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[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

This is over. Thanks for helping me get rid of my irrational fear that the entire world is laughing at me/hates me. I'm not going to lock it, in case somebody wants to give more advice, but I will say this: a. I'm not particularly seeking any advice at the moment, although I wouldn't mind any, so don't feel like you have to give any, and b. The spoiler is just saying "I think Bay12 is awesome, I'm really bad at most social things, I'm trying to make sure the world isn't laughing at me, I'm really bad at being concise, and I should edit personal kinds of posts to make sure I'm not rambling about the wrong sort of things." Whatever you may find within the spoiler is unlikely to actually reflect my thoughts. It only reflects the tired writings of somebody who is very sleepy and doesn't quite know what the words he's saying actually mean when they are strung together. For posterity, it will remain, despite my embarrassment.

Original Post:

So basically: what is your opinion of me? (I'd give examples, but that might affect the answers, so I'll just say this: do you have a mostly positive or negative opinion of me? Are there any glaring traits that stick out, that you think of whenever you see me? How is the tone of my posts?)

There's a good reason for it, but stating it might wreck the !!SCIENCE!!, so I'll post it later.

Actually, I'll put it in this spoiler. Don't read it until you've responded, please. (Or if you don't intend to respond, I guess?)

Spoiler: Backstory time! (click to show/hide)

I have never been a very social person, both of my choice and not. Most groups I find don't like me, or I'm nervous and uncomfortable around them. Even with my friends, I have to push myself very hard to start a discussion, except with one or two people.

But Bay12 appears to be an exception to that - a group that I like to be in, that I am comfortable around, and that seems to like me and accept me. This is very good and makes me happy.

In addition, Bay12 is even more important to me after I've seen its flaws. I was ecstatic when I saw you guys, and everything seemed awesome, nothing was wrong! You were all perfect! Bay12 was the best place ever!

...and then I saw the flames, and the bans, and all the problems that exist within Bay12. I saw the tension present in some parts of the forums. And I saw not only a community that I could look up to, but one that could understand me. In less lengthy terms, you guys aren't perfect, which is good! I'm not perfect, and I wouldn't belong here if you were perfect.

But because I'm myself, I am (of course) nervously obsessed with the idea that people do not, in fact, like me. I've found a few groups before that I was desperate to be part of, and it showed. I didn't quite know how to be part of it, but was always hanging around and trying to fit in. And I think people tried to be nice, but would rather I not be there.

This nervous fear has been getting worse over the last few months, and it was getting to the point that I was considering leaving. "Enough is enough," I thought. And so this post, and the question.

==========

Now, I was going to say, "I'm not doing this just so that I can hear people telling me they like me," but that's honestly what I hope I hear. Armok knows I haven't known communities like this ever before, and I really like you guys. I want to be liked, I don't want to just be tagging along, I want to be part of this great community. I was going to say, "I'm not doing this for the sake of feeling good," but I am. Armok knows I could use more good feeling in my life.

===========

Please don't just say "you're great" to make me feel better. If people don't actually like me, better to find out now, I guess. And if it's something like "you tend to do X, X is annoying," then I can stop and things will be good.

nobody hate me for saying this please

Thank you for doing this, it's really important to me.

[Strife26]

You haven't posted anything that makes me recognize your name or avatar, I'm afraid.

[Flying Dice]

Yeah, no offense, but I've barely seen you post and all that I remember is unnecessary worry about the usual ban attrition rate.

You aren't a FFRPer that spams three-word IC speech posts and you don't cause pointless arguments in polthreads, so you're already well above the bottom of the barrel if you're worried about that. 

Pre-post-edit rambling, don't read this: For what it's worth, don't try to fit in. If you are desperate to find acceptance and such, attempting to conform to the norms of a given community probably won't get you into a healthy place. It's the goddamn original advice cliche, but be yourself. Stressing about whether people know you who are, hate you, like you, &c. is just about the worst mental exercise there is, because the truth is that if you're not already well-established most people won't really know or care about who you are; if you are, the people who don't like you will usually be somewhat obvious about it unless they're incredibly reserved.

And, predominantly, people don't really grow to like people whose primary trait on display is a desire to be accepted. So don't define yourself like that. Especially for a place like this--people won't hate you for wanting to fit in, and it's something that most everyone at your age goes through, but in the long run it's easier to just act honestly without worrying about all the cliquish conformity bullshit that dominates adolescence. The friends you'd make by aping behavior or sucking up aren't real friends, and people who are worth knowing, even if they're nice about it, won't usually care much about someone who tries too hard to make themselves appealing to such. Unless they're just fuckin' paragons of niceness who like to adopt lost puppies.

[Yoink]

I know I've been seeing quite a bit of you lately, but we haven't really interacted enough for me to form much of an opinion.
Mostly positive, I think. There may have been one or two vaguely annoying things, but I don't remember what they were.
Your grammar and such seems quite satisfactory, so there's a big plus. 

I must admit, I mainly just had to post a response so that I could read that spoiler without fear of RUINING EVERYTHING.
I'm going to post this then go do that.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Thanks.

"Don't really know you": That's fine. I didn't expect most people to know who I am. That's a good thing. It means I don't stand out in a bad way. I don't want to be famous, anyway.

@FD: The main reason for this post was to make sure I wasn't secretly hated. I agree that stressing out about that sort of thing is bad! This was just peering in the closet to make sure there weren't any monsters. Of course I knew I probably wasn't secretly hated by everyone who pretends to like me, but the irrational part of me disagreed. I'm not really trying to make myself appealing. The spoiler kind of got away from me, I'm mostly making sure I'm not seen as an idiot or as a terrible person.

@Yoink: Thanks! (the spoiler isn't that important, and might be a little over the top. It's just basically two paragraphs of "you guys are awesome, I want to be part of this thing, I have an irrational fear that I'm secretly hated by everyone who pretends to like me, and I'm really bad at being concise."

[ChairmanPoo]

do a handstand before the thread's closed quick!!

[TheBiggerFish]

Hi.  I'd just like to reinforce that you're a pretty cool person.