Bringing Down The Bar-----Attention Seeking

 

Hmmmm........ Social conduct..... Keeping it clean is not very difficult; but with the advent of compulsive attention-seekers, the world has become sheer ugly. Well, at least the environment I live in, has.

The best place to recognize attention-seekers is a social networking site. Now,if the words "facebook", "orkut", "myspace",etc. don't immediately neon-light up in your brain, you're probably too old for this or just too sad. A thing of the recent past, orkut has gone downhill. Their users have migrated to facebook like moths getting attracted to a flame. Still, orkut is the best place to deduce which ones in your "friend request" list on facebook is an attention-seeker. Just go to their orkut profile and see the displayed name. If it doesn't have the actual name, but some quote or fancy characters, you know who to reject!! On facebook too,check out the names of photo albums! You think people actually say "mah this!" and "mah that!"? I mean, what's wrong with "me"? I also get irritated by a couple more stereotyped behavioural patterns. The moment they click a photo, their fingers start working like assembly line machines--"upload" and "tag tag tag tag......." Their fingers have probably hardened up from all this. I'd hate receiving "pokes", literally or otherwise, from attention-seekers.

Also, this incessant need for attention leads to a lot of tantrums (find me a better word for 'nakhre' and 'nautanki', if you can!). The other day, six of us were at a mall, when this attention-seeker (a 'she') got a call. We didn't see her moving away and went a little to the left. We were merely some 50 paces away, when she shouted at us and started throwing a tantrum (lack of a better word for 'nautanki'),saying, "OMG!!! OMG!!! You guys,na!! Why did you leave me behind? I would get lost here!! Don't you guys do that ever again!!" Pat came the reply from another friend, in a style she, of all people, would understand, "Rama!! Rama!! Kya hai ye drama??" I mean, she was a grown up girl, she could talk to people and she had money with her! What else did she need, to be "found" again? She needed a lot of brain cells,though, but that's irrelevant here.

It's like a five minute short film (comedy) taking place right in front of you.
The first day of the month you meet someone. You guys get introduced. The next day you see the other person crying. You are concerned and ask why the person's been crying and stuff. The third day, the other person's sad! Again, you ask why. The days trudge on. At the end of the month, the other person says, "You made me cry today.boo hooo.....". You say, "This is the tenth time this month, right? Nice going! Need a tissue? I was kidding. Know your role and shut your mouth!!"

The way to get these people to know that the earth is a long way down, is to deny them attention. Let's see if the inflated balloons of pride and ego they carry around can be punctured or not. Another innovative way, suggested by a friend, was "Let's build them some statue bases; put them on those, collect a few jobless people and put them around the attention-seekers. At least WE won't have to deal with their want for attention!"