If your real name is associated with anything bad in either the online or offline world, it can affect your name in both the online and the offline world
3. Real name takes away a lot of privacy from your comments and posts, where you cannot say anything without both offline and online people knowing who you are

Fake online usernames and fake online nicknames may be viewed as being the same

I would like to differentiate between online and offline nicknames: having an offline nickname can sometimes be related to having your real name associated with it. That is why for this question, I would like to ask you specifically if you prefer using your real name from the offline world in the online world, compared to using any fake name. Some may consider a fake online name or a fake online nickname to be the same. I will leave that choice up to you.

A personal example of a drawback of using real name in the online world

Sometimes it is good to use your real name online, and sometimes it can result in bad things. For example, a few years ago I had participated in a major European human rights organization protest against a major international company. I talked about it online and posted a comment and a post using my real name. Last year, while being interviewed by a completely different international company, the topic of my views against the other company were brought up. Why? Because that other company, which had a history of human rights violation, was now a major business partner with the company that was interviewing me.

The result? Well, I will keep the results to myself, but you can see how such a thing can easily be brought up in different ways by very smart companies. Lucky me for having this site, no? “This site is really evil, I tell ya!” Maybe I should change all my names and names online to “hungry-dummy-101.”

Do you love using your real name in both the online and the offline worlds?

So, do you prefer using your real name in the online world?

Please let me know what you think. Thank you.

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I would like to list below 5 random bad trends of online friendships that I have experienced myself directly.

1. Business transaction means a friendship in progress

   Almost every few days I hear people referring to their business partners or people they are doing business with as friends. It is funny how for such people, the existence of money or business contract or knowing someone famous automatically results in a friendship bond being born.

   People do not know each other’s secrets, each other’s good and bad personal things, and people cannot rely on each other outside of business. People do not care about each other’s happiness or suffering, and no one is willing to make any sacrifice. Yet, such people still call their own kind of people online friends. It is hilarious. It is pure nonsense.

2. People do not know what others expect from the friendship

   A lot of time people who are immature or confused or a combination of those things will get into online friendships and not realize what they want. In every friendship, there should be a small sense of what each one expects from the other. Things that can be expected may include, but are not limited to, trusting each other with secrets, having someone to cheer the other one up in bad times, having someone to help each other during bad times, helping each other achieve something, etc.

   Simply texting or writing one another e-mails seems ok, until someone gets upset about something or until boundaries are crossed. Then, instead of knowing how to apologize or how to let the other person know their personal thoughts so that the friendship can continue, people argue while sticking to their pride and while not realizing that their online actions can also hurt others, both in and outside friendships.

3. Good and bad things related to friendship do not get enough attention

   Some people simply ignore the signs of bad things in an online friendship. Similarly, some people simply ignore the good things in an online friendship. While it can be considered all right to ignore things, a friendship cannot continue until different good and bad elements about it are kept in mind.

   Your online friendship may consist of one person feeling really happy, while you may simply act normal. That can hurt the other person. Your online friend may be really sad because of any random factor, even if that sad person is the one who is always cheering something up. If you do not notice such a thing or do not react to it in any manner, then you have to explain to yourself why you consider such a relationship to be an online friendship.

4. People focus on the online mediums of communication, instead of the friendship itself

   Majority of the online people that I see and run into focus more on the online tools of communication instead of friendship. People focus more on MySpace, and not on MySpace friends. If an online friend deletes their social networking site, all their so-called friends stop keeping in touch.

   A person has to focus mainly on the friendship, and not only on the medium of communication in a friendship. Focusing only on the medium of friendship will result in friendship being reduced to only an online way of using communication tools where we all pretend to have friends, when in reality we do not act like friends. Greeting each other is not a sign of friendship, by the way. If you follow that rule, you can automatically realize that majority of the so-called online friendships are in reality mere interaction sessions between strangers and nothing more.

5. People give friendship advice simply because it is easy to do so online

   This can be the most deadly trait of all traits. I am noticing more and more people giving other people friendship and relationship advice. People start giving advice simply because they are asked for advice, or simply because they feel they can type a lot. Any friendship or relationship advice must be carefully thought of. Many people do not realize that giving advice in situations such as online disputes means that we have to consider all sides of the story.

