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Mar

15

Grumpy Old Man

Filed Under General | 5 Comments

frown

Some of my friends are right, I can’t believe it. I’m starting to become a grumpy old man. The Grumpy Old Man of Comics! I guess I just can’t help being who I am. And it’s futile to be who I’m not.

If you plan on adding me on Facebook, here’s something to remember.

There are people I don’t add on Facebook. But I pretty much add most people, even if I haven’t met them. Working in comics, I tend to meet a lot of people, too many to remember them all. But I remember that nearly all of them are nice, honest people. One or two are freaks who I want to kick in the face, but nearly all of them are really good people. They might be the same people adding me, or friends and family of theirs. So I’ll add them, and that’s cool.

I only ask to see a real photo, a real sounding name (even if it might not be your actual name), and a bit of info on you.

So unless I know you personally, I won’t add you if you don’t have a photo, you have a fake name, and there’s no info in your public profile to even give the barest indication of who you are.

I don’t add suggested friends who I don’t know, specially if I don’t really know those who suggested him/her are either.

I don’t add politicians. You will not make me part of any viral political campaign. Over my deleted Facebook page.

I don’t add groups, products, or any other profile that is not about an individual. Just create a personal profile, and create a group.

I’m there to meet real people, and interact with them. And when I speak to them, I hope they respect me enough not to have a mask over their heads when they talk to me. Again, I’m only talking about people I really haven’t met in real life. Friends I have in the offline world… people I know personally… It’s not a problem for me if you don’t use your real name. Because I know you already and it’s perfectly fine. But strangers? Please… have the courtesy of honoring me with your name when you talk to me.

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I send emails to a lot of people and most of them don’t reply back. But it’s just all right. Unfortunately, I myself am guilty of not being able to respond to everybody. But I guess it’s all a matter of priority.

Personal and work messages are things I put ahead of everything else. If you’re family or friends of mine, I will reply to your messages as soon as I can. If this is about work or business, I reply as soon as I can. If I don’t know you, I do try to respond, unless you piss me off/annoy me somehow. Pushiness, grandiose expectations from me, demanding attitude, text speak, laziness, overt familiarity (masyadong feeling), emotional blackmail are serious turn offs for me. When I get those, and I don’t respond at all.

So when I write to people, I have the same expectations. When I write to my brother for instance, it’s natural to expect that I’d get a reply back. Because if he doesn’t, I’d think something was wrong and I’d spend the rest of the day calling and messaging and even visiting just to find out what’s up. As a fan, like when I write to someone like Neil Gaiman, I don’t expect a reply back. In his life, I’m not a priority, so it’s perfectly understandable and all right. If he replies it’s a cause for celebration, but if he doesn’t, it’s never a cause for me to hate him till I die. That’s just stupid.

But if it’s about work, and about business, I feel I am entitled to a reply. I find it extremely frustrating to have uncommunicative editors over the years. When I get an editor who replies promptly, it’s like a treasure. I feel like I can create wonderful things working with people like that. But when they don’t reply, it’s as if they really don’t care about you. And how are you expected to care back? I think it’s disrespectful and demeaning.

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SERIOUSLY WEIRD

198603

I went on an 80′s blitz on Plurk yesterday. For the entire day, I transported myself to 1986 and posted messages as if I had Plurk in 1986. I posted what I would have said, and how I would have said it 22 years ago. I compressed events of an entire year into a single day. People who tuned in late were confused, but soon got it when they read my other posts, and saw my profile and saw a picture of me when I was 18 years old, I was single and still a student at UST, living in San Miguel near Malacañang.

It was fun, but I also learned something about myself. In the 80′s I was truly, seriously, disturbingly weird.

That probably explained why none of the girls I was interested in became my girlfriend. It had nothing to do with my looks, it all had something to do with how weird I was. I suppose that constant comments of “You’re weird!” should have tipped me off. But I was an angsty teenager who was just a little too dense. Romantic, but dense. And weird.

Comments

5 Responses to “Grumpy Old Man”

  1. jerome dizon on March 15th, 2009 8:58 am

    Hahahah fair enough Gerry. Okay, I do have my photo and I am using my real name..so cam I add you now? :)

  2. Jonas Diego on March 15th, 2009 11:43 am

    I think we all had our weird stages when we were all young. In fact, I think we’re all still weird to a certain extent. Except now, we’re just considered eccentric because of our age.

    Parang ganito ‘yan e…

    Young —> Weird
    Middle Age —> Eccentric
    Old —> Senile

    Eccentric, of course, can be considered as charmingly weird. ;)

  3. Azrael on March 15th, 2009 2:04 pm

    na binggo mo ako dun sa 80′s plurk mo.
    kala ko totoo…at nagtaka ako bigla hahaha
    pero ang galing…

    what if may plurk na nung 80s …hehe astig

  4. Pilar on March 16th, 2009 9:50 pm

    o:

    Namaaaaan… at least you act young. Seriously. :P

    And, OMG, so that’s really you when you we’re still in UST? Astig, huh! Your eyes didn’t change at all. :D

    And it’s been awhile since I’ve commented in your blog. God bless, sir. :)

  5. Cheeto Azores on March 17th, 2009 1:06 pm

    …mi pag-asa pa pala akong tumaba!