Innards, Controllers, And Dumb Emojis
Earlier in the week, something left its entrails along the sidewalk leading to the house. I would have taken a picture, but I didn’t think anyone would want to see that sort of thing, so I didn’t bother. I didn’t want to see it myself. If I had to venture a guess as to what kind of animal left its insides on the sidewalk like that, it was probably a gopher. There are rabbits and maybe a few squirrels in the vicinity, but if I’m putting money down on this, I’m going with gopher. I’m also assuming that a local coyote got it. I don’t know how, but that’s my guess. These parts of its digestive system have since been disposed of, but I’m hoping that this doesn’t happen again anytime soon. Cleaning up animal insides from the sidewalk is not fun and it’s very unsightly.
So, I went ahead and bought those controllers, the ones I referenced in a 04/27/25 post (https://www.opendiary.com/m/peripheral_visionary/hardly-in-control-6325057/). They arrived in the mail yesterday. I’m so weak. Still, they are nice. No regrets there. As far as the actual game, Doom: The Dark Ages, the one that inspired this controller, it’s not on my immediate radar of games I have to buy. Maybe I’m on the fence on this one? I don’t know. I’ve never been a huge fan of Doom, so I would imagine that that might be a factor.
The following is an unrelated tangent and one of the worst segues I could have put together.
I will be the first to admit that when it comes to emotional intelligence, I am not always one to do or say the right thing EVERY time. I have my occasional missteps and I will own this. I remain an introvert and I still tend to shy away from interacting with people. This is comfortable for me and for the most part, it works. Sometimes, I may not be in the mood to deal with other people and their emotions, so I steer clear of people altogether. For me, this is how many a crisis is averted.
As I do sometimes, I got into a discussion with her again, this time over the extent to which she thinks it is funny to laugh at someone who is upset. I suppose I could refer to this interaction as an argument, but it wasn’t as heated as it could have been and I wasn’t even upset (though if you ask her, she’ll tell you I was).
She proceeds to tell me:
You’re mad
😂
Yes, she thought that dropping in that emoji was going to help. Was it for emphasis? Hell, I don’t know. As far as I’m concerned, it does very little, though it says something, perhaps something that she didn’t count on.
In response, I tell her:
I’m not…
But if I were, I really don’t think that that would be something you should be laughing about.
Responding that way to someone being upset is disrespectful.
Glad you find humor in another person being upset.
Not surprisingly, she did not respond. This is probably because she’d rather converse in emoji and I don’t think she found the right emoji to formulate any kind of meaningful response. A happy face emoji has its limitations and, in some instances, can be quite useless.
☺️
Yes, that would be a similarly pointless emoji.
Through the years, I don’t think I’ve ever done that to anyone, where I’ve laughed or even chuckled at someone when they were upset. Doing so seems very counterproductive, childish, and it doesn’t accomplish anything worthwhile. Even with my comedic mind constantly at work, I think that even I know that laughter will not help that situation and could likely make matters worse.
I don’t get it. If this is someone I care about, I’m trying to have a productive conversation with them and see if we can remedy the situation and alleviate that anger together. I’m not laughing at them at all.
She, on the other hand, thinks that this is perfectly fine and somehow appropriate.
It isn’t, but as I said earlier, I’m not the most emotionally intelligent man in the world. Maybe I missed something here, but I doubt it.
I tend to find humor from all kinds of sources, but when it comes to people who might be upset, regardless of reason, that’s never something to laugh at.
If it matters, I also don’t laugh whenever I’m uncomfortable because that too can send the wrong message.
Now, what I will make fun of is this idea, and apparent reality for some, to want to communicate solely using emojis. As vast and complex as words and language are, why anyone would prefer to speak in emoji only is outright silly and nonsensical. Then again, maybe it’s that complexity that would lead someone to resort to speaking in pictures rather than words?
She had the gall and audacity to tell me that this is how Gen Z expresses themselves. Yeah, that’s definitely not helping her case in the slightest. It’s certainly not a boast or brag. Not at all.
So, I dropped this on her and yes, I used words, as I do.
I’m considerably more intelligent than that and we alumni from the University of Southern California communicate with words.
We do. I do. It’s a thing, albeit one that I still think goes without saying. I shouldn’t have to say stuff like that, but there you go.
That’s all I have for now. Aside from that dumb conversation about emojis and laughing at people when they’re mad, today was a relatively slow and uneventful day.
It almost feels like in the process I may have lost some IQ points, but sometimes these are the kinds of conversation in which I find myself.
But God forbid that I suddenly refrain from using words in favor of emojis.
Yeah, like that’s EVER going to happen.