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By members of the Blackbirds, the Hondas & Astraea August 12, 2002 So you've just come out to your friends/social circles/pet dog, and they've been polite enough to not use terms on you that you don't like or they're willing to follow the plural preferences? Great! But what about things your group can do to make it easier on them?
1. Be patient when people ask questions. We've invited
questions via the Layman's Guide; it's our responsibility to make
it easy for them to ask, and to be patient even with things that
may seem ridiculous or obvious to us. Remember, this is a
very different way of thinking for most singlets. They
need maximum exposure to plurality as an open, friendly, human
state of being. Set an example by providing thoughtful, courteous
replies to all questions. If you don't know the answer, say so,
and take the extra time to help the person find out, if possible.
2. Try an online group journal, diary or blog. Online
journals can be useful to familiarize people outside the group
with those they might not speak with directly on a regular basis.
By reading entries by different persons, they can be better
prepared with an idea of the person if they ever meet them.
Individuals should sign their entries, if at all possible. Some
groups do so at the end of entries, while others do it at the
beginning. Livejournal is preferred by some groups
because it allows you to use small, customizable images (see
below on the use of icons) to identify yourselves. In
Livejournal, these images are viewable only if you are being read
on another person's 'friends' page or if you go into the
individual entry ("comments") section, but they are still a good
thing to have.
3. Use icons with pictures of individuals and names.
You can use a simple graphics editor to create pictures with
names merged in, so that readers have a visual marker from the
beginning. Livejournal icons are 100x100 pixels: AIM's are 48x48.
You'd be surprised what you can get into such a small area, with
a little ingenuity.
Such icons are invaluable for settings such as AIM, when many
people may step up and back during a conversation. Many groups
report feeling awkward over identifying themselves, or might
simply forget to do so when someone steps out fully enough ("Hi,
this is ___"), so the subtler marker of a named image tag is very
useful indeed.
Icons can help give an idea of a person's general appearance,
mood, or atmosphere, depending on choice of images and text. You
can also make general icons for the group -- with just the group
name on them -- when many people are out or an individual does
not feel comfortable identifying him/herself. This way, others
know they are speaking with someone other than whom they're used
to, even if an individual's name is not given. People feel more
comfortable online if they have an image to relate to. This can
become especially useful for persons in the group who have
nonhumanoid bodies. If you are a sentient octopus, by all means
find a nice octopus graphic and put your name on it.
Trillian, the free program
that operates five different chat clients, can use 48x48 "buddy icons" for AIM. It's also possible to create "weemees" or other types of avatars in AOL Instant Messenger and other messaging programs.
Here's some examples:
4. If possible, Keep a fairly consistent staff
of frontrunners, and keep others informed of changes in the
staff. It's not always possible for every group to do this.
But if you can, it's wise to keep a consistent general group, at
least at first, with whom outsiders can come to expect to
interact. It creates a sense of familiarity and security. This
way, even though there may be many dozens of people around,
outsiders can count on the presence of at least one person they
know and will feel comfortable speaking to.
Many functional groups have no particular subgroup of
frontrunners. Some don't have a lot of co-consciousness or in-
house communication, and even some groups who do communicate
well, such as Astraea, cannot control who's up front at any given
time. These things don't prevent a group from being functional.
If your group doesn't operate in such a way as to allow for a
consistent frontrunning staff, there are other things you can do.
Whoever comes up can introduce themselves. In writing emails or
online diary entries, you can identify yourself in the subject
line, and sign it. In chat, you can use named icons, as described
above.
By providing an open platform of stability, you allow others to
continue feeling they can rely on you even when they do not know
all the details.
5. Identify names of persons in your group, and distinguish
people in your group from people outside it.
One means is to identify plural status in a name by stating an
'&' symbol after either the group name or the individual's
name. For example, in speaking of the group of the Blackbirds and
an individual named Lucas within it, you can use either
Blackbirds& or Lucas& if Lucas is currently speaking for
the group but wishes to be directly addressed in replies.
For speaking of individuals within the same group as the speaker,
the '^' sign can be used before the name. A person in Lucas'
group who is talking about Lucas would refer to him as ^Lucas. If
a person outside his group wished to refer to Lucas in terms of
his group, it would be Blackbirds^Lucas. Since there are people
named Lucas in other systems, you can also use this to
distinguish between Army^Lucas, Blackbirds^Lucas, etc.
In practice, it would work like this:
Lucas and Luka are in the group of the
Blackbirds.
The Blackbirds refer to Astraea as Astraea&, Jay&, or
John& depending on whether they're specifying the group in
general, or an individual in terms of her group.
Luka would refer to Lucas as ^Lucas in her writings because they
are both in the Blackbirds.
If Astraea needed to identify Lucas to a third party, they would
refer to him as Blackbirds^Lucas; if the Blackbirds spoke about
John to a third party, they'd say Astraea^John.
It sounds complicated, but it becomes easy quickly. Use this or
any other means you are comfortable with, as long as people can
understand who and what you're referring to.
6. Do not go to lengths to prove the existence of others by
introducing a number of people at once.
In the experience of many groups, most outside the group usually
only interact with a handful of people. Even if those
relationships remain strong, non-plurals sometimes report feeling
as if they have "lost the person they were friends with" as they
suddenly become aware of many others. They may also feel as if
the individual they knew was somehow unreal, since what may have
appeared to be one person may actually have been several working
together. Rather than disturbing their mental footing, let
outside people go at their own pace. Some friends would prefer to
continue interacting with the specific individuals they know,
even if they understand and respect that those individuals are
part of a group.
6. Do not expect automatic respect because you come
from/are/etc. In any case, we should expect others to behave
toward us with common courtesy no matter what we are, but not
expect to be treated in the earth world with the kind of
reverence we may get back home, unless we are able to demonstrate
that we deserve it. It may be hard for us to remember that others
don't always see who we really are. In our own worlds we may be
Gods, princesses, guardians, mighty hunters or whizbang
journalists, but nobody's going to see that out here unless we
bring some of those traits with us into the earth world, which is
very hard sometimes.
The wisest thing for us to remember whether we're angels, aliens
or aristocrats, is always to behave with courtesy and self-
respect, which will hopefully earn us the same in return.
"But aren't we asking for special treatment simply because we're
plural?" No. What we're asking for is common respect. Right now,
we have none. Say "multiple personality" and the public thinks of
impossible mental cases. A web search turns up one crude joke
after another, people make casual reference to plurals as
sociopaths, TV and movies show us almost invariably as serial
murderers. This public fear and ignorance is what must be
overcome. Every minority has had to fight for public acceptance
and an end to invisibility. Now it's our turn.
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