   Many times, people go online and read a supposed friend’s site or something, and start giving advice without asking any questions or without thinking much about it. Even more stupid are the people who actually take such advice. Would you rather think on your own, or would you rather take and follow the advice of an online person who knows nothing about you, who is only giving advice to pass time, and who does not even care about checking later whether or not their advice helped, or whether or not they should feel responsible for something that happened because of their advice.

The above are 5 random bad trends that I am noticing more and more people follow online. From calling people who give us money friends to not knowing what to seek in a friendship, to not paying attention to important things, to focusing more on the online nature of friendships than the friendship itself, and giving advice simply because it is easy to do so, all of these things contribute to the the concept of friendship being abused more and more, resulting in more fake friendships where friends do not sacrifice anything for someone else. Have you noticed anything similar in your own experience?

What do you think? Thanks for reading.

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I have an old friend on Skype that I sometimes call or send messages to. She always responds back quickly. So today, I decided to call her since Skype was not working. She did not answer, and I left her a message. She texted me back after about an hour, saying her Skype was not working and thus she could not talk to me. We always talk face to face when we meet, so on initial observations it may not be easy for many to realize why one cannot communicate easily on channels other than in person or through Skype, even though through Skype one usually either talks or simply types. I asked my friend if I could talk mention her situation on my site, and she laughed and told me “sure.” In this case, Skype facilitates and even allows the existence of many messages, specially for my friend.

An example of Skype crippling business communication

Earlier today, around 5 am, I get an international call from a distant friend that I also did business with long time ago. I know him for a few years, and thus once a year or so we like to keep in touch. He told me that his company support systems were down, as they depended solely on Skype and they needed any advice on how to communicate with about 50 of their big and only clients. Those clients were used to opening up Skype from anywhere and being able to reach the customer support for this company at anytime and to be connected live to an actual support person with a webcam, guaranteed. My friend knows a little bit about my background and enough about my skills, so he thought I could somehow come up with a solution that could fix their Skype-based customer support system for them.

Now that Skype was logging out not only my friend’s company but also customers repeatedly, my friend’s company could not simply say to customers “Hey, Skype is down, not our fault“, since the customers could say “Well, why did you choose Skype as your support system over which you have no control over in situations like these? We need support now. Not later, but right now, at this very instant.” The customers would be completely right in this case. So I asked my distant friend about how their support systems depended on Skype, and I told him that if I feel that the explanation will not help me come up with a problem, I will cut him off. He was really desperate for an immediate, so there was no time to lose with formalities or listening to everything.

He started explaining how their customer support systems worked, and after less than 3 minutes of him explaining things, I was really happy to know more about how Skype can actually help complex systems, but at the same time I realized knowing how Skype worked will not help me find the solution. I had to focus on alternatives immediately, that could do an even better job than Skype for the time being. I cut him off, rather abruptly, and told him I had a few solutions for him, and apologized for cutting him off. The way he told me with enthusiasm and delight that he did not mind being cut off showed me that things were really bad for him because of Skype not working. I told him of a few solutions and alternatives, and told him why one of the alternatives I think would work for him immediately, and how. After the entire thing was finished, I asked him if I could write about it on my personal site, since this is a topic that can affect all of us forever [more of it below]. He told me to wait a bit until later, and that he would call me again, at which time I could go ahead with writing about it while I also avoided mentioning any specifics, names or my exact solution [since he plans to use it from now on as the primary backup], so here is what I have on the entire topic.

Skype is a tool to help your message. Skype is not the message.

Skype is there to help you communicate in more ways. Let us read that one more time please. Skype is there to help you communicate in more ways. Skype is not the message; it is the medium. Let me repeat that again in a little bit more enhanced manner please. Skype is not the message; it is a technological tool. In order to communicate, you should at least have the message you want to convey, and you should what you want to convey through the message. If you know the message and know that you want to communicate something through the message, you can easily switch from one medium to another and from one tool to another in order to come up with alternatives to things like Skype.

Skype was known, until today, for almost never having any connection problems. The Skype platform itself is considered very robust and reliable by many, and thus even though it is a severe problem for many that is still happening at the time of this writing, this recent downtime in Skype communications will probably result in many companies and many people seeking out only alternative backups for the future, instead of seeking out complete replacements to be installed right away. Because of such issues, you should always use technology to only help you in communication, instead of define communication. Technology should rely on your message. Your message should not rely on technology. Technology should revolve around your message. Your message should not revolve around technology.

Control the message. Control the tool. Do not let the tool control you or the message.

