thefourthvine | Poll: Compare Amongst Yourselves

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Poll: Compare Amongst Yourselves

makesmewannadie is visiting me, and we got to talking, as we often do. (Okay. Full disclosure: the actual challenge would be making us shut the fuck up.) And one thing we talked about reminded me of a poll I'd considered posting lo these many moons ago, to test a hypothesis that I can't very well tell you beforehand. (Bias is death to informal and statistically skewed LJ polls, my friends.)

So, first, let me just say: hey, it'd be cool if you'd take this poll. I would love you and stuff.

Second - when I say "your friends list," I mean the portion of your friends list that you read regularly - your default reading filter, if you have one, or the whole list if that's how you read. (If you don't read your friends list at all, this poll is not going to be a good fit for you.) My point is, I want you to consider the people you know the best. (Which is not to say you necessarily know them well, of course.) And when I say "the average," I mean your own personally assessed average of this trait over your friends list.

And, seriously, there are no bad answers here. I'm only wondering where you fit into your own mental picture of your friends list for these particular variables. I know you may not have great data for all these questions; just give me your first reaction, and I will of course love you forever.

ETA: Please don't go back to change your answers after you've finished the poll and seen the results! (Unless you think of something you want to add to the text box, or you've decided shoes are more important than almost-cock. Those questions are weighty and take long consideration; I understand that.)

[Poll #931955]

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See, for a lot of things it turned out my friends list pretty much extended along a range, but sometimes I was in the middle and sometimes I wasn't. And sometimes I realized my friends list is range-restricted for a given variable. Which is fascinating - I mean, obviously, I'm selecting for that variable pretty strongly, and I didn't know it until I took this poll myself.

And I want the average that ratcreature proposes above...b/c then I think my answers might be slightly different?

Interesting. Out of curiosity, how do you think they might be different?

That was *fascinating*, TFV, and hmmm. I'm thinking now. I never realised how much my FList (and I think fandom in general, actually) makes me feel like the norm. In most aspects -- nearly all, I think -- I selected average. I was basing it on the majority (so, average sex to me means "most people on my FList are getting little to none" so since I get little to none, I'm average) but it probably explains part of the comfort level that comes from the old FList.

Or reinforces that old bias of "everyone's like me", proving that I do assume the majority of my FList live similar lives.

I love your polls.

Thank you! (And also, yay, and also thank you so much for saying that, because I always feel like Spam Queen of the Universe when I post them, especially when it's my fourth post in three days.)

This is all an assumption on my part, because honestly I have no idea how so many people have so much time for fannish activities.

I wonder that, too. I mean, I'm so bad at answering comments, keeping up with my friends list - basically, I have time for the community side of fandom, the organized side, or the creative side. But not all three. So I have my fannish priorities set and I use my fannish time in order of priorities and just accept that, hey, I'll never win at fandom the way some folks do. (Although a secret resentful part of me is convinced that those people have access to a Time Turner or a 48-hour day, and they are not sharing, which is obviously wrong and mean of them.)

This leads me to reaffirm something that most of us probably already know: we're much more willing to talk about sex than to talk about money.

Ohhhh, yeah. (Although that's not a bad thing; I mean, sex is just fun, mostly, whereas money, in our world, is a Real Big Deal, and that's if you have enough of it. If you don't have enough, money is a Real Big Deal to the power of 1000.)

I feel like I should explain my answers, except that I know even if the answers aren't factually real, they feel emotionally correct since I'm going through a rough patch.

*hugs* on the rough patch. And no need to justify your answers, although you're encouraged to talk about them if you want to.

It would be hard for the flist to have less sex than me. Unless they are all virgins, in which case it's equal.

Somewhere in these comments, there's a virgin age battle going on - people are reporting in that they are virgins at 24, 26, 27, whatever. (I assume the winner will get a prize, and I must admit I'm curious about what it will be.) So, yeah, lots of virgins in these parts.

and I am the least normal person in EXISTANCE.

*formally challenges you for that title*

Hee, yes! That's Jaime's Maggie and Hopey.

Here, have another Hopey, this time with sneering lip-curl action (because it makes her *even* cuter).

(Hey. You two promised to use only your default icons when commenting with me! Although the cow is so damn cute that I don't have the heart to complain, especially since I'm getting so much better at telling you apart.)

This is weird.

I, too, found it a very weird exercise.

normally I feel quite happy and stable, but lately not so much,

Honey, with what's going on in your life - um, well, I've been in similar territory, and so I feel like I can say with authority that it's proof that your normal state is happy and stable if you're managing to deal at all right now.

