Dealing with depressing things online

Truth be told, there are days when I feel a little upset reading some of the things online.

Like a couple of blogs when they write about the perfect lives they are having, attending glamorous events, flying off to different countries, buying expensive accessories for themselves. There was a blog which I stumbled upon where one particular woman wrote about how happy she was to receive a 10,000 dollar branded bag by her husband, that she’s been “eyeing for a long time”.

Personally for me, I wouldn’t want to blow $10,000 on a bag. I’d rather spend the money on perhaps improving the house or help ease  the mortgage. Anyhow, even if I did have a ten thousand dollar bag, I’d probably be too stressed to bring it out, afraid that I’d scratch it. Or even worse, get it stolen by a sharp eyed thief.

Kind of like when Carrie from Sex and the City got her Manolos stolen

While I think that a person has the right to spend their money any way that they want, I wish that I could have a piece of that too. Back in Singapore I was working and earning comfortably enough to buy whatever frivolous things that I wanted. Here in Rome, I don’t feel confident enough to converse in Italian to start looking for a full time job.

While in forums, there are a couple of people who seem to be disgruntled towards me and Cart for some reason. They’d say things like our marriage will never make it past a month. And there was one forumer who said that Cart and I were ugly!?

Why so mean? I’ve no idea why there would be people saying things like that. Did we ever hurt you in any way?

In any case, at this point of time, Cart and I have been together for four years and celebrated our one year wedding anniversary last December. While its true that every marriage has its ups and downs but we still love and care about each other very much.

Besides, beauty is subjective.

While scientists believe that the beautiful form has a symmetry and the mathematical ratio of 1 : 1.618 like this model here, but if you are not attracted to a person, be it because of their personality or their level of conversation, even if he or she looks like a supermodel, it will be hard to connect to them.

People can think what they want to think. And while I don’t look like a supermodel, I don’t think I’m ugly.  And to me, Cart will always look cute.

Sure, he’s a little older than me. But when I look at him doing daily things like sleeping, working at the computer, I see that he still has his boyish looks.

Most importantly, he treats me with love, care and respect and we are mostly drama free. I feel very blessed to have met a man who wants to travel with me in my journeys instead of a man who just wants in for the ride.

And even in my own blog and in emails, once in a blue moon there would be someone who’d want to cut me down.

I really don’t know how to respond to that because honestly, its a lot of hot air. Honestly, I don’t mind constructive criticisms. You could either take it negatively or positively and when you think about it, it can be a good way to improve oneself.

I do admit that there are other bloggers who are better and more successful than I am, and sometimes my posts can sometimes be bimbotty, as seen in my female vanities categories but in my defence, I do honestly believe that I try to share information with others in my own way. It might not be textbook perfect, but I write in my own point of view from my personal experiences. “Write what you know“, my mantra, inspired by the talented, late, director, Yasmin Ahmad.

A number of people seem to forget that a personal blog is well … a personal blog and the blogger has the freedom to express and write whatever they wish to write about, as long as it doesn’t go against seditious law. If they want to be bimbottic, or if they want to make their make their blogs with hundreds of camwhoring pictures of them making duckfaces, that’s their prerogative. I’m not fond of it either, but there is always the x button on the top right.

But I try not to let these things get me. A fellow blogger friend mentioned to me, these people are just trolls.

Picture by DavidKing

Trolls are basically people who antagonise others online. And usually they are not as cute as the one above. But what I find interesting is that for what these trolls are commenting, they don’t have anything to back them up.

For the trolls who says that I am ugly or that my teeth need fixing, a big probability that they would have no real pictures of themselves up. And for trolls who say that I have a horrible voice would have a big chance of not having uploaded even a single video of themselves.

If you keep yourself hidden, then how am I to worship and learn from your divine beauty and wit and grace?!

In any case, I’ve been living an online life for about 10 years now since I first had my first computer. Technology has evolved a lot since then, from newsgroups, to IRC, to Virtual Worlds and it will continue to change, and each change would have its own anti social people.

But the good thing out of this is that it made me grow a thicker skin and not be too bothered because in the end, the point of having an online life, blogging, traversing virtual worlds, gaming in MMORPG and such is to have fun.

What’s the point of being sensitive and angry all the time? It’ll only make you lose the joy and shorten your life and in the end wont do anything good because you can’t really do anything about trolls. It is hard to change the mind of someone who has already made their mind up.

So lets just try to see the good things in life, and surround ourselves with the people that we love.  There are so much more fulfilling things to do than to focus on the negatives 🙂