Birds of a Feather, On Twitter, CAN Flock Together

We started this entry with a completely different angle, it quickly took a sharp turn. We wanted to explain that everyday can’t be a gut wrenching writing day for us, that we have a small amount of sanity to try to maintain over here at Just Call Me Frank, and we had a little fun information to post, but as mentioned, that flew out the window.

So....here goes...sorry we couldn't make you laugh a whole lot, just yet. We promise that we'll interject some humour for Sundays entry.

Existing in Real Life, which is to say, outside of our apartment, is a challenge to us many days. It’s been that way every time I’ve been around. We have a hard time staying focused, because we're always talking with each other, and since we got rid of The Other Girl, we have a lot more fun together, and are much more at ease; that’s why we like so much time alone. When it’s just us we paint, and listen to music, and dance, and read, and write, and play online; and just be, together. Sometimes, however, we like to share the fun we're having, without being inconvenience too terribly by others; that's why when we discovered Twitter recently, we were pretty happy (we've only been active on it about a month!). Last time I was around, we played in chat rooms, a similar arena, but different.

In real life you can't talk to someone and just walk away when you get distracted by “thoughts”, or when you “lose interest”; when your blood pressure rises, your heart pounds, your head feels like a hurricane is headed your way, or you are suddenly overcome with anger; all of which has happened to us at various periods in our life. Like these days.

At some juncture there is a breaking point. What happens in our head causes us to hold our fists, or palms, over our ears to block out some of the “distraction”, we snap, we’re mean and it appears childish and rude; it’s embrarring for us. It's the anxiety, and the ensuing anger the follows, that drives us to stay in by our self. This is not meant to be offensive to anybody.

Really. It's not YOU...it's US.

Sometimes we even get anxiety over things when we are by our self; it makes us yell and scream at nobody and nothing, and on occasion, at our precious cats. We kick the sofa, swear at the other furniture, and are generally unpleasant; we’re just being honest here - it's ugly behaviour. There are days when there is nothing pretty about being US, nothing appealing about our personalities, and some days we can’t even stand our self. Why would anyone expect us to subject them, or anybody else to that, if we don’t even like it?

This is why Twitter rules our nest; we can walk away for a few minutes, hours or even days. You can leave a message, or messages, for the people you like if they’re not around; for some you can extend your online Twitter relationship to Skype, or e-mail, or other social media outlets, besides Twitter; though we don’t plan to share our face with anyone. Though we have with one person, and that's where we plan to draw the line.

So, on Twitter, we play, we make "friends", and we try to weed out the sheeple. The Sheeple are the ignorant people; that’s a very basic way for us to describe them without coming off…well…as a real bitch.

We've made a few awesome #TwitterFriends: notably @ItsVader (who Twittercided Spring 2011) and @singlemomdate. We flirt, make jokes, spout off. We have a lists that we curate of people who make us laugh, who we talk to and inquire about their days, who make us smile, and who we try to make smile, even if it's just a #TweetSmile. Some of them we care for, as much as one can in our situation, because we realize that even in a virtual world, where everyone is a faceless name, there are still those of us that can only exist comfortably there.

Before we move on, we wanted to note that @singlemomdate wrote about us in her blog recently, so we're going to return the favour.

She mentioned how she was “named to a list by an influential blogger [on Twitter, called], TeamAwesome ([maintained by] @JustCallMeFrank)”.

(Wait, what, we're influential!?)

Commenting, “Sheesh… now I have to be awesome, #nopressure…. I was just going for “not sucking” (cheesy “raise the roof” gesture… ya I know soooooo 2008)” and we thought we’d mention her, because she mentioned us. And she’s pretty cool.” [you can visit her at http://thesinglemomsdatingdiary.blogspot.com/]

Her blog may be much different than ours, but we are both writers with a gritty sense of humour, snappy wit; and ladies like us have to unite. Plus she’s read all about us, and me, and if she’s still willing to be our gal pal, then all the power to her!

As writers we find Twitter a fun challenge to try to fit what’s in our head into 140 characters using prompts like trending words; we believe it has improved our writing. It's a useful tool.

We have seen the looks on people’s faces, and their lack of understanding with our inability to articulate what we mean when we use the term "us" in conversation. We remember recently having a discussion with Standby about our writing. "I" was telling him how it felt wrong, almost uncomfortable, to write about “myself” using “I” in many situations. He, of course, did not understand, just looked at us quizzically. This is one reason why Twitter makes us comfortable, we enjoy being able to refer to who we are, as us, because we are Us; but in the Real World, that can cause problems. As a matter of fact, for some reason, if causes problems online too - but that's easier for us to deal with.

On Twitter you can form connections for different reasons; it especially works for people who have a hard time leaving their apartment/home, like we do most of the time. We still have a desire to connect, somehow, with other people, in a way that we are comfortable. Trust me when we say, we understand that Twitter, and online social media, is no replacement for flesh and blood people, though at the other end of that connection IS a “flesh and blood person”. However, there is a segment of society that would prefer not to mingle with the "Flesh and Blood People". At least 50-70% of the time, that’s us.

There exist, in the Real World, as well as in the online world, the naysayers, the luddites and the ignorant people; those who just don’t understand what some of our experiences are like; and when we say our we are referring to anyone who relates to the stories of our life, and the feeling we share in our blog. We realize we won’t be able to get people to understand, unless they are open to it, so we are not going to bang our head against the laptop screen trying to get them, or maybe, even YOU, to understand.

Sure it makes forming Real Life relationships difficult, not being able to bear most of society; not only because of society, but because of our self. We would say the most difficult thing is when you actually find people you want to spend time with, but they don’t have the time, or the desire, to spend it with you; for various reasons. The thing about the outside world is they have lives, and when you go through stages where you can’t be out in the world, which we do, you lose people; they don’t have time for someone who won’t leave their home. Mostly we end up being okay with that, but occasionally we are less okay with that.

Some might say you can’t form relationships with people, or know people, you’ve never seen. From our experience you can’t really do that in real life either, and if you tell yourself you can, then believe what you must. But think. Do you know the person who works with you every day, just because you see their face, and listen to their voice? Do you know your husband, or wife? Do you really know the person you call your best friend?

Surely you’ve heard stories from people, people shocked because they “thought they knew her” or “used to go out for beers with him all the time”, “traveled with her”, or even, “was married to him/her” - only to find out they’re a serial killer…a kidnapper…a pedophile...an adulterer…a child abuser…a rapist…metally ill.

The point is, in real life, as in online life, the uncertainties are just that. Uncertain.

We KNOW that we are not alone in this. We have already met some of the various people who we’ve been trying to reach with this blog. Not only are we trying to reach out to them, however, we are reaching out to everyone; those who don’t understand what we are all going through, all in our own unique, but similar way; and why we are going through it, the things that can happen in a person life, out of their control, that make it even harder to come to term with the life we all deal with.

The struggles on a day to day basis are hard to explain, some days are better than others, but know that there are people around who go about their days trying lead a life that appears normal, and when they get home, you can’t imagine the “demons” that they might confront.

We are not “always” unemployed, homeless, sedated on medication, or living in mental hospitals. The face of mental illness does not have a particular look. We are the people who sit next to you on the bus, but not the one you think; we are in the office across the hall from you, working on that project; we are, perhaps, even in the seat next to you at church.

The important thing to take from this, if you take anything, is to remember: we are all around you, and sometimes we are suffering in silence. And just like you, all we want is someone to understand us, or even, just accept us for who we are; because some days it's hard, and some days, WE feel like a freak - And you probably do to.

We are all beautiful freaks.