So I think I have a sort of dysfunctional filter when it comes to certain matters of etiquette.?? Case in point:?? today I was just scanning msn.com and saw a thing about 10 environmentally friendly companies – and one is Seattle Biodiesel, which is all about, well, biodiesel in Seattle.?? But from the interviews with its founder, it sounds like the kind of company you could just march up to and say “I want to work for you, give me a desk and a basic salary and I’ll make awesome things happen” and you would get that and more and could accelerate and make it into an amazing career eventually if that’s your thing and you have the right background and such.?? I mean, I could be wrong, but these things are often worth a shot, in my experience… so my point is, I went on a couple of dates with a guy I met on Craigslist who seemed really nice but we just didn’t hit it off quite enough, no real spark – but he was an interesting fellow and he was really into biodiesel and other environmental sciency type things but he hadn’t found the right job in that field yet so he was working some other gigs meanwhile, and the first thought I had upon reading that Seattle Biodiesel blurb was that I ought to email him a link to the article, even though it’s been a few weeks since we saw each other for the last time and it’s pretty clear that neither of us was going to get back in touch.?? And see, I’m fine with that, and no hard feelings and all, but I still had the urge to pass this along just to be my own personal and subtler version of a Good Samaritan or what have you, but I just KNOW it’d totally weird and creep him out if, a couple of weeks after the fact, I were to send him an article on something I knew he’d been interested in, and that might really spark something cool professionally for him – but at the same time, I wouldn’t mean it in a creepy and stalkerish way, but that’s most definitely how it’d come off, so I’m not going to send it of course, but isn’t it kind of a bummer that we all have to subscribe to such a stupid little song-and-dance over something so seemingly simple and straightforward??? I mean, it’s like the time that my recent ex-boyfriend and I broke up, and then a week later I got this letter from him with a note enclosed from some people in British Columbia who had found his message-in-a-bottle to me, which he’d obviously written BEFORE we broke up, and they mailed it along, and even though we were both a bit sore and ego-bruised about the whole breakup thing, I thought that was pretty darn cool and I would want someone to know that their message in a bottle had reached me, even if we *had* just broken up and it was a bit weird and awkward to make contact at the time, so I made a photocopy of the note and just mailed it to him with a little note from me saying “Isn’t that neat that it made it, thought you’d want to know” and I think he seriously freaked out and hasn???t talked to me since because of that, because it, like, upset him so much or something to hear from me when it was not yet appropriate by his terms or something. ??I don’t know – I actually really don’t understand it.?? I mean, I guess I just have this sort of “helper” complex hardwired into my soul, and I want to connect everyone I know with whatever I come across that I think might enrich their lives in some way – ya know, like how my mom always used to clip newspaper articles she thought I might be interested in, and how her mom did it for her (and still does it for me, thanks Gran), you know??? And I mean, even in my teens when I’d roll my eyes and sigh about how tragically UNCOOL that was, the thought was still touching and I keep most of the articles if they’re interesting.?? And I’m not the scrapbooking type, so that’s saying something.?? I???m not sure there???s really a solution to all my whining here, I just felt like venting, because it???s kind of a shame that everyone has to be so darn song-and-danceish about human interaction.?? I dunno.?? I am always thrilled when someone I haven???t heard from in ages or didn???t expect to see or run into or get a call from makes contact, because come on, man, life is about CONNECTING with PEOPLE, or if it???s not for you that???s fine, but a gesture of genuine goodwill isn???t such a big bad scary thing in my mind.?? I dunno.?? Just food for thought I guess.