a regular day on pm, 92 point 5.

started playing again, after i got back last night, and because that just happens to be peak hour for america, on average i end up holding five conversations simultaneously. of course, none of them are friends. my real friends know by now when to leave well alone.

people are just so different. i don't believe it. i don't know what to believe. last night's five was a case in point.

(and this is excluding the normal, quite unanswerable pms like "!! guthix brings you balance!!", "wanna buy full zammy?", "u sed u wanted to be my gf!", "tell everyone to join zezima's chat!" etc.)

1. at fally bank, a guy's hankering after a single law rune. presumably for varrock tele or something, and i oblige. i give it to him free, and that part, maybe it was a mistake. "1 more. 1 more. 1 more." spams the chat screen. i leave the bank. he promptly 1-more'd me through pm. we discuss the merits of plain hard work, and the satisfaction it gives you.

once he's dealt with, i make the mistake of giving another guy mith ores. "more. weps and armour." he weps-and-armour's me via pm when i leave. i don't know where he got the idea that someone who hasn't consciously trained anything remotely melee-related for six months should be lugging mith and addy weapons and armour done to the mining pits. regardless. we discuss the merits of plain hard work, and the satisfaction it gives you.

it's vicious in its predictability.

2. a guy's been lobbying "f2p should get more quests and items!" again in fally. "follow me if you think f2p should get more quests and items!" it's not an extremely crowded world, all things considered, he doesn't attract very much attention, and thereafter resorts to (horror of horrors) pming innocent bystanders. we debate the fairness of jagex's decisions.

i don't see why people won't just play, and be grateful that they get so much for absolutely nothing. he's apparently been playing since rsc came out. it's rather futile, and we both realise it. we promptly move on to other things.

pking's hardly more edifying.

3. someone pms me from out of the blue (not that that's altogether unexpected) and asks what a whetstone is. i point out the search function, and promptly click search for him.

apparently it's a place where you sharpen rusty swords.

4. someone i'm positive has been hounding me ever since she discovered the fact of my existence strikes again. it's the same type of question every time. she starts off this time with "can u like, tell jagex to put me a mod!" as a prelude to whether it's "good" to help someone with a quest, whether it's "good" to report someone attempting to account trade, whether it's "good"... her definition of "good" being whether it'll get her mod status fast enough.

i'm still leery after the last encounter with the guy who initiated the let's toggle the pm settings! game. but this time i just can't help but tell her my views, incorporating all that about position, how to properly earn respect, right and wrong... she simmers. the moment i even mention "ignore list" she goes ballistic.

"ur mean! you're reported!!"

and to think, just the other day she was so surprised when i told her about the number of people who've reported me. was trying to say that reports don't mean a thing unless they're valid. i remind her of as much.

a silence, then she goes back to it again. "who r the people wit gold crowns?" only a matter of time before she gets back to the same form of asking.

i feel like screaming. (and if i did, one room over they'd be speculating tomorrow who presumably spent the night here.) i just log. it's easier to shoot yourself in the mouth than reason with people, it seems, sometimes.

i log in later to be faced with "yh do i always have to say hi y cant u do it]" i wonder if it's too cruel to tell her i delete her from my friends list everytime we're done conversing in hopes that we'll never have to again. initiate a conversation with her? is she crazy?

i stick with "i'm sorry, sometimes i need to clear my friends list when it gets too full, and..." then promptly initiate a conversation with her next i log in.

give me strength.

5. it seems someone really is listening. a person with a vaguely familiar username pms me. somehow we get onto the topic of family. we bond over standing around attracting randoms and talking about deaths of loved ones. he starts off, and in between i mention my friend.

we cover how unfair the world seems, how cruel things can be, grief, regret, time, meaning, religion, missing someone.

saying this almost seems like intruding on privacy. we talk about where we live.

it becomes a mundane conversation, and that's precisely what keeps me when faced with pms from the other four. it's coversations like these that remind me why i don't choose to keep private chat on friends.

four in five of every other person you talk to you won't particularly want to continue the conversation with, but that doesn't mean the latter kind of person doesn't exist.

why do you want to be a mod?

that's arguably the most important question of all.

i meet people everyday, and all they ask is "how do you become a mod?" or "is this against the rules?"

i give them the answers, but if they probe further, all i have to say is why.

why do you think it's against the rules?

why do you want to become a mod?

that usually shuts them up. otherwise, i've so far only received two valid responses (imo "the crown is cool" doesn't apply).

that leaves "i deserve it." or "i want to make rs a better place."

i further probe the former till the arrogant little twit realises the answers he has that are true are answers he cannot give me. those who fit into this category typically don't even think about the latter reply. as to the latter, my next question, then, goes back to how.

that shuts them up too, eventually.

how do temporary mutes make rs a better place? why can't you make rs a better place anyway, or do you think that's only the responsibility of mods? how do you think...

writing all this down makes it seem like a job interview, or even a test. but that isn't my intention at all. all i want to do is let them know themselves. let them know why they want what they claim to want. let them judge, for themselves, of themselves.

writing all this down makes me seem cruel. excuses, excuses, you might say, but i say i have a right to them. i don't say all this to "shut them up", to shame them. right after, i move on to another topic. it's their choice if they want to continue talking, and i don't intentionally try to crush them, nor do i. i've become quite the expert at changing the subject now, and it's easy when the person you're talking to wants something mundane to converse about just so they can think, at the same time.

because all most people want is the perceived popularity and prestige that comes with what they want most of all, that little crown by the side of their name.

saddest of all, i think, might be a boy i met, who hasn't spoken three sentences to me since i declined his trade of an emerald ring and expressed my views in a way such as would soften the impact of my opinion on online dating. apparently that didn't work very well, and it's one of the things i've most regretted. it's also one of the things i'd probably do all over again.

my point, anyway, being what he told me. "i want to be a mod so people will listen to me."

i want so much to make people understand. if you have the potential to become a mod, or if you should be one, people will listen to you anyway. people will respect you precisely because you deserve their respect and attention as much, or more so than any mod's.

i've only met a few who don't want to be mods, and that's because they dread the attention, and the time they'll have to sacrifice combating said attention.

it's strange, really. i'm still trying to figure out the lure of it. is it like wanting to become a prefect in school? except many, many people didn't want prefectship, myself included. the desire to prove yourself, desire for popularity, that aside, is there anything left?

the "i want to make rs a better place" works. the problem is, how? by muting people? when it's less necessary i try not to mute because i want to change the person. i want to persuade the person not to, i want to hear what they have to say. sometimes i succeed, other times, i don't.

either way, i don't regret my decisions.

i go about playing in, you might say, the same way i always did. sometimes i remember that my account was modded, and i'm surprised all over again. then i forget it, let it retreat into the background.

before, i did want to be a mod. had you asked me, though, i'd have given you the second response. you'd have been able to shut me up, to make me think, because frankly, i wouldn't have known why.

now i do.

what did you think? i'm not about to tell you. that'll be too easy. it's personal, but aspects of it may well be universal, and not without cause.

what do you think?

think, because the answer's worth it.