This is about as much “social contact” as I have- posting words to anonymous strangers at a site like SP. Every now and then I post to other groups but I’ve given up on them. Why? All the other groups have TONS of ppl- you post and NO ONE remembers your story. It’s just one post. People reply, and then they forget about you. That’s literally ppl’s attention span. From one post to the next. Hell- I wouldn’t be surprised if Gen Beta can’t even hack 280 character long tweets, given our skyrocketing ADD trends. At least SP folks, as few as we have here, sort of know each others stories by now.
I suppose I’m way more broken than I admit to- at least others here talk to real life HUMANS. I’ve given up on real life humans. Bc everyone I meet sucks. And family sucks MOST OF ALL.
Are there some good ppl left in this world? Sure. But none are in my life and when you are broken and poor, you don’t meet “good normal people.”
It’s like if you live in the ghettos, you don’t meet nice well dressed amazing ppl with bright futures walking around in your neighborhood. You meet, and are surrounded by, shady ass ghetto ppl. It’s like that with our social life as well. When you are broken, poor, depressed, chronically ill- you only meet shitty ppl. Or other ppl who are just as broken and sad and hopeless as you.
Meaning it’s not likely I’ll meet someone “good” or “normal.” Haven’t since I became unemployed and chronically ill. “Normal” people don’t want anything to do with the sick or jobless. The “good” ppl are…well idk where they are. Just nowhere around me apparently.
6 comments
I agree that this place is special – someone once described it as if being on the edge of the internet.
being well dressed makes a person good? I should be way less hard on myself lol. I have worked in ghettos, but you dress for it when you do, if you wear a suit and tie into a neighborhood like that you deserve what you get in my opinion.
It depends a lot on where and who though, in the ones I worked in. I almost moved to one area it was so nice, and cheap. Where I’m at now is so expensive and I don’t get much in return until I sell. I’m a sick puppy though, I get along better with outcasts and unwanted people than with the well to do accepted folks.
The contrast is one I remember a specific day where I spent half the day finishing up a rougher neighborhood, then I went to the entire other side of town and did one of the most expensive neighborhoods I ever surveyed.
I remember the rough neighborhood, I got to talk to lots of nice people. There were a lot of old people and children. When all you get is people’s back yards, old people and children are as good as it gets. I got into every yard, and everyone I met was really glad I was there and supportive of my work.
Then I packed my gear and drove 15 miles to the other side of town, night and day. From 600 square foot houses with roof issues to Mcmansions. God, I hate mcmansions. It’s the people that live in them, or more accurately rarely speak to anyone. You’d think that was the abandoned neighborhood. No one was nice, and I couldn’t get into a few yards.
There was a whole street that stonewalled me entirely. I was surveying for natural gas leaks, so I guess that street decided they would rather risk dying in a gas explosion than bother letting a young man walk their yards. They stonewalled me for two months of attempts. No one ever went in, no one ever came out during the time I was working. They never answered the gate.
That’s my observation of the social contract. The only people who try are those who it screws. The people who are supposed to be holding it up? Jerks. If you ask them directly, they’ll tell you straight out that they don’t feel like they owe you anything.
Yeah, this place is special though, no arguments there. Nowhere else I’d be tolerated as much as I am here.
1- I never said being well-dressed makes anyone good. All that means is that person has the money to be well-dressed and well-dressed ppl tend to live in upper class neighborhoods.
2- Just bc you have visited some rough areas and the ppl were nice to you doesn’t mean it’s nice LIVING in those areas. Also, you DO realize that they are nice to certain white ppl right? Bc in those neighborhoods, if you are black or hispanic or any minority, and you get mugged/harassed/attacked/killed, no one gives a shit. But if you’re white, (and not a poor white), they have to make sure that YOU don’t get killed or mugged or harassed, bc that will make the news, and then the cops will reign down on them and they will be in trouble.
3- You think a minority walking around or living in those bad neighborhoods have fun and lovely times living in the ghettos and chatting with their “nice” neighbors? The ghettos are called ghettos for a reason, and it’s dangerous as fuck, and ppl there aren’t friendly, and aren’t the kinds you wanna just “go and have a chat with.”
4- yeah, if you’re the white dude working for the city checking to see if there’s natural gas leaks in their houses/neighborhoods, OFC they’re going to be nice to you. Very few ppl actually go around checking their neighborhood to make sure it’s safe, especially ghetto neighborhoods.
5- I never said rich ppl weren’t also shitty ppl. Rich ppl tend to be assholes too, they just do it differently from the poor.
oh yeah, I could well tell some stories, but it’s just different than how white people painted it to me before I went there and tried to learn myself. That’s my contrast; when I was growing up on the affluent side of town I was told a lot of scary stories about them, meanwhile where I grew up was made out to be so secure, and it wasn’t.
I live in the mid south, there were plenty of other white people on the poor side of town. I probably looked hispanic to most of them. I’ve spent my whole life working with this demographic though. Every time I try to work with my own democraphic; rich white people, it blows up in my face. So I work with minority populations most of the time.
They’re the only people that I see strangers legitimately wanting to be sure I’m okay. I had a client who was concerned I was out of breath the other day, poor minority lady, someone from my background wouldn’t care.
So what matters to me is highly localized to who cares about my well being. It has never been anyone who makes more than six figures and isn’t related to me. It’s been a lot of elderly minority people. I feel a little protective of that group, because some of those ladies are better mothers than my own. Heck, probably quite a lot of them.
They didn’t have to care, they don’t have to care about me I don’t have the same color skin or economic background, but they do.
Also…the title of my post is “Social Contact” not “Social Contract.” Big difference.
I’m not trying to start a fight with you; I just disagree with you that ppl in poor ghetto neighborhoods are such “nice, lovely ppl.”