I'm trying to work out just how unhappy/unstable I am, and if I am at all, when I shouldn't be, really

It's important to figure that out, yeah, especially when it's a change for you, from how you normally feel. But - wait, did you say you shouldn't feel unhappy or unstable right now? I read your LJ, you know. No way am I going to buy that statement from you, even if I bought into the "should" thing at all when it comes to feelings. (My belief: it doesn't matter how you should feel, only how you do feel, and getting hung up on how you should feel only makes it harder to deal with how you do feel.)

*sigh* I went into lecture mode, didn't I? Sorry.

*vows to leave hugs, not lectures, in the future*

(Your icon made me giggle, by the way.)

I am not sure in what sense you meant stable and open, but I took it as having stability in your life (settled, career, kid, that sort of thing) and open as in willing to share Real Life stuff with your flist.

I meant whatever you mean by stable. Like, for myself, I used a much more internal defintion - yeah, partly to do with being settled in life, but also in terms of emotional/mental stability.

I think I make RL posts less frequently than the flist and rarely go into deep personal stuff.

Probably true, although I'm always happy when you do make one - it's nice to hear how you're doing! But then, I am in no position to talk about RL posts. (I scored myself as "less open," and the sad part is, I'm so, so much more open than I was when I started on LJ.)

I seem to have mostly the extreme - people who are having a lot of sex and people who are having none, so I lumped myself in with the people who are in a committed relationship and probably having average amounts.

I tended to think of "committed long-term relationship + regular sex = above average," myself, but that could just be my weirdness.

I think, given my job and husband and plan to have kids, I'm likely on the more normal towards society scale than others, so if that's what you meant, I can change that answer.

I wanted whatever you meant by the term, so your answer works perfectly. Thanks!

I actually feel no need to qualify my answer on the "sexually-active" question, because when you're measuring the time since you got laid in years, it's a fair bet that most people are having more sex than you are. I'm just sayin.

Well, except that most people seem to be thinking that, so, hey, something's up there. (Oh, wow. That was, like, the Worst Unintentional Double Entendre Ever, and I'm only leaving it in to torture us both.)

Not sure if that's right, though.

I wanted people to use their own definitions of the terms in question, so, yup, totally right.

And there wasn't a "confidence" question for me to answer "oh, much less", which would apply to my level of certainty about almost all the rest of the questions.

Ohhhh, man. Now I wish so much that there had been a confidence question, because - yeah. That would be a fascinating variable.

all I can think of is that this is Virtual Wobegon

*giggles helplessly*

That's awesome. That should be the name of all fandom, really.

Like a previous commenter, "more/less normal" as a concept gave me a moment's pause.

Yeah, it's a challenging question. I mean, I spent some time pondering a few of these and weighing them out, and I wrote the damn poll, so you'd think I'd know what I meant. (Which I did, but it's a whole different thing when you're answering the question.) Although "normal" wasn't one of the hard ones for me. Less normal! In almost all company! It could be my slogan, just like Virtual Wobegon should be fandom's.

I have a co-sleeping toddler. I always assume everyone's gettin' more than me.

You know, I've often wondered about that, how people with co-sleeping kids have sex. Apparently the answer is: they mostly don't. (But then, with small kids, you mostly don't anyway, so.)

Esp. if one counts solo acts of affection, which I do.

Hah! Finally someone who does! Because people have been saying, "I'm not at all sexually active, because I'm a virgin," and I'm like, "...But you can be sexually active without a partner. Right? Right?" Although I suppose I was doomed, using that phrase, because it's what doctors ask during yearly checkups. I mean, when they say, "Are you sexually active?" they aren't asking about solo endeavors.

Oh, and I consider myself to be a worse-than-average driver. Unlike the majority of people.

I consider myself to be a worse-than-average driver - that was pretty much settled for me during driver's ed, where I did something so notorious that the teachers were still talking about it ten years later - but I also firmly believe that all the other cars on whatever stretch of road I'm on are clearly there just to annoy me. I know I'm not the greatest driver in the world, or even average, but I'm still not giving an inch in terms of appreciating anyone else's driving behavior, either.

I was thinking about being financially comfortable, versus people who worry about making rent or never have spare cash for non-essentials. Not socioeconomic class, which I suspect evens out somewhat because of the barriers to entering LJ: regular access to a computer, and means of getting online.

Am I really conceited for being willing to say I think I'm smarter than the average of my friendslist? There are some brilliant people on there, some less so, some median, but I really do think that on average I'm smarter. And I didn't even have to think about it for too long.

