I, too, feel unable to enter the comunity but I do not think it because anyone here dislikes me or even that they feel they are better than me.

I am an established member in another couple of internet communities and we do bring in new people to our community, but they don't always work out, espically in the beginning. (We don't initiate people or anything, it's just the social interaction sometimes just doesn't work out) I do not recall having to fit in to these groups, but that is probably because I was there when they began. I dunno.

I wish I was more a part of the comunity at rinkworks, and I have tried to join in the chats, but I just don't have time usualy.

I, like a few others who posted to this, use AIM *because* it flashes at you. If I am working on something I get so engrossed in that that I forget I have chats open. Well, AIM has fixed that for me. If someone messages me they pop up. I can easily click the window I was in and get it to go to the background if I am really busy for a moment. And they flash when someone messages me. I let my taskbar hide at the top of my screen (I'm a screen realestate freak) so it's not always flashing there, but I check it from time to time without having to actualy pull those windows up. That's why I use AIM.

But I would not use AIM to replace what I would use a chat for; I just do not have time for a chat most of the time and when I do it seems that no one is chatting activly.

I also do not use my online journal to replace what I would do with a forum post or personal interaction. I use it more to muse on the events of the day privatly and if other people want to read it thats fine. Sometimes I even post things to the journal and a forum. Though I do not post many personal things here as I hardly know many of you.

I do, however, feel I know a lot of you better than you know me. I love hearing from Howard. I follow most anything BG posts, espically her observations on America now that she is here, and her posts about NZ because I think it a beautiful place. I read most of the posts that are interesting (I do not find movie posts so interesting personaly as well as a few other things, but I read at least the first post of most threads here) I just can't jump in to this comunity.

Maybe one day I'll be able to join in better. I hope it's still here for me to do so.