If you know how to communicate with people, you will not depend on Skype to communicate with them. You will realize how to communicate and talk normally on mediums other than Skype when needed, so that you do not waste other people’s time and so that you do not bring conversations to a standstill, causing others to be uncomfortable and inconvenienced simply because you depend on Skype to feel comfortable when it comes to communication and simply because Skype is not working. For example, if you can communicate perfectly via Skype but do not know how to communicate via e-mail or phone or any other medium even when you are forced to, that means you have focused more on the medium and the tool, like Skype, instead of the message and the concept of communicating that message itself.

If you are used to asking people how their day was via Skype, you should know how to ask the same question via e-mail or over the phone. If you are used to sending information to people via Skype, you should know how to send the information via e-mail or via actual postal mail to people. If you are used to finding out more about people through Skype, you should know how to do the same via other mediums and tools like e-mail or other instant messengers. If you are used to providing help to others via Skype, you should know what the actual help consists of, and offer that help via other mediums and channels, including doing it in person.

Revolve the medium and technology around your message.

Revolve the medium around your message. Revolve technology around your message. Majority of the bloggers and majority of the people in the offline world revolve their message around other things so much, that if anything other than the message changes, the actual message gets affected and changes too. It is like 99% of all PowerPoint presentations at majority of the conferences, where the message revolves around PowerPoint. It is simply nonsense, and it is simply hilarious.

More and more people know how to communicate only through certain tools; they do not know how to communicate a message.

Is it a bad thing for more and more people to know how to communicate only through certain tools and to not know how to communicate a message? For me it is very bad, as it is more important for me to focus on the message and communicating that message, instead of focusing only or more on the communication tool provided. Otherwise, the message revolves around the tool, and thus the message gets limited and changes. As I said above, control the tools, instead of letting the tools control you or the message.

A great example of this? You do not send items that need shipping depending on how they will be shipped. You send whatever item you have that needs shipping. No matter what the item is, you ship it in a rugged piece of cover, whether it is an envelope or a box, so that shipping companies like UPS, DHL, Fed-Ex or USPS can deliver them via a truck, a train, a plane, in person or even on a boat. That is how much importance you should give to the message when it comes to realizing how much focus, compared to the message, you should put on the medium and the tool. The medium and the tool need a lot of focus, but that focus should be less than the original focus that you put on your message and the way you want the message presented or communicated.

What happened to my personal friend and my business friend?

As for my personal friend, Stephanie, if you are reading this, feel free to call me anytime, as doing a voice chat over Skype once a month can be the same as having a conversation over the phone.

As for my distant friend with the business issue, he called me again about an hours ago and told me that he is happy with the solution I offered and that it is helping keep all the customers around, even though Skype is still having issues. He said my alternate solution has literally saved him thousands of dollars per each customer, without considering the costs that the company might have experienced had any customer left the company in the last 12 hours or so. I told him “You better be happy, since it works and I didn’t charge you for it. ” Well, he is so happy, he offered to pay for my entire trip and accommodation if I ever decide to visit him and his company to see if I would want to work there in the future.

Those are some points of one of my small thoughts of the second. Thank you for reading about what happened in an hour or less of my life today. I really appreciate it.

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Since I have divided a single concept of being narrow-minded and selfish into specific points, I think there are a few things to keep in mind while reading this list. First, I am assuming we know what friendship means and what a friend is, and that we also know how to identify friends and how to identify people who are not friends but who love the idea of calling everyone a friend. Second, identifying such traits as below does not mean that your friend are definitely narrow-minded or selfish. Also, many times friends may simply be acting in certain manners because no one has told or showed them otherwise, and thus you telling them about it somehow can help. You may also be misinterpreting things due to some complex nature of your friendship. Your friend may simply be acting selfish or narrow-minded in one or only a few instances related to something because of some reason, and you may mistakenly assume that your friend is completely narrow-minded or selfish. Therefore, we are talking about friends who keep exhibiting the traits below over and over again, and not just once and never again.

Also, by selfish, I mean the real evil selfishness where a selfish friend may indirectly harm another innocent friend simply to gain something for their own selfish interest, no matter how big or small such harm may be. Other than that, I am the type of human being who considers everyone to have a lot of selfish things, as I have been pointing out for years on my site. For example, I wrote this article with the selfish purpose of expressing myself and for wanting to get heard by at least one [any] individual out there. Sure, such a thing cannot be considered selfish by many people, and many people may say I am too caring of others. I agree, and while such a trait can be extremely bad and dangerous to my own self, I have a principle of wanting to applying both random and non-random principles to things, as it allows me to realize when an act is bad and when it is not, among many other things. Similarly, I focus a lot on real selfish things in other people, selfish things that tend to hurt others on purpose.