I answered stable in terms of emotional/mental stability. I think I probably folded career into "success".

It is indeed a totally appropriate way to answer, since I was asking about feelings. It's just - some of us have a thing for numbers.

(It's. You know. A shameful fetish. We try not to be offensive about it, though.)

Trying again, this time with correct coding.

On the other hand, there is a specific motivation thought to cause that bias, and so I can think of possible moderating variables, especially in this specific context/for this specific question.

Sadly, I had a very similar line of thought while I was forumating my hypotheses about the probable outcomes of this poll. (Which are not all being supported, by the way.)

Geeks unite yay?

the entire world is getting more sex than me, let alone just my flist.

*eyes poll*

The world apparently doesn't agree with you. In fact, judging by the poll, there are just a few people out there hogging up nearly all the sex, and everyone else is getting none. Or almost none.

Mmmm, with the right bribe, I could be persuaded to input the data for you.

Co-sleeping people have sex in the following ways:

* Get a babysitter, consider a pay-by-the-hour-motel.
* Wait until child is deeply, deeply (do the arm drop test) asleep. Have the kind of quiet, puritanical sex you thought you left behind when you moved out of your parents' house.
* If child falls asleep in car, place child in crib, count to ten, and go to town.

Driver's ed took me three times to pass. As did the actual test.

The other drivers, of course, remain evil. Even if they're technically good drivers, doesn't mean they're using that power FOR good, you know?

I think I probably do have fairly accurate sense of how well my flist is doing financially. While I am quite certain that the vast majority of them come from more affluent backgrounds than I do (me = first generation to grow up with indoor plumbing), but, the bulk of them have less money. This is primarily because a large contingent are students, a smaller number have some rather serious and expensive medical problems, and others have recently had bad luck/made unwise decisions/who can really tell which - and then there are the 10 or 15 who seem to have successful careers.

I have a very boring, very secure clerical job. My income is very, very average but, I am probably more financially secure than some of the careerists just because I am quite manic about managing it and not spending more than I take in.

I put average for that one.

Why do I have the feeling this was a study to see how many of us would choose the chunk of text at the end with the word "cock" in it and the rest is just smoke and mirrors? :D

Anyway, this made me *think*.

I don't consider myself to have a stats fetish, but I find myself wondering deeply whether you'd see substantially different trends if you divide the answerers into "lurkers" and "not lurkers." I mean, aside from things you could expect like lurkers considering themselves "less open" or "less creative", I wonder if the composition of the flist of a lurker and a non-lurker are substantially different.

What I mean is, as a lurker, my flist is just people who regularly produce content I want to read. That's it, c'est tout. I grimly tolerate people who want to rant about their medical conditions and life tragedies to an audience of strangers because they're turning out decent fic every couple posts.

While I'm sure non-lurkers have a lot of that too, it seems like they must, by definition, have some other categories in the mix. Like, "lurker who friended me and I friended back to be polite." Or "people who sometimes beta read for me" or "people who give me feedback that I groove on" or even just "people I met at a Con who seem cool."

So, for example, I've seen a bunch of comments suggesting an inverse correlation between heavy involvement in fandom and financial or career success (ie "she's writing a fic a week? She's gotta be jobless!") So, would lurkers largely consider themselves richer and more successful than a flist composed almost entirely of prolific authors?

Anyway, fun poll! Looking forward to the followup post with the hypotheses and number crunching.

Oh, and one more. I've also seen a lot of comments in this thread from people saying "I just couldn't bear to tick a checkbox saying I'm smarter/richer/more attractive/etc than my flist."

That seems like another thing that might(?) be different for lurkers who don't have a relationship with anyone on their friends list, ie, their flist doesn't particularly know they exist. But maybe not. Neuroses everywhere, yo.

Many and perhaps most people on my flist I added because I thought they were smart and creative, so I naturally tend to think they are moreso than me.

They're a cross-section of people and I'm a recent college grad, so a lot of them (with steady jobs and houses and families) definitely have more money than me.

Quite a few of them are several years younger than me and definitely less sexually active.

How marked the majorities are, and how they vary from one question to another.

Truly, deeply fascinating. My number-fixated parts are all entranced.

And how I found myself fudging or outright lying on some questions, because I just *could not* rate myself above my friends at them.

You're not the only one who has said that, but - really, be proud of who you are! Speaking as a person on your friends list - it's okay to say you're smarter and more creative and more ethical, or whatever. You're allowed to be good at things, and you're allowed to be better at them, too.

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