*However* I probably make and maintain more eye contact than, say, Steph is comfortable with, when I'm in a solid and alpha mood. Especially in a public speaking/meeting context

Hey, I'm ita! (Wait, didn't I come to this realization the last time we had the eye contact discussion?)

A comment I wanted to make about the friendship/walking away from friendships discussion (at the risk of going into "me me me" land): sometimes the only thing to do is walk away, because no amount of explaining or discussion on either side will smooth out. There is someone I was very good friends with; thanks to some REALLY bad decisions on both our parts, we aren't friends any more. I know they would love to have a very long talk with me explaining their side, and what went on in their head. It's not going to happen. I don't have the emotional reserves for it, and the discussion would cause more damage than it would be worth.

So sometimes, you cut ties and don't give the other person any options for discussion. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I consider that aggression, actually.

I don't think someone having dirty thoughts about me is aggressive. That's in the act. I think maintaining eye contact because you have the hots for someone is rude--expecting them to respond and exerting pressure to that end is aggressive.

bon has tried to explain to me that I'm just too name sensitive. Okay, I own it. But *never* call me by my first name unless we've been introduced. Christ, my migraine specialist still calls me by my last name.

Not least of all because you're 75% going to fuck it up, and chances were good I wasn't going to tell it to you anyway, Coffee Person. Cheating off my debit card is just that--cheating.

Tony Robinson is a bit of a perv

Mick Aston is AWESOME.

I love the enthusiasm and inclusiveness of Time Team. The idea that the public can be so engaged in history and the sciences involved with the digs...for TEN YEARS...says something very complimentary which could not, I fear, be said for America.

Also, I did some some of the material from the playhouses sites (the Rose mostly) and presented at the launch of the book on the excavations, which was super fun, and held at the Globe.

This is amazingly cool.

I love Time Team and wish I could watch it online. Occasionally I catch eps that someone posts on YouTube but they get yanked pretty regularly.

I am an overtly friendly person in public. I speak to strangers all the time. I address passersby. I will pat your dog.

This:

Cheating off my debit card is just that--cheating.

Gives me the creeps. When a cashier calls me by my first name off my card, it really, truly bothers me...and I'm not even sure why. I know what they are doing, and I don't even have an issue with it being disrespectful. It just really, really bothers me. I don't have a decent retort, but I do walk away with a very bad feeling.

Safeway cashiers are forced to address customers by their first names and I hate it.

Some possibly good news for Noise Design:

[link]

I don't think someone having dirty thoughts about me is aggressive. That's in the act.

Nope, me neither. I'm referring to the creepy staring - that's the act. That hard stare that's clearly sexual but is different from the checking-you-out I-fancy-you look that if done right is not a direct continuous stare but repeatedly making eye contact and holding it for a second longer than usual for casual conversation.

This all can seem like a complicated choreography with Fizzbin rules.

The debit/credit card thing is to prevent fraud. They want to make sure you answer to the name on the card. Doesn't help if they mispronounce it, of course.

That hard stare that's clearly sexual but is different from the checking-you-out I-fancy-you look that if done right is not a direct continuous stare but repeatedly making eye contact and holding it for a second longer than usual for casual conversation.

I don't have that fine-grained a filter--my general response to any stare that lasts too long is to assume the person's a lech. Silly, considering I'm probably stressing people like Steph out. But there's nothing a guy's ever pulled off in eye-to-eye contact with me that felt aggressive. Staring at my body or my lips in a patently mind-elsewhere-carnal way starts to blur things, but not straight up eye contact for me.

Is Time Team available online? I found some stuff on You Tube, but the quality was bad.