vovat | Family comes and goes, but people you're in school with are forever

Why is it that people who make a point of demonstrating how outgoing and friendly they are often turn out to be incredibly standoffish? I mean, if you're always talking about how much fun you have with your friends, but you're totally dismissive of anyone new, how did you make these friends in the first place? Was there a cutoff point in your life, when you just decided, "I'm going to stop making new friends...now." It's a little hard to explain exactly what I mean, but it's strange how many people like this I come across. I guess my thing is that, being the socially awkward person I am, I'm probably not all that friendly. But I do try to be fair to anyone who genuinely wants to converse with me online. As introverted as I am, I WANT to meet new people, especially those who share my interests. So I try not to play favorites when I'm replying to comments and such, you know? I welcome comments from anybody, as long as they're not spammers or trolls. That said, as much as I beg for comments, I'm not always that great at leaving them for others, because I have a fear of rejection. How much can you really reject someone who leaves a comment on a blog? I don't know, but I never said it was a rational fear. The thing is, once I DO work up the courage to comment on another person's stuff and get a reasonably friendly response, I'll often start commenting on everything they write. It's like making the first step is an incredible challenge, but after that the rest is easy. Except it isn't always easy, because I frequently worry that I'm going to offend someone. I have the kind of personality where, if someone is mad at me, I tend to assume they hate me, even if we've gotten along well more often than we've fought. It's really not fair of me, but it's usually how I operate. Maybe there's a part of my mind that would actually PREFER someone to hate me than for me to have to make the effort to make up with them. I don't know. It's just a thought. In my more rational moods, I figure it's unlikely too many people hate me. They might dislike me, sure, but hatred is too active an emotion for people to waste on relative strangers. As much as I respect the rational, however, I can't help feeling otherwise.

In lighter news, I thought the Sunday night cartoon lineup was pretty good. On American Dad, the Jewish farmer with the talking cabbages was funny, if rather bizarre. The Simpsons episode initially struck me as retreading familiar territory, since we already had Bart making an attempt to do magic at the beginning of "The Great Money Caper" (although that ended up taking a quite different turn). As it turned out, though, seeing Lisa become a magician was fun, and the Great Raymondo was actually a sympathetic character. The mockery of Criss Angel was also amusing, as was a repeat appearance by Penn and Teller (and yes, Teller talks, quite a bit actually). Bob's Burgers was good as well, and I find it interesting how many comedians I know from other stuff are voices on the show. Jay Johnston from Mr. Show voices Jimmy Pesto, and Sarah Silverman and her sister Laura the Pesto twins. I can't think of anything specific to say about Family Guy, but I did like it.