All of the following signs are some of the signs from my countless experiences with different kind of friends.

5 signs of narrow-minded, selfish friends

1. Friends who come close only when they are depressed

   This type of friend comes close only when they are depressed. This also means that they do not interact with you even if you want to ask for some guidance or help. For such friends, your good qualities that they can use in order to become happy or happier or distracted, tend to be the only friendly aspect they wish to see in you.

   Whether or not such friends realize their behavior, you can get used because of their narrow-mindedness. There is nothing wrong with being down and needing help, whether emotionally, mentally or physically. However, there is something seriously wrong with making sure that friends are only needed when you are depressed, and not appreciated on purpose when you are not depressed.

2. Friends who come close only when you agree with them

   This type of friends wants everyone to agree with them. There cannot be disagreements or ignoring any topic, and if you disagree, you will be treated differently.

   Handling such friends can be tricky, since handling friends overall is tricky enough by itself. How do you convince someone to still respect you and still act 100% when you disagree about something with them? Whether it is something related to business or a personal opinion about a personal issue, these friends wants everyone to agree with them. They will not show such a behavior easily, and anytime they accept disagreements or different options, they will brag about such a behavior. However, when they cannot control themselves anymore, they will hate you and not respect your friendship simply because you disagree about anything that they support, or vice versa.

3. Friends who go away when you try to pinpoint issues

   This type of friends cannot hear any form of issues or problems with anything, even if such issues and problems may be affecting the friendship. Many of such friends love pointing issues themselves, but if you point them, they act weird.

   Many times, two friends can be completely different. That is why if one is acting in a manner that is affect the other one negatively, it is better to bring up the issue somehow in order to address it. However, your friend might simply act distant or unresponsive if you bring up the issue even in the most respectful and light manner. If you try to bring an issue, they will become defensive or try to act rude by not focusing on the friendship aspect of things.

4. Friends who act stubborn and righteous all the time

   These types of friend want to be right all the time. They are also opposed to realizing that some problem may be because of their own actions or thoughts. Many of such friends also love to point issues with others all the time, similar to the #4 type of friends above, while not accepting the fact that maybe they themselves may not be right about something.

   Such supposed friends act immature many times by not actually acting like monkeys, but through their changed behavior regarding many things. This can be mainly because of being spoiled in many ways, and they do not realize it. They had rather tell others all the time what is wrong with others instead of realizing any problem in their own self.

5. Friends who hate some things about you unethically and let that hate affect their interaction with you

   This can be one of the most complicated types of friends. You may have a friend who hates something about you unethically, like your race, background, your way of doing things, and because of that hate, such people will let the friendship be affected all the time, or whenever such friends feel moody.

   How do we know when a friend discriminates? How do we know when a friend has racist bias against you? How do we know when a friend hates you for something like your background, your name, your gender, your sex, your job, or something else? Such questions can bother your mind when it comes to realizing why a friend is acting in a certain manner. Such questions plague me regularly when it comes to some friends I know.

There you have it. The above are 5 signs of selfish or narrow-minded friends that can affect you negatively directly and indirectly through the friendship.

What is one of the main reasons for all of this? Not being considerate.

Majority of such issues as above happen because of one thing: not being considerate of others. Many friends can have their own logic, but they will not be considerate of others. Such people may not realize that, or they may hide such a trait under different unrelated ideas in order to not look bad, like “being strong“, or “not caring about opposition“, or “not being affected by things easily” or something similar. All such things do exist, but not in the world of inconsiderate people; inconsiderate people simply use such words to hide their inconsiderate and selfish nature.

Many people are simply inconsiderate of others. The more you are considerate of others, the more you realize how someone else may be taking advantage of you since you can easily realize the situations when being considerate of others can happen only when someone else is unfairly wanting everything and not being considerate of you on purpose.

I say “on purpose” above since many times a friend might be inconsiderate of you unconsciously, in which case you can bring up such a situation somehow in order to make sure your friendship is not affected by your friend’s behavior.

A live example of being considerate in your own life?

