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Nov. 12th, 2003 12:00 pm*is startled by the number of new people reading this journal since the last time she looked*
Hi, new people! Welcome to my little corner of LJ. :)
Hi, new people! Welcome to my little corner of LJ. :)
Nov. 12th, 2003
Generic rommate thoughts
Nov. 12th, 2003 12:17 pmLiving with me is apparently confusing. Roommates, more even than most people, need to schedule time to spend with me, or at least indicate verbally that they want to chat with me. Rather than just starting to talk to me without letting me know that it's not a brief thing, that is. (Hmm. OK, I begin to suspect that *any* interaction with me not expected to be brief, unless I'm in a mindset where I expect such things to happen, needs to be verbally communicated. Interesting.)
I don't think this used to be the case, but I may be mistaken. Of course, it may be because I used to not be as social as I am now, so was more easily available to/aware of overtures to spend time with roommates. And I used to spend most of my time when there were people around in some sort of state of expectation that they were going to want to talk to me or ask something of me. I seem to have misplaced that expectation, which pleases me. It was stressful!
My default state when I'm home is that I'm home and have nothing I *have* to do for however much time is available. Which tends to mean I try to cram a bunch of things in with limited time, and am rarely not in the middle of doing something. This can be anything from cleaning up around the house, reading, playing a computer game, chatting with my cat, stretching, meditating, etc... but generally, my expectation is that I'm not going to need to be social. I can get non-social things done.
So, people who live with me need to say something if they want to chat for more than a few moments, so that I will stop being in the middle of stuff and distracted. Unless I'm feeling anti-social, I will probably be fine with chatting - it's just not my default expectation when at home. So it will need to be stated. Or scheduled, if it's an especially social week for me.
This is confusing to people, since they figure that living with me will mean they'll interact with me more. Which, to some degree, is true - but the intereactions have less meaning, and are generally more relating to roommate stuff than reaffirming of connections type stuff (of whatever type - I tend to not have roommates to whom I have no connection at all). I'm often very busy, and home is somewhere where I don't expect to be being particularly social.
I haven't yet decided if this is something I want to be working on or not, because it is very nice to not have a part of my brain expecting a demand to be made of me. It's nice to believe that someone will *tell* me if they want to talk beyond brief exchanges of information, although I suspect I need to be better as saying something about it to future roommates, because this is apparently strange and confusing.
Interesting...
It is true that I will also request some more long-term interactions if I realize they are missing with roommates, but that does depend on how strong a connection I have to people I live with. Realizing that I have not really have much interaction of note lately with people I live with takes a lot longer than realizing the same thing about someone who I do not live with. Seeing someone regularly does that to me, I've found. And I may not always realize where the problem lies, should I realize that something is missing. It will take even longer for me to get from 'something is wrong/missing/out of wack' to 'oh! I haven't had any sort of meaningful interaction with [roommate] in a really long time! I should do something about that'. So, generally, the roommate will notice and realize what the problem is long before I do - or at least this has been the case with the current and previous roommates.
Weird how it's taken me this long to notice this to a point where I realize that there is something I need to be doing, especially since this current living location is the first place where I did *not* have roommates of some sort or another (I was a middle of 6 kids). Maybe I needed the break from roommates to see things more clearly?
Yes. Mental note to self - remember to share this kind of info with future (and possibly current) roommates.
I don't think this used to be the case, but I may be mistaken. Of course, it may be because I used to not be as social as I am now, so was more easily available to/aware of overtures to spend time with roommates. And I used to spend most of my time when there were people around in some sort of state of expectation that they were going to want to talk to me or ask something of me. I seem to have misplaced that expectation, which pleases me. It was stressful!
My default state when I'm home is that I'm home and have nothing I *have* to do for however much time is available. Which tends to mean I try to cram a bunch of things in with limited time, and am rarely not in the middle of doing something. This can be anything from cleaning up around the house, reading, playing a computer game, chatting with my cat, stretching, meditating, etc... but generally, my expectation is that I'm not going to need to be social. I can get non-social things done.
So, people who live with me need to say something if they want to chat for more than a few moments, so that I will stop being in the middle of stuff and distracted. Unless I'm feeling anti-social, I will probably be fine with chatting - it's just not my default expectation when at home. So it will need to be stated. Or scheduled, if it's an especially social week for me.
This is confusing to people, since they figure that living with me will mean they'll interact with me more. Which, to some degree, is true - but the intereactions have less meaning, and are generally more relating to roommate stuff than reaffirming of connections type stuff (of whatever type - I tend to not have roommates to whom I have no connection at all). I'm often very busy, and home is somewhere where I don't expect to be being particularly social.
I haven't yet decided if this is something I want to be working on or not, because it is very nice to not have a part of my brain expecting a demand to be made of me. It's nice to believe that someone will *tell* me if they want to talk beyond brief exchanges of information, although I suspect I need to be better as saying something about it to future roommates, because this is apparently strange and confusing.
Interesting...
It is true that I will also request some more long-term interactions if I realize they are missing with roommates, but that does depend on how strong a connection I have to people I live with. Realizing that I have not really have much interaction of note lately with people I live with takes a lot longer than realizing the same thing about someone who I do not live with. Seeing someone regularly does that to me, I've found. And I may not always realize where the problem lies, should I realize that something is missing. It will take even longer for me to get from 'something is wrong/missing/out of wack' to 'oh! I haven't had any sort of meaningful interaction with [roommate] in a really long time! I should do something about that'. So, generally, the roommate will notice and realize what the problem is long before I do - or at least this has been the case with the current and previous roommates.
Weird how it's taken me this long to notice this to a point where I realize that there is something I need to be doing, especially since this current living location is the first place where I did *not* have roommates of some sort or another (I was a middle of 6 kids). Maybe I needed the break from roommates to see things more clearly?
