damn cold last night
I felt like the Day After Tomorrow had arrived last night. I have now slept two nights in a row in a jumper and trackydax in an effort to keep warm when i go to bed. It was something like minus 1 where I live, and I watched my breathe steam as I tried to sleep. I wish we had insulation in the roof! I dragged myself out of bed this morning to work, or try to but was unable to function so I called in sick. However I still have the webstuff work to do, and I hope that I’ll be able to cope with staring at a computer screen for a few hours and not feel like throwing up.
There’s a murder investigation happening at the moment here in perth.. A 19 yr old was found south of perth and she’d been murdered and dumped. Normally I wouldn’t think about it, sure, I’d feel sad for the family and stuff, like any normal person would, but since it’s not anyone I know I’d move on. Except I did kind of know her from IRC. It also seems like her Ex BF (and currently under arrest) was a regular IRC user aswell. I also apparently contain IRC logs of her fighting with someone (not the dude charged with her murder) a few days before she disappeared and both of them were making threats at eachother, and now that someone’s mum wants my logs for some weird reason. Apparently I am the only person who has logs of one of the last times this chick used IRC. I don’t believe I should hand them over to anyone, except maybe the police, if it was useful.
But then let’s take a step back for a moment. We live in an electronic age - strangers are going to meet after talking to eachother online, relationships (friendships or otherwise) are going to develop, how would you feel if someone you knew, or knew of actually turned out to be someone quite unexpected.. like a murderer. The more you get to know people, the more of their complexities are shown to you. I am sure that my mum would say that because this person killed another and they met through IRC, that IRC is a bad place, but what if they met at a pub? Is the pub still a bad place?
I tend to be phobic about the people I meet this days from online, mainly because I am shy - had bad experiences and think in some way I am horribly ugly and disfigured and people will be sick when they meet me - I never used to feel that way. I remember one of the first IRC people I met from AustNet - he was expecting a glam model chick, which I am not. So we’re standing to get food and he says “i am not looking for a relationship right now” and I choked on my diet coke and realised he had been thinking we could meet, hook up and wander off into the sunset arm in arm. I turned around and looked at him and started laughing really hard, and said - “I didn’t come here to hook up with you! i am engaged! *waves the ring at him* didn’t you see the ring? I just came to say hello!!” He looked like he wanted to die on the spot of embarrassment. btw not engaged anymore - not married either - I got cold feet :>
We put alot of effort into getting to know a person on IRC. Investing alot of time and emotion, because communication by text really exposes you to someone’s personality. We ask them questions in different ways to see if they come up with the right answers, we find out who their friends are and see if they are troublemakers or trustworthy, then after some time, we take those first steps to make contact a little more real, phonecalls, webcams, and finally after whatever period of time, those first steps into the abyss as you meet them for the first time. People on in the text medium of IRC open themselves and lives to others, and when something tragic happens, it really hurts.
We all need to becareful, but no so much that we remain hermits.
I am angry with M. It’s like talking to a brick wall that has eyes and a mouth but no ears. Maybe I’ll move out when he gets a job.