An example in point for everything? In the entire article above, I talked about other selfish and arrow-minded friends. I did not classify you as being one of them, and I did not classify myself as one of them either. It is one of the many writing styles to talk about others as examples. However, did you ever think “I wonder about the times when Bes may be wrong or inconsiderate of others.” Did you notice me pointing the finger only at others without pointing it at you or myself? Realizing such things can help a lot in finding out different things about ourselves, before we start finding those same things in others. My reason for not pointing fingers at you as an example or myself is to talk about things that I have experience with and people I really know. Also, hopefully the above points are something that are not present in me, as I can easily identify them in many people.

Most of the offline people I know say that I am the most considerate person they have ever met. Am I considerate of everything and everyone? No. However, as I live life everyday, I learn more about more things as time passes, and about more people as I interact with more and more people to make sure I am considerate about as many things as possible. That is one of my qualities: I can be considerate of others even if I have to make myself uncomfortable. That is simply my character, and of course in many cases it is not a limitless trait that never stops for any reason.

The topic of consideration warrants so much coverage or importance in my view, that I hope I can write at least one book on the subject, or something related, within the next three years. I think this article should be enough to serve as a brief summary of the introduction of what the concept of being considerate can do to friendships on a general, broad level.

How do you ignore such problems and focus on friendship?

You cannot. You can never ignore such problems if they keep coming back and if you want a good friend, or else your friendship will be more like a stereotypical business deal where two parties are so desperate for money [or something physical or mental in the friendship] that everything else like happiness or real respect and real appreciation will be forgotten. The friendships, where problems are ignored, turn into friendships that have nothing friendly about them.

As for me, I have the “nasty habit“, as some people say, of valuing friendships a lot and on working a lot on solving issues. There is a cut off point, though, where a friendship is more dangerous than anything, and where the permanent danger cannot be avoided unless one forgoes the friendship. That can be an article for another day.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for hopefully being considerate of my bragging of both of my good and bad points related to my concept and value of relationships and friendships, which I did on purpose to help clarify further the things I am trying to show about friendships.

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1. Directions

   Driving around with furniture and going to at least 4 cities everyday, in the middle of a move, can prove to cause headaches sometimes. That is why using the cell phone, I saved a lot of time finding out directions or shortcuts to different places. The cell phone allows me to either access Google Maps, or call a 1-800 number to find out directions. For reasons I will explain in the near future, I was forced to put some of the furniture on top of my car at the last minute in order to move it to the new house. While driving, the furniture fell down once. I decided to find some local roads instead of taking the freeway. Google Maps showed me a local route to my destination. It took longer, but the furniture did not fall again from the top of my car.

2. Finding out specific answers to specific questions

   Using the cell phone, I could call someone and find out some information, or I could even text some people. I had a very important presentation a few days ago, and I had forgotten some key information. I was driving, so checking the internet via my cell phone was not possible as I did not have enough time. What was the solution? I decided to either quickly e-mail someone or text someone. Some people I knew in other countries were sleeping like babies, so I decided to ask Valerie if she could help me . She helped me, by texting me back with all the information I needed. In this case, the cell phone is sometimes only good when you know someone reliable who can help you find some very important information. Thanks Valerie!

3. Contacting people

   This can be considered the most basic purpose of a cell phone. While doing a lot of important things, none of which can easily be given priority over something else, contacting people for various things by placing a simple phone call can help tremendously. I called a few people to confirm appointments, and I called a few people to let them know I would be a few minutes late. I also talked to different people about different important things, in other countries also, about topics ranging from business tasks to personal things.

4. Checking e-mail

   E-mail is unfortunately a big part of my life. The reason I say “unfortunately” is because I do not like relying on any piece of technology, unless it helps and cannot backfire. I get many e-mails everyday, and thus checking those e-mails via my cell phone while on the go is very important to me. I was selling some furniture, and I got an e-mail from a buyer willing to pay the price I wanted. I contacted them through my cell phone e-mail, and I sold the furniture.

5. View missed calls

   If your cell phone allows you to view missed calls, this can be one of the most important features available. I get a lot of phone calls regularly, from friends, strangers, business contacts who are either friends or just business contacts, and even new random people who call for life-threatening help for various reasons [one of my supposed-specialties]. While driving around and moving stuff, I missed a lot of calls, and I was able to call back some people. Of course, I was not able to call back any blocked calls or calls from restricted numbers.

