I’m glad you’re comfortable with the relationship as it stands! It can be really surprising when something like that happens, and you realize that you’ve got feelings for someone. That being said, it’s great that you have such a wonderful friendship.
I think this isn’t silly at all. Part of our challenge online is learning how to separate what we produce: our blogs, from who we are: our personalities. It’s not that this person said that they don’t want to see you, it’s that your production doesn’t fit what they’re looking for in their online experience. And that’s ok.
It’s absolutely ok to feel odd – someone you don’t know was thinking about your blog enough that they felt the need to block you. But also, it isn’t a judgement on you or even on your interests!
Throwback to the time my poor German teacher had to explain the concept of formal and informal pronouns to a class full of Australians and everyone was scandalised and loudly complained “why can’t I treat everyone the same?” “I don’t want to be a Sie!” “but being friendly is respectful!” “wouldn’t using ‘du’ just show I like them?” until one guy conceded “I suppose maybe I’d use Sie with someone like the prime minister, if he weren’t such a cunt” and my teacher ended up with her head in her hands saying “you are all banned from using du until I can trust you”
God help Japanese teachers in Australia.
if this isnt an accurate representation of australia idk what is
Australia’s reverse-formality respect culture is fascinating. We don’t even really think about it until we try to communicate or learn about another culture and the rules that are pretty standard for most of the world just feel so wrong. I went to America this one time and I kept automatically thinking that strangers using ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ were sassing me.
Australians could not be trusted with a language with ingrained tiers of formal address. The most formal forms would immediately become synonyms for ‘go fuck yourself’ and if you weren’t using the most informal version possible within three sentences of meeting someone they’d take it to mean you hated them.
100% true.
the difference between “‘scuse me” and “excuse me” is a fistfight
See also: the Australian habit of insulting people by way of showing affection, which other English-speakers also do, but not in a context where deescalating the spoken invective actively increases the degree of offence intended, particularly if you’ve just been affectionately-insulting with someone else.
By which I mean: if you’ve just called your best mate an absolute dickhead, you can’t then call a hated politician something that’s (technically) worse, like a total fuckwit, because that would imply either that you were really insulting your mate or that you like the politician. Instead, you have to use a milder epithet, like bastard, to convey your seething hatred for the second person. But if your opening conversational gambit is slagging someone off, then it’s acceptable to go big (”The PM’s a total cockstain!”) at the outset.
Also note that different modifiers radically change the meaning of particular insults. Case in point: calling someone a fuckin’ cunt is a deadly insult, calling someone a mad cunt is a compliment, and calling someone a fuckin’ mad cunt means you’re literally in awe of them. Because STRAYA.
case in point: the ‘Howard DJs like a mad cunt’ meme.
1. I work for the Australian National Audit Office as a federal performance analyst and literally everyone in the office refers to each other by their first name. Even the Auditor-General gets called by his first name, and he’s an independent officer of the Parliament, appointed by the
Governor-General on the recommendation of the Joint Committee of Public
Accounts and Audit (JCPAA) and the Prime Minister.
2. This is like the fourth time I’ve reblogged this due to additional A+ commentary.
saltandlimes 