my favorite calvin and hobbes comic is the one where his dad just rolls up and casually destroys his entire night by pointing out some neat trivia about record players
Calvin’s dad is basically a Calvin who has learned that he can’t get away with running outside naked or throwing snowballs at neighborhood girls, but he is still precisely the same little shit under the thin veneer of civilization.
@lyricwritesproseCalvin and Hobbes has been one of my favorite things since I could read and Calvin’s dad one of my favorite characters, but that last comment blew my mind wide open. Of course that’s what he is. Of course.
one of the most subtly delightful things about calvin and hobbes is that you can SEE that calvin is his parents’ kid: his dad is so playful and imaginative, and his mom has a heck of a temper and a good sense of what’s right and wrong. calvin is a smart, passionate, imaginative kid who gets really upset when he thinks things are stupid or unfair. he drives his parents crazy sometimes because he’s a kid. but they were probably a lot like calvin themselves, when they were little.
"doesn't have friends" is a red flag if the person in question is complaining about not having friends, not making an effort, and/or framing it as if the reason they don't have friends is because of everyone else in the world- and not themselves.
it's a red flag because people will sometimes use this as a manipulation tactic, to pressure you to stay with them, be their friend, be "better", and "prove them wrong".
some people don't have friends because it's a skill they're learning and they acknowledge that, and they're working on it.
some people don't have friends because they treat everyone they come across like shit- or they do have friends, but they downplay or lie about those relationships because it benefits them for you to pity them.
it's absolutely a red flag. it should be a red flag. but a red flag is just something to look into a little more; if you treat every red flag like a definitive reason not to connect with someone, that doesn't mean those things shouldn't be red flags. it means you don't know what a red flag is- or you're looking for excuses not to connect.
I've been the lonely friend in both situations and I can confirm; it's a red flag, but one to be looked into. I don't know if I have any insights, but maybe I can contribute.
When I was younger and stupider and very much in my egocentric teenage years, I had a hard time with friendships. So much so that it was hard to maintain more than one at a time. Not for any real reason beyond I had an atrophied social skill and no-one had quite shown me how to strengthen it. But this wasn't good for me or the person I glommed onto. You see, if you have one friend? They are your One Friend for everything. It's a lot of pressure to put on one single person.
It's why the ideal of the one partner who becomes glorified over everyone else is such a toxic idea. We all have our rich, inner worlds. But taking on one person's entire inner world, especially if you have mental illness and mental health crises regularly, is asking a lot of someone. I didn't reach out to others for help, and what would inevitably happen is I would be in a crisis, my friend would feel responsible for the entire crisis, and I would isolate THEM for being so overwhelming to them that they were nannying me all the time, I would glorify them as being the One Person who Cared, and then they would feel responsible for my suicidal feelings because if they left, who would care about me?
Congratulations, past self. In being an inconsiderate self-centered jerk, you just isolated someone and then held their attention hostage by linking my mental health and even life to their attention. I didn't mean to do that. I didn't intend to be abusive. But I was, and I know it now. (And before anyone accuses me of ableism for saying I can't say the mentally ill become abusive - no, not at all. I'm still mentally ill now - in some ways worse than I was then. What's different now is I have a wide support structure and a crisis plan that doesn't involve a single person's entire life to be put on hold to babysit me. My mental illness is the same - my behaviour is completely different.)
On the other hand, after being the victim of the exact same damn thing - getting isolated by someone using their mental health as a blackmail into staying - I did something different. I did what I should have done from the start. I tried making lots of friends. Not One True Friend, but just. Lots of people I could connect with and reach out to. And I know it's hard to go from ground zero to a whole system of friendships, but it can be done. It just needs a little legwork to identify folk you think you can connect with, and then one message to start the conversation going. It's as hard and as simple as that.
Join a message board (I'd suggest Reddit but... the blackout) or discord or follow someone on Tumblr, and when you seem to bounce of someone in public spaces, DM them. If you're the kind of person I am (memory issues), maybe take notes of people who you wanna regularly touch base with and open a new conversation with 'hey, how are you doing? what have you been up to?'. That's how all the friendships I've established now happened. Low-key touching base until something clicked. Some didn't - some are still at that phase years later. Some have fizzled away as I realised we don't get along or the connection is dry and boring or they move on. But - here's the key - that's good. Don't set yourself up for failure by treating every new connection as The One.
It sounds counter-intuitive, but trust me; by treating every new friendship as the possibility they could fizzle out into passing acquaintences who just nod at each other as you pass, you take the pressure off every connection to Work no matter what. I've got mutuals I effectively nod at in the hallway every day with likes and replies. I've got a couple I've spoke to in DMs.... maybe twice? I've got conversations I come back to twice a week to swap cat photos and little life updates. I've got friends I chat with every day and I know I can reach for to go 'I'm having it pretty rough today, can you just share the day with me?'. And because my friendships are diverse now, 'no, sorry, I can't' isn't a total betrayal. My social circle is diverse enough to survive a no.