The 5 examples above illustrate how my cell phone helped me tremendously during the last few days. By helping me find directions to finding information to interacting with others to checking e-mails to finding out who tried to contact me, my cell phone helped me save a lot of time and helped me do a lot of things faster.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about this. Thank you.

Below is the original post I had written, on July 31st, 12:02 am PST.

Title: No post today, tuesday - Moving houses - July 31st, 2007

Hello. It is that time of the year again, where I have to do it again. No, I don’t mean getting stabbed again. I am moving houses and changing cities. I will most probably not be able to access a computer with an internet connection today [Tuesday], so I apologize in advance. I will update this very post on Wednesday, hopefully, with some more useful information, like a good article. Once the new article goes live, this very message will either be buried or will get deleted.

I will reply to all comments and e-mails by this Thursday evening. If you wish to get a hold of me, simply contact me by e-mailing or im’ing me on my cell phone through e-mail or AOL AIM instant messaging.

Thank you for supporting me so far. I really appreciate it.

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Online dating services like Match, eHarmony, LavaLife, True, FriendFinder and Yahoo Personals allow you to meet new people to have relationships with. Some services like Yahoo Personals are free, while services like True cost money. Some services can have you up and searching for a supposed soulmate within 5 minutes by answering less than 10 questions. Other services, like eHarmony, make you answer around 436 questions before you can be shown any results.

Some people get good results using such services, finding the right person to date or become engaged to. Some other people do not get any results with such services, since the concept of relationships is really hard in the offline world, and the online nature of approaching dating makes it only more complicated for many people. For many people, simply looking at a picture does not match the level of observation one can make by actually observing a person in the offline world.

Do you like the idea of using online dating services?

Do you think it is a good idea to use online dating services to meet new people? Or do you prefer meeting new people through mediums other than those offered by online dating services?

Please let me know what you think. Thank you for reading.

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Good things:

Yesterday, I added an old friend of mine on MySpace to my MySpace account. We have not talked for almost 7 years for reasons I cannot remember, so I am not sure if she will add me as her friend, or if she will freak out and say “Who the heck is Bes? Gonna block this psycho!@!@!@!@!” That is a benefit of using MySpace. Not the blocking part, but the finding old friends part.

Also, you can keep in touch with friends through different things including MySpace Instant Messaging. You can also become part of the school and university groups, rate your professors too.

Bad things:

One of the flaws of using MySpace is relying on a service that is not reliable and something which does not have that many features. Spam and scamming MySpace messages haunt MySpace users. Many porn and dating services are creating fake profiles to lure unsuspecting and maybe desperate people in. Also, many psychos and stalkers are on MySpace, probably tracking different users for whatever reasons.

On top of that, MySpace is becoming more and more of an advertising network where more focus is being put on bringing ads to the users instead of adding features or building MySpace from scratch on many levels to make it more user friendly. I think Facebook learned a lot from MySpace, which is good for Facebook, and uncertain for MySpace.

What do you think of MySpace? Do you like, or would you like to use MySpace?

Some people do not use MySpace to find new people, but to simply keep in touch with people who already have MySpace, and to keep in touch with people who only want to keep in touch through MySpace. So, do you like using MySpace? Do you have, or plan to use MySpace?

Thank you for reading.

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1. The offline contacts you talk about may find out your site, causing relationship issues.
2. You may alienate online people because of the way you treat offline people through your offline stories.
3. Offline businesses may not give you their business, in the form of a contract or employment, if they see you talking about offline businesses.
4. Online, things can be taken out of context, and thus appear to be completely different what they really are in the offline world.
5. Your online privacy will be reduced. More online people will know about your personal life, creating more ways for stalkers and similar people to intrude on your life if they want to.

Do you blog about or like reading blogs about personal life stories from the offline world?

What is your opinion on this? Do you currently talk about offline people and events in your online blog? Do you like reading people’s offline stories on online websites? Do you think it is a good thing to express the personal things from the offline world online, or do you prefer keeping things in their own offline/online realm?

Thank you for reading.

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And I think my “ass” felt threatened. The woman started saying that she would kick my “ass” if I didn’t disappear. I just wanted to talk on the phone. I didn’t care about my freedom to go away at that point. I didn’t care about my freedom to drive at that point. I didn’t care about freedom to say stuff at that point. All I cared about was the freedom to talk on my god damn Kyocera phone, and the freedom to sit in that exact spot. Besides, the last time I checked, I paid the freaking taxes for the bench I was sitting on.

