Let's talk about it.

~bartender, I'll have a Daiquiri with grapefruit and maraschino, no sugar.

You don't know it, but you don't really want me here. It's not that I'm negative--a panacea word to drug every uncomfortable thought--because I am not. Not more negative than anything or anyone else, I think. Not more negative than you. More blunt, perhaps. Perhaps not.

You don't want me here because I'm honest. More stark than negative, more naked, bare, and vulnerable. I don't claim power in being honest, it's just a state of being not some special gift. I find honest people everywhere, when they can bare the social burden of showing it. Others I suspect, wishing they would scream and tear their shirts open to finally show it. Not a good way to show it, but doesn't suppression end in explosion? Or is that just me?

Who wants a honest guy in a pub? He's pretentious. It's depressing. Most of us just came here to drink. Leave the thinking alone. They tell me.

I've been walking in here for a while now, just sitting in the corner and watching. I know some of you are honest, I just haven't learned your names yet. Sitting so far away, I only catch snippets of conversation. I can tell by your jaw and your brow, already, without the snippets. But the snippets help; help soulage my mind to trust my instincts.

It's not easy, starting the conversation with my head down, unsure if you'll listen or even hear. Even less sure you'll respond. Less sure I want you to.

Hate is what I want to talk about, because I saw it on the posted rules when I first walked in. There they were in the window. I stopped on the street, frozen in mid step almost. Rules. Lording over me, threatening me. "Step in these doors," they warned, "and all that you do is subject to us." I am the subject, the ruled. I chose this.

I saw in the rules "Don't hate". Not two words together, there was a list. "Don't" was first, then a list. Hate was just a member of the list, an associate. Can you guess its fellows? They were a varied bunch. Read them in the window, or in the manual, for yourself.

Hate today is like a drop of whiskey in a soda water, set down in front of a thirsty man and called a Highball. It's not a Highball, at least not any more. It used to be, when the ratios were different. Hate used to mean something. Now, the word only means something that makes someone else uncomfortable. It also means shut your damn mouth and don't make me feel. Don't let me know that you feel. Don't be, if you can't be like me.

There's no fool with any sense left who would promote actual hate. And there my Highball story breaks and parts ways--don't judge them both to be even, only both potent in their own spheres. Actual hate, undiluted, is more like fluoroantimonic acid. You don't touch it. You don't even think about it. It tears you apart, and it doesn't feel good.

I see rules in a window, and I see Hate. I have to assume they mean the new kind, the uncomfortable kind. Correct me? Can you? Who's in charge here? ~bartender?

Damn it, I want you to make me uncomfortable, and I want to make you uncomfortable. I want us both to remove our shirts and box in the alley. Not to kill one other, but just to feel and understand. I don't know you, and how can I know you otherwise? I want to feel and know that you feel. I don't want you to be like me, because I am not perfect.

You and I aren't so different, fellow pub members. I hate the way you do some things, and I think you're making a damn mess out of the world. I say that, and I don't even know you, but I know it's true. You're a mess. But I don't hate you. I love you, actually. Enough to tell you that you're being an idiot. And enough to admit that I'm being one, too.

And just so I don't ruin your drink or push you to blows that would actually hurt, I need to tell you something else before I finish this glass: I don't want to be like you, because you're not perfect. But I want to know you, because there is perfection in you somewhere. I want to understand it, even if we have to fight to get there. I won't let you strip me of my self, and I won't do that to you. I won't agree with you. But I will love you.

griekspoor

The rules. I hardly care about them, except that I chose them when I walked in. They're my rules now, I suppose. Not to control; because I'm not a citizen here, just a warm body on a stool. Leave me with the rules, we're fine together.

Hate--the flabby, supercilious kind. I care about that because I see it in the rules so much these days, everywhere I go. People stand up behind it and pretend it makes them. Better. Stronger. More right. It doesn't. They beat me over the head with it eventually, and kick me out. That won't happen here, because I know now not to open my mouth too much. So much life. Maybe. I might forget. Or drink too much.

We haven't scratched the surface on hate. The rules have no veneer to scratch; there they hang beat to hell and still standing because nothing can erode what is already bare.

inquiry

To me, such rules exist to acknowledge that some need rules to protect them from engagement with what they at least subconsciously suspect/fear they don't have the wherewithal/skills to endure. Rather than work on those skills to become capable of "rising to the challenge", they insist others' skills should be attenuated by gatekeepers to avoid having their lesser skills revealed.

Something like that.

shoebx

I'm quite sure, reading the rules on the window, that what matters is common sense.

There has been a lot of harsh serious stuff here and nobody got angry for that. Taking the analogy above, as long as all recipients are willing to fight and it's all fair (no low blows), it's all fine.

Lots of people come here every day for whatever reason, so this place has rules to make it clear what kind of place it wants to be: a friendly place for people willing to discuss about something while sipping a nice virtual drink, not an arena of tongue-fu fighters fighting for their lives, which the Web is full of.

In other words, their main purpose of a good list of rules is to deter (and eventually punish) trolls, not to be followed by the letter, and this looks like the former case.

That's how I see it, at least, and personally I'm fine with your stuff.

indoors

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Illustrated daiquiri

While I don't disagree that friction is conducive to stronger relationships, house rules over the door set an expectation for moderation decisions and general flavour. They're not even particularly harsh or outlandish rules.

I'm still new here, so I'm waiting for the atmosphere to settle into me before I decide it needs changing. I like that about the oldweb. It's interconnected but it's not all the same website. You can move about until you find the place you want. I can be a different person in different locations.

inquiry

Bartender, a punch for this patron so they can throw the first punch!