So, yeah. It absolutely can be a red flag. But sometimes people end up isolated through no fault of their own. You can't always tell until you know what led to the isolation.
And finally - if you're mentally ill, you have a known cycle of crises like I do, and want to broaden your social circle in a healthy manner - this is the page you wanna start with or even this one (that second one has an interactive tool to help!). A lot of the information is UK based but it's a solid start. Alternatively, google 'how to make a mental health crisis plan' or 'how to make a mental health safety plan'. But the long and short of it is this; friends are a part of the plan, but they cannot be the whole plan, and it's even worse if one person is the whole plan.
Honestly, I regret the binaristic framing of my original post after reading this addition. I think I put it out there as "either you're trying to do better or it's intentional abuse", and I don't really believe that; there are always ways to be that we don't and can't think of ourselves, and I should have left more room for that.
I believe you when you say you weren't doing these things intentionally, and I have had friends who did this to me unintentionally as well- for the same reasons you described above. I personally don't consider them abusive, and haven't ever, really- though that's a classification you get to decide for yourself.
All that aside, thank you for your thoughtful and well-worded addition. I hope it reaches the folks who need to see it.
Virginia Woolf, from a diary entry featured in “A Writer’s Diary” Clarice Lispector, from “A Breath of Life” Patti Smith, from “Devotion” Elena Ferrante, from “Incidental Inventions” Marguerite Duras, from “Écrire”
Jane Austen’s writing table at Chawton Cottage, Hampshire Charlotte Brontë’s writing desk on display at the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth, England Virginia Woolf’s writing desk in her writing lodge at Monk’s House in Rodmell, Sussex Reconstruction of Daphne du Maurier’s study at the Smugglers Museum, Jamaica Inn, Cornwall
I see this all the time, so I’m here to remind you that your writing IS in fact worth it. YOU are worth it. Your STORIES are worth it. Your writing deserves love and you ARE good enough.
I know — we tend to be our own biggest critics. It’s a million times easier to doubt our own abilities than it is to boast about the things we’ve actually accomplished, but you’ve gotta cut yourself some slack.
We’re all equal here. Don’t you for a second think you’re not good enough to be considered a “worthy” writer. It’s not about skill. Just love for storytelling
One of the biggest tell-tale signs of non-professional writing is the way in which dialogue is represented on the page. Readers are used to seeing spoken words formatted in a certain way. Failure to adhere to these standards can take readers out of your story and make it hard for them to follow what's happening.
Only because I just started following and it might hand you a laugh - Are horses bothered by zeppelins? (This is some absurdity that came up because, after 6 years, I am finally drawing a map of a fictional city, and there should be a steampunk airport for rigid airships, and a horse track. I could fit both in one corner of town, you see, but only if a horses don't mind zeppelins.) More seriously, any go-to resources for the really dumb/obscure/dangerous research questions, or is it better to just make things up?
There used to be a few resources like that but none of them are active anymore. These days, the weird questions, no stupid questions, writer research, and morbid questions subreddits are probably your best bet. For stuff that’s just off-the-wall, seemingly obvious but hard to find, etc., you can also try the NaNoWriMo forums. Since it’s full of other writers, there’s a lot of collective knowledge in there. And, depending on what it is, you can also make stuff up. For example, if you’re writing about hackers, you’re probably not going to find a ton of detailed references about that, so while you’ll need to do some research on tech and slang, etc., some stuff will be imaginary. As long as your computer/tech info is accurate, most people aren’t going to be well versed enough in hacking to say “that’s not right/believable.”
As for horses and airships specifically, most animals are going to run from things that are big, noisy, and suddenly invade their environment. So, if a hot air balloon were to fly over a pasture filled with horses that had never seen one before, there’s a good chance they’d be afraid. However, there are horses who see hot air balloons all the time because they are frequently flown over their pastures. That said, with the relevant pasture in your story, the horses there are probably used to zeppelins coming and going, so they’re probably not going to be bothered. :)
Have fun with your story!
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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!
I will mash that Reblog button every single time this shows up on my dash. I spent a lot of years martyring myself for “the needs of the business.” Young people? Don’t fucking do it. They don’t care about you, you are a “resource,” not a human being. I can’t say this strongly enough: see to your self-care!
We talk a lot about how to tell if you have a bad boss... Here is how you know you have a good boss:
My boss would verbally kick my ass if I logged in or communicated voluntarily about work while on vacation. And if I had to log in, absolutely no one else could do my thing and it couldn't wait? He would refund my time off and make me take it the following week.
Time off is Time Off. Take it. Unashamedly. Unabashedly.
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