Welcome to Gaia! ::

Okay, Chibi, you want a truth...I think I'll just ask you the same question you asked me: If you could make any anime guy come out of the TV and make him your real-life boyfriend, who would it be? My only stipulation is that you have to pick somebody besides Lelouche, since we all know you love him! blaugh

Truth, please. (I have no guts, and I am not ashamed of it!)

Thank you, thank you, thank you for removing the thing that didn't need to be said in public. EVER. sweatdrop

I'm just paranoid because you never know who can track you down. That said, I've disabled the tool that allows people to use my e-mail address to find me, and I'm really careful about not using my real name or revealing too many specifics about where I live (although I've already said enough in here and in Anime and Manga Club that a really enterprising person could figure out about where I live and where I go to school, and since the graduate history program is really small, a process of elimination could lead said enterprising individual....right...to...me. sweatdrop *takes a deep breath*

Yeah, I know I'm paranoid, but it's better to be safe than sorry, right?

Anyway...

By the same token, a random person can see your name in the newspaper or something, search for you in the phone book, and show up at your front door. Or, if you want to go even further, someone can look at your IP address, pinpoint your location, and show up at your front door. Or, someone could spy on you using Google Earth. The list goes on and on. It's harder to stay hidden in the modern age, but that doesn't mean you have to be afraid. You're not a little girl, so you don't have to worry about *****. You're an intelligent adult who can take care of herself. We've met some cool friends irl because of Gaia, so I don't think we have to worry too much about staying invisible.

What's your biggest personal regret (not involving other people, just something that bothers you specifically without regard to others)

Oh, this one's easy. More than any single thing I've DONE in my life, my biggest regret (other than the fact that my relationship with Stinky didn't work out) is spending WAAAAAAY too many years (basically, all of my childhood and into early adulthood) letting my peers' opinions, or what I worried their opinions would be, control MY actions and my interests. The biggest example of this is my childhood interest in science. I'm a history major looking into several possible careers that would be a wonderful fit for me (the chief two among them being "archivist" and "librarian"), but once upon a time, in elementary school, my favorite subject in the whole wide world was science. But by the time I got to middle school, there were a lot of subtle messages, from my peers and from society in general, that science was not a suitable subject for girls to be interested in, and that the "proper" subjects for girls were English, history, etc. (Bear in mind that this was way before I'd ever heard of MARIE CURIE.) So, not wanting to be seen as "less than feminine," I decided not to be openly interested in science anymore and to like English more. I was really interested in a wide range of subjects (except math, because even though I know that science and math go hand in hand, I used to hate math because it alternated between being too easy and too hard. Now I LOVE math, and I volunteer as a math tutor in a local GED class. But I digress...), but I already REALLY struggled with self-image, and because I was somewhat slow to mature (up until college I was a few months younger than most of my classmates), I was, in middle school, still in the "boys have cooties" phase of my life, so people started spreading rumors that I was gay just because I wasn't openly throwing myself at the boys (whom I thought were all idiots!). Rational Adult Alv wishes that Middle School Alv had yelled "ExCUSE ME? Why the @#$%^&* WOULD I be even REMOTELY attracted to these JERKS who don't even know my NAME but still spend all day SWEARING at me?? Maybe if they gave me a REASON to like them, I would! But I have too much self-respect to give @#$%^s like that the TIME OF DAY! THAT DOES NOT MAKE ME GAY. IT MAKES ME SMART!" at the rumormongering morons, but I didn't have the presence of mind to say that back then. So...yeah. I was always super-careful not to aggravate those rumors and become even more of an outcast than I already was, so I conformed. And now I'm wondering: If I hadn't been so desperate to fit in with these morons in middle school, would I have chosen a totally different career path, and would my life be different? Would I be happier?

Incidentally, even in elementary school, I worried that people would think I wanted to be a boy just because I liked action-adventure roleplaying, and mystery stories, and cartoons (like Darkwing Duck, for instance) that some idiot might think were ONLY suitable for boys. Bear in mind that I'm a very girly girl, and have been since day one. Nobody had to "program" me to like stuffed animals, makeup, cute things, etc. I've always liked them because they make me feel happy. And as far as romantic attractions go, it may have taken me a long time to start getting interested in guys, but I was never even remotely interested in dating other girls either. But for years I squelched my "too boy-like" interests (like Star Wars), for fear that having these interests made me less of a lady. (I was a closet Star Wars fan for years until my now-ex Stinky, bless his heart, encouraged me that it really was okay for me to like Star Wars. It turned out that this was one of the FEW things he did to BOOST my self-esteem, but it really did help. Anyway...) It really hit home today when I was talking to my nine-year-old cousins, a set of boy-and-girl twins. My girl cousin LOVES Star Wars as much as her brother does, and she proudly plays with action figures without the slightest thought that girls aren't "supposed" to enjoy doing those things. And she is no less girly than any other nine-year-old girl. I wish I'd been that brave at nine. So...yeah. I regret that it took me so long to learn that it really is okay to be a girl and have a wide range of interests. My parents have been telling me this all along, and they never worried about me possibly becoming too "masculine." I just wish *I* hadn't been so insecure for so long. Happily, as an adult, I realize that Polonius from Shakespeare's Hamlet was so right: "This above all: To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man!" I just wish I could travel back in time, give Childhood Alv a hug, and make her believe that.

Anyway, there you have it! Sorry for the verbiage overload and somewhat whiny content. (This is me posting: emo And I really didn't mean to sound like that, but I don't know how else to put it. blaugh ) Dang, I sound bitter today, and I don't really feel too bitter. Sure, I still regret letting other people's opinions run my life, but I know better than that now. I'm not a crazy psycho lunatic. I'm not "Carrie," really. I'm a grown woman with real friends and a MUCH healthier outlook on life than I used to have. So...yeah. Hope I didn't scare anybody off.

Anyway, who's next? Truth or dare?

Yep! Wish we could all go back in time and hug our childhood selves and tell ourselves that it doesn't matter what other people think. But at least we eventually figured that out, and now we're so much happier not letting jerks' opinions control our every move. 3nodding

And I'm very glad to know I'm not the only one who went through the middle-school identity crisis! It's crazy how much even little comments and rumors can hurt when you're young (and when you're not so young). I'm also very glad that most of us drop the middle-school drama when we get out of middle school! rolleyes