On the last post, Quinn Inuit left this comment:
Um...may I call you Mel? I know your posts all conclude with this:
"Just call me Mel, everyone else does."
However, that doesn't say anything about what _you_ want to be called. How would you like me to address you?
Yes, you can call me Mel, and thank you for asking. I encourage everyone who 1. I don't despise and 2. doesn't despise me to call me Mel. There are a couple of reasons for this.
First off, my given name (Melody) doesn't particularly suit me. I'm waaaayy too much of a tomboy for such a girly name, plus I'm not gifted musically. Since "Mel" is the logical nickname, ever since the age of 16 or so everyone outside of my immediate family has called me Mel. This started with friends and boyfriends then transferred to acquaintances, boyfriends' families, employers, etc... essentially everyone on the planet. I'm a fairly formal person; once the parents of my friends started using it I started to get uncomfortable. Most people (like Quinn) asked if they could use it, but some people didn't which leads me to point number 2...
Some people don't ask, they assume, but most of the time if I confront them and ask them to stop, they stop. However, in one particular case asking hasn't worked. On top of that, this particular family has used my nickname to persuade, manipulate, degrade, and curse me. This family is the same family opposing me in court and fighting me over the custody of the children.
They currently have MANY reasons to curse my name, and since they never really got the hang of using my given name I have no reason to doubt that they are using my nickname as a substitute.
I'm not really comfortable with that, for obvious reasons. I have generally engendered very little ill will in the world (particularly in comparison to good will) and having my name cursed is rather irritating.
So I ask everyone I meet who doesn't despise me to use my nickname as a kind of counter balance to those who use my name against my will. Since the intarweb is a big big place full of (mostly) nice people, I turned it into my signature. And it has worked; almost everyone I've met forgoes the given name for the one that I am "known" by. Hell, even my lawyer refers to me as Mel.
So yes, please
Just call me Mel, everyone else does.