The screaming woman didn’t care; she kept yelling that she will beat the crap out of me, and she kept repeating that at the top of her lungs. Some rubberneckers started to stare at me. They were probably wondering who this guy was that could infuriate a lady so much. I got tired of standing. Screw this woman. I sat back down. For a moment, I felt like Rosa Parks defying a screaming lady’s demands.

“HEY YOU ASSHOLE!! YOU GONNA MOVE???” I looked at her with a serious face and nodded a no. I was talking on a cell phone. To heck with this lady, since I wasn’t bothering her directly at all. As a method of retaliation, she started picking up her papers and started throwing them on the other side of the bus stop. Her retaliatory methods encouraged me to keep sitting.

Finally fed up with this woman, I decided to embark on a case of hired mayhem. I ended up hiring a robotic-armed woman as my secret agent to silence the screaming woman who had a fetish with the spot my ass was parked on. How did I achieve such a feat? Read on….

The screaming woman, furious and crying like a little baby, yelled (even louder than before), “WILL SOMEBODY GIVE ME MY SPOT BACK? HE FUCKING TOOK IT!”

There were other people sitting on the bench, and I had changed my bench spot several times by sliding from one end to the other. She simply had a problem with me and my cell phone existing in this part of the universe. The homeless woman with the robotic arm came around again and asked if I had some change. I smiled a sorry face and nodded a no, and then I had an idea! I motioned the one-armed woman to come back and took out a $5 bill, and pointed at the yelling woman, who was still yelling, and made some figures with my hand to show that she was talking a lot.

“Get this woman off my back.” I implied with my gestures and figures.

Then, while I was on the phone, listening, I pointed at the one-armed woman and made a zipper type gesture on my mouth. The robotic lady computed for a few seconds, looked at the other woman, and then smiled with a huge grin and then looked at me and whispered “More.”

She had understood what I wanted, and she wanted more money. I looked at the screaming woman; she had taken out her cell phone and was doing something on it, while still screaming like crazy.

I looked at the one-armed woman, and then took out another $10. The one-armed woman said “More“, so I took out another $20. She immediately took the $35 with her menacing robotic claws, put her index finger on her lips as if telling me to be patient or silent, and then walked off in the other direction.

I was stumped! I thought “Wow, $35 given away for nothing!” I myself wanted to scream at the robotic lady, wanting to tell her “At least do something before walking off with my money to buy a stainless steal cleaner for your robotic arm!”

Then…

The iron-arm secret agent strikes!

I was sitting, looking in the other direction, almost starting to become moody as the lady kept yelling all sorts of profanity at me. Then, all of a sudden, I heard a huge “AAAAH” scream, from some female. I heard some people scream too. I looked in the direction of the screaming woman and noticed she was on the floor.

“What happened?” I thought in ignorance as the robotic woman jumped on the threatening lady and proceeded to beat the crap out of her.

The screaming women started pulling hair and kicked my robotic savior, and the two started shuffling on Shattuck street between Center & Allston, stopping the oncoming traffic from Center.

Many people started running towards them, some trying to get them off. The one-armed woman had fulfilled her promise; she had shut up the woman for $35, though I never imagined it would be through a fist fight. I wonder if I missed the actual action scene, with the iron-fist hitting the screaming woman from the side, while she was still screaming. Who needs to go see action movies in a movie theatre when I can direct my own, action-packed movie for only $35. Talk about reality TV.

The two women were finally separated from each other by some nearby people, and the robotic woman started walking towards me. Some guy tried to stop her from simply walking away and she yelled with her iron arm pointing at the guy, “YOU WANT MY DAMN ARM UP YOUR ASS?” The guy backed off, scared.

The screaming woman started to push and hit others around her, so people started wondering if everyone in the universe was crazy. As the iron-clawed woman approached me, she started saying out loud, “Put down the fucking phone and walk away foooo’” She started sprinting and it was an epic scene; have you ever seen a woman with a robotic claw hand running down on Shattuck street, or any street in the world? I knew I had to move now, no matter what. I couldn’t just put the phone down, so I started walking towards Fed-Ex again. I stood outside it for a few minutes, watching the chaos that Bes had just created from across the street. After the important phone call finished, I went into Fed-ex and started faxing the things I wanted to fax. I kept checking outside every few minutes to see what was going on. The police had arrived, and they were probably asking different people different things. No one was pointing towards me, which was good. Within 20 minutes or so, the street was clear again and there she was, the screaming woman, sitting at the same spot. Some people never learn.

