Transient said:
This is a huge difference between how we see message boards,
Transient.
I think you're seeing The Lobby as hundreds, or thousands of chat rooms, where people are having conversations in real time, posting in one, posting in another, etc, with whomever is in that room at the time.
I treat message boards like unsecured e-mail. When I quote someone, I'm replying to them, but other people can read it, if they want to.
I'm rarely on this board at the same time as everyone else. I might spend hours on one post, and I'm not reading the new posts at the same time.
My other boards are International, so my best friends might be in New York City, The Philippines, Scotland, Sweden, and Montreal. We 'leave something behind' for someone to read, on their next visit.
To me, there's never any immediacy; I'll read some of the board, when I get around to it, reply to some posts, and 'leave something behind' for other people to read, when I'm not actively involved.
Neither of us is right, the board serves both purposes, we just use it in different ways. If I make a short post in any thread, I'm already reading a different thread, by the time it's been read by anyone, and I may not come back to that thread for a while, if at all. I never sit with the thread open, awaiting replies to what I've said. If I want to converse with someone in real time, I'll speak to them face to face, or on the telephone, and rarely in chat rooms, engaging in conversations that are 'in the moment'.
I never seek out a conversation with anyone in a thread, and I don't do a lot of 'group talk' in real life; it's usually one on one.
I like small talk, too, in small doses, and I've started my share of new threads, specifically for that purpose, but I just make an intermittent contribution; I'm very rarely 'there', even though my green light might suggest that I am. It just means I have a browser window open to HUBGFE. it might be minimized, or I might be on my second computer, I might be watching TV, or sleeping, or outside somewhere.
Sometimes I scroll through the back pages, looking for some interesting threads not updated since mid October. I'll start on page 1, and usually not get to the end, because some playful exchange from a year ago, that no longer has any relevance, interrupts the flow, and takes over, so I have to scroll through a full page, looking for the one or two posts that still matter.
The impression I get is that some people don't want anything intelligent to be said, because they have nothing to add, and they don't want to feel left out, (that's not directed at anyone in particular).
In other cases, I see people with 'tunnel vision', where a statement is made, and several people assume it was specifically directed to them.
I'm an analytical type, and emotions play almost no part in my decision making, which makes it difficult for me to deal with MEN who make decisions based on emotions, rather than analysis. That's to be expected, to some extent, when conversing with women, and I adjust for that.
I write to convey information, and sometimes to prompt an emotional reaction from that information, but I never make any posts, solely to express an emotional state, because by the time it's read, the situation will probably have changed.
On my 'dark net' fonts forum, All small talk is confined to one area, and the moderators remove it, if it's in the wrong place. If you want to thank someone for something, you click the thanks button, and everyone knows the handles of the people who liked it. If a download is involved, clicking thanks afterwards lets you know you already have the file, so you don't waste time downloading a duplicate.
I get the impression here that for many people, the primary purpose is to waste time, theirs, and others, by my definition of time management.
If I read a thread twelve hours after a post is made, I learn nothing by knowing what someone's emotional state was, twelve hours ago. To me, that's like if someone had a VHS tape collection of the weather station from 2003. Why would anyone want to watch it, ever?
If the small talk, which I describe as 'pork' and 'drivel', is collected in one place, the information is still important, by the time new posts are made.
The Escort Industry is a place where almost anything can be purchased, EXCEPT emotional attachment, so I don't see why people would go to an Escort Industry board, looking to express emotional information, but not exchange knowledge information.
I'm thinking to myself 'why does that guy want us to know that?' 'Why would I want to know that?' 'Are there any threads that don't have that?' If all 'in the moment' small talk was in one place, or a small number of places, people wouldn't need to do a treasure hunt to find it, if that's what they're looking for. By the time someone posts, there's a reply to be read from someone else. There is a thing like that. It's called a chat room, but there wouldn't be any post count statistics.
The idea of making lots of posts just to get medal and trophy pictures seems like wasted time to me, but others seem to see that differently.
ancing:
