: The point is you'll never know, and if you are going to condemn posters : on the basis of a suspicion of fakery that can not be confirmed, then : you might as well admit what you really want: not just a cheap holiday : in someone else's pain, but a vividly written one; not just a discussion : of angst, but a discussion with someone who will express, and amplify, : and clarify exactly what you are feeling...so what we are left with is not : a need for real angst, but a need for angst that everyone else can : believe in...angst that reinforces the atmosphere of alt.angst...
this post was a response to something someone said about "how do you feel about obvious fakery [on the group]?" since i've been gone for a week, i'm not entirely clear on everything going on, but there are a couple things i want to address here.
first, i'm not sure i've ever even seen any other posts by the person who brought up the question of obvious fakery. i doubt i'd recognize obvious fakery if it bit me, because i take everything said here more or less at face value. if people wanna bullshit, it's not my problem. what do i lose from the games they're playing? < shrug> i have enough stuff to deal with without trying to decide how honest other people are being with me.
that said, there are some people whom i respect more than others around here. my criteria aren't, as cynthia suggests, articulateness or writing skill or vividness of description. they have nothing to do with severity of trauma, even; some of the people i most enjoy reading have had relatively smooth lives. i'm in love with someone whose life has been rather pleasant -- he's also one of the most insightful people i know and i like his posts (on those rare occasions he makes them).
you can just tell sometimes when people are willing to give to the group as well as receive, willing to be wherever it is they are and take risks. those people i admire. there are other people who seem to take on an "advisor" role, kinda like they've got this shit all sussed and they can help those of us poor souls still mired in despair. that's cool, but it's hard for me to respect people who aren't willing to make themselves vulnerable to the group. it's a balance thing. sometimes strength and wisdom, sometimes vulnerability. alt.angst has become a safe place for me to do both.
i've said a zillion times that suffering dicksizewars serve no purpose except annoyance. how can you even begin to gauge how much incident a caused person a to suffer? it's not like you can stick a thermometer into someone's cortex -- "hmm, we seem to have a slight pain-fever here, nothing too terribly traumatic." i've had some rather melodramatic things in my life, but i've seen people hurting just as much over incidents that seem more mundane.
the beauty of alt.angst lies in the room that's made for all kinds of input, everything from tragedy to comedy to flame wars to meta-angst discussions like this one. people get needs met here, sometimes without ever completely articulating what those needs are. it works. we share a willingness to look at the bleakness and uncertainty of life without flinching (well, without flinching much), and that's amazingly cool. i like it here, even when people are shredding me publicly.