I left FedEx Kinko’s and started walking towards my car. I got into the car, wondering about what had happened. That was probably the 7th nice incident that had happened to Bes on that same day, so it was noted in Bes’s memory for future reference. If only Bes could write a book, it would be awesome (I’m accepting pre-purchases).

I started driving down the street and had to stop at the red light. The light was one light before the screaming lady’s bench area. I heard the same lady screaming again, so I thought she had spotted me and was alerting everyone again. I looked in her direction, surprised. She had not spotted me. She was yelling at some girl who was sitting at a bench near the bus stop. The girl didn’t have any cell phone on her, but she did have a terrified look on her face as she got up and started walking away really fast. I wonder why the screaming woman got mad at her. If only that terrified girl had thirty five dollars.

Perception ruled almost everything

The screaming woman viewed the whole scene as being able to be solved by her yelling at me, without perceiving my situation. I had looked at the situation considering the idea that anyone can sit at bus stops, and that I was not bothering anyone, and that the woman was not homeless. Many homeless people have territories in the Bay Area, so if you invade that space, they can get upset. The screaming lady was surely not homeless, so I thought the invasion of territory shouldn’t be significant. The one-clawed woman/male/something assassin had looked at the entire perspective based on how he/she/it could return some value to me for the $35 I gave to the iron claws, and hitting the other woman seemed the only way for her to achieve some useful results. The imagined or perceived perception of everything resulted in three different characters causing a chain of events that the universe observed.

Who said one-clawed people were evil and not trustworthy? Chaotic, yes. Extreme, yes. But trustworthy, I think. Or at least this one-clawed human being was.

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Some anti-gay people I know are so nice and respectful that I feel lucky to know them. Others are simply so obsessed that I am surprised.

I know many people online who are gay, many people online who are not gay, and I know many online people who do not like gay people. Some of my very close offline and online friends do not like gay people, but they also make sure they have logic in their arguments, and that they do not go around hating a whole group of people simply because of their own sexual preference. My close friends, both online and offline, can say anything logical and warranted because they are my close friends. However, if you know me only through a single post and start telling me online that you know me for only a day, and that you will not come back to my blog because you think I am gay, I am not going to persuade you to stay. Convincing people that gay people are good or they are bad can be a quest I am willing to go after; convincing you to stay, because of your assumptions while reading a single post and knowing me for less than 24 hours, is something I could have done last year when I was counseling people a lot.

However, many of these people do not care about such things as long as they are not directly affected by something related to the concept of being gay. I notice some people act weird every single day, because of their fear that gay or bisexual people are alive in this world. They do not care if a gay or bisexual blogger posts something useful in a blog post or a blog comment; they only care about the sexual preference of that blogger or commentor, and they judge the blogger or commentor accordingly.

The most common reason for people hating gay people

Even though so many people tell me that they would not like to be touched sexually by a person of the same sex, I often wonder how many of such people are attractive enough to attract anyone. If you ask people, the people who say “I do not like being touched or asked out by another guy/girl“, you may be surprised to hear the answer if you ask them “How many people of the same sex as you have ever actually hit on you.” Even if someone hits on you, does that mean you have to start hating that person, or everyone who has the same sexual preference as that person?

Unless a gay or bisexual blogger talks about topics revolving gay and bisexual nature of people that affects your views or yourself directly, it can be extreme to argue against or even hate someone or treat them differently, simply because of their sexual preference, when they are simply trying to focus on a non-gay topics and offer you their opinion. Why not just focus on the topic at hand if that topic does not revolve, even remotely, around topics like same sex marriage?

How about gay people hating straight people?

Now an even more interesting thing to think about is how many gay people have phobia against non-gay people. I was making a list, and I know at least 14 people off the top of my head who are strictly anti-straight; these people are obsessed with hating straight people, which is again weird in my opinion. I think I am going to start a series on both topics soon.

What do you think? If you are a close friend, you already know if I am gay or not. Otherwise, you can probably figure out on your own if I am gay or not, though I love being whatever nightmare or phobia you may have. Why? Because I can. Your ability to start acting weird around me simply because of your own fear, which has nothing to do with me and which exists because of you passing judgments about me without thinking, gives me the right to.

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