hear hear simone!!! really. if anything charlie sheen (and others) deserves a lot of credit for holding up so well living life in the media bubble - I swear I might have slapped somebody myself under those circumstances too

my motto has pretty much always been don't judge if u haven't walked the walk

( and since no 2 experiences - walks - are exactly alike, that leaves it just -don't judge)

Nobody can ignore their reputation.

Reputation is a social tool, a shortcut to get to know someone.

It is impossible to get to know everyone "as a person behind the rep". It takes too much time, effort, work, each of which you don't have enough to get to know all people you must get to know.

So the social animals that we are, we pass on our incomplete knowledge of people to our listeners. The "reputation" is a summary of what appears to be most true. It is also a social tool to help people build a mental model of the social milieu they are in.

Without reputation, as a concept and as a social tool, we could not function as a society.

For instance:
- we vote for politicians whose actions will deeply affect our lives, on their reputation, not on their personality, and not on their real goals and aspirations.
- we learn from teachers because the reputation of a teacher is that he teaches facts. Yet in some instances the facts are debatable, like creation vs. evolution, atheism vs. Christianity.
- We avoid people who have a bad rep, and maybe those people have a bad rep for a reason -- and maybe not even maybe. I used to move in several social circles, and eventually people talked behind my back, in terms that were factually wrong: 1. they said I was married, 2. they said I had VD (STD), 3. They said I was after women's money. This rep I developed in single's clubs, where I successfully wooed quite a large number of women. So while not one of these were true (I was rich, I never had, let alone passed on, VD or STDs, and I've always been single), it was necessary for the crowd to label me, because I WAS in a way anti-social, several ways: 1. I was too tough a competition for those men who wanted women with sincere intentions; 2. I may have broken hearts and made women stay away from coming to the clubs again; 3. I may have broken hearts and made men angry, to the point where I was undesirable in these places.

So the rep in my particular case was not true, but it served its purpose quite fittingly and well.

Like I said, rep is a social tool, and nobody ought to ignore it. You can't know everyone in a large group beyond a rep level, so you must investigate if you want to, but due to time restrictions, you must be audicious on whom to squander your allotment of precious lot of investigative effort, time, and other resources.

I suggest that you accept reps of others with a grain of salt, and you carefully shape your own rep and guard it from becoming something that it is not.

Because a bad rep could work for you. In one of the singles social clubs I had a nic of "fokker". This sounds bad, and when I first learned it, it hurt to hear that. New arrivals, or rather, new members, were warned of me. But it worked for me, in a way, because while some women were repulsed by my rep, some others were attracted -- trashy babes, and also society ladies who found me to be a mistique, an exotic eroticum. Not a romantic guy, but someone that sounded a trifle dangerous, just enough to not exceed their risk tolerance.

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Sorry, I got carried away a bit. The crux is, if you want to avoid a rep that you don't want to have, you must be insincere, as rep is a social tool, but it is an inexact one, and the inaccuracies can hurt you. On the other hand, a rep could be superficial but fitting, and work for you.

In all honesty, I don't know if we, as individuals and as individual owners of reps, have any control over it, or its effects on our lives. It depends on who hears the rep, and what their attitude is, and that, my friends, is totally not in our control. Yet the attitude of the hearers of our rep is an equally as large deciding factor in our success in the social group as our rep is, however exact or inexact that rep may be.

I have quite a reputation in my town. It's a small town where basically everyone knows everyone. I wish I could say I didn't care but around here with the right reputation you can get away with murder or be denied service anywhere but Wal-Mart. I don't have the best reputation, but it does have its perks.

I get the impression when you walk into the bar, you get whatever pool table you want

I don't think I'm intimidating at all, either, but that seems to be the gist of the reputation....!

As for complicated -- yeah, I have known some complicated people. I don't happen to think I'm one of them. Actually, I'm about as simple and basic as it gets without becoming a quadruped (although some people seem to want to push me in that direction....)


I don't find you intimidating Lex. I find you interesting with alot of characture and a knowledgable person. I just see your heart being closed and locked. Nothing wrong with that because it takes time to heal. When the right person comes along you will unlock your door...and then it will open slightly...
then ever so slowly it will open all the way

I have a reputation on here,,,,







Its THAT DAMN iam4u,,,HE'S ALWAYS PREACHING REAL......

I think its more like theres that Iam4u he loves his caps lock.

Reputation of mine I really don't care about. All reputation is the assumptions of others. I am who I am love me or I hate it wont make me lose any sleep. If I were to make a guess at my reputation. Its probably some pervy,opinonated early thirties stoner with a love for art, music, and beer wenches.