Yes. Mental note to self - remember to share this kind of info with future (and possibly current) roommates.
Generic rommate thoughts
Nov. 12th, 2003 12:17 pmLiving with me is apparently confusing. Roommates, more even than most people, need to schedule time to spend with me, or at least indicate verbally that they want to chat with me. Rather than just starting to talk to me without letting me know that it's not a brief thing, that is. (Hmm. OK, I begin to suspect that *any* interaction with me not expected to be brief, unless I'm in a mindset where I expect such things to happen, needs to be verbally communicated. Interesting.)
I don't think this used to be the case, but I may be mistaken. Of course, it may be because I used to not be as social as I am now, so was more easily available to/aware of overtures to spend time with roommates. And I used to spend most of my time when there were people around in some sort of state of expectation that they were going to want to talk to me or ask something of me. I seem to have misplaced that expectation, which pleases me. It was stressful!
My default state when I'm home is that I'm home and have nothing I *have* to do for however much time is available. Which tends to mean I try to cram a bunch of things in with limited time, and am rarely not in the middle of doing something. This can be anything from cleaning up around the house, reading, playing a computer game, chatting with my cat, stretching, meditating, etc... but generally, my expectation is that I'm not going to need to be social. I can get non-social things done.
So, people who live with me need to say something if they want to chat for more than a few moments, so that I will stop being in the middle of stuff and distracted. Unless I'm feeling anti-social, I will probably be fine with chatting - it's just not my default expectation when at home. So it will need to be stated. Or scheduled, if it's an especially social week for me.
This is confusing to people, since they figure that living with me will mean they'll interact with me more. Which, to some degree, is true - but the intereactions have less meaning, and are generally more relating to roommate stuff than reaffirming of connections type stuff (of whatever type - I tend to not have roommates to whom I have no connection at all). I'm often very busy, and home is somewhere where I don't expect to be being particularly social.
I haven't yet decided if this is something I want to be working on or not, because it is very nice to not have a part of my brain expecting a demand to be made of me. It's nice to believe that someone will *tell* me if they want to talk beyond brief exchanges of information, although I suspect I need to be better as saying something about it to future roommates, because this is apparently strange and confusing.
Interesting...
It is true that I will also request some more long-term interactions if I realize they are missing with roommates, but that does depend on how strong a connection I have to people I live with. Realizing that I have not really have much interaction of note lately with people I live with takes a lot longer than realizing the same thing about someone who I do not live with. Seeing someone regularly does that to me, I've found. And I may not always realize where the problem lies, should I realize that something is missing. It will take even longer for me to get from 'something is wrong/missing/out of wack' to 'oh! I haven't had any sort of meaningful interaction with [roommate] in a really long time! I should do something about that'. So, generally, the roommate will notice and realize what the problem is long before I do - or at least this has been the case with the current and previous roommates.
Weird how it's taken me this long to notice this to a point where I realize that there is something I need to be doing, especially since this current living location is the first place where I did *not* have roommates of some sort or another (I was a middle of 6 kids). Maybe I needed the break from roommates to see things more clearly?
Yes. Mental note to self - remember to share this kind of info with future (and possibly current) roommates.
I don't think this used to be the case, but I may be mistaken. Of course, it may be because I used to not be as social as I am now, so was more easily available to/aware of overtures to spend time with roommates. And I used to spend most of my time when there were people around in some sort of state of expectation that they were going to want to talk to me or ask something of me. I seem to have misplaced that expectation, which pleases me. It was stressful!
My default state when I'm home is that I'm home and have nothing I *have* to do for however much time is available. Which tends to mean I try to cram a bunch of things in with limited time, and am rarely not in the middle of doing something. This can be anything from cleaning up around the house, reading, playing a computer game, chatting with my cat, stretching, meditating, etc... but generally, my expectation is that I'm not going to need to be social. I can get non-social things done.
So, people who live with me need to say something if they want to chat for more than a few moments, so that I will stop being in the middle of stuff and distracted. Unless I'm feeling anti-social, I will probably be fine with chatting - it's just not my default expectation when at home. So it will need to be stated. Or scheduled, if it's an especially social week for me.
This is confusing to people, since they figure that living with me will mean they'll interact with me more. Which, to some degree, is true - but the intereactions have less meaning, and are generally more relating to roommate stuff than reaffirming of connections type stuff (of whatever type - I tend to not have roommates to whom I have no connection at all). I'm often very busy, and home is somewhere where I don't expect to be being particularly social.
I haven't yet decided if this is something I want to be working on or not, because it is very nice to not have a part of my brain expecting a demand to be made of me. It's nice to believe that someone will *tell* me if they want to talk beyond brief exchanges of information, although I suspect I need to be better as saying something about it to future roommates, because this is apparently strange and confusing.
Interesting...
It is true that I will also request some more long-term interactions if I realize they are missing with roommates, but that does depend on how strong a connection I have to people I live with. Realizing that I have not really have much interaction of note lately with people I live with takes a lot longer than realizing the same thing about someone who I do not live with. Seeing someone regularly does that to me, I've found. And I may not always realize where the problem lies, should I realize that something is missing. It will take even longer for me to get from 'something is wrong/missing/out of wack' to 'oh! I haven't had any sort of meaningful interaction with [roommate] in a really long time! I should do something about that'. So, generally, the roommate will notice and realize what the problem is long before I do - or at least this has been the case with the current and previous roommates.
Weird how it's taken me this long to notice this to a point where I realize that there is something I need to be doing, especially since this current living location is the first place where I did *not* have roommates of some sort or another (I was a middle of 6 kids). Maybe I needed the break from roommates to see things more clearly?
Yes. Mental note to self - remember to share this kind of info with future (and possibly current) roommates.