Greetings from a hobby mermaid.

[Nana]

Hey there Mernetwork! Just call me Nana.. I like how cute it sounds... maybe I'll make it my real mermaid name.
Been a mermaid fan from little on. Mermaids just symbolize a lot of things I wanna see in me. Beauty, Elegance, Mysterious and maybe a bit out of this world.
Also I really love swimming over everything in the world. I'm really crazy about it can't even remember when I actually started.
I started mermaiding as a hobby a few years ago but after 6 months I just dropped it cause of stares and the attention I drew at me.
At the beginning of this year I had like a talk with a good friend about what we gonna do 2014 and I came up with how I sunk about 3000$ in a mermaid tail I only used half a year.
And he was like you should start again cause its a pretty cool hobby and don't care what others think.

So well now is August and feel like I need a platform to talk about mermaiding and swimming. And maybe share one or another life story.

[mernoob]

That's so cool that you already have some experience, but don't be turned off by people's stares. There's always going to be something about you that people don't like or think is weird, that really can't be helped. And I know it's hard to just ignore them, but just ask yourself this question: Who has an awesome tail?
Not them.
They're just jealous, even if they won't admit it to themselves or anyone else. I mean, who honestly doesn't want to be a mermaid?

[Nana]

I know quite my share of people who don't. Mainly someone who can't swim.

[Drake]

Aye, that may be, but the thing to ask is.. are you doing it for them, or for yourself? As long as you are being who you are, and you enjoy doing it, is that not what really matters? just a thought

[Nana]

Thanks for the support. But I'm over the "stigma".. people are more curious than mean. Really. Also since I swim a lot I have quite a few regular pools and friends there.
They think its pretty interesting and know I'm a reliable person.

Also really the attention also seems to have turned around. I kinda enjoy now how people take interest in me. Also I was always a big fan of acting, cosplay, roleplaying just mermaiding feels so.. alone.
Cosplaying at a con you have tons of people to hide among. Mermaiding is just you doing your hobby and training some tricks.

I'm starting to believe that talking underwater is impossible.. at least in a way that someone would understand you.

[AniaR]

I'm not sure I understand. Do you already own a 3000$ tail?

[Nana]

Yeah! Felt quite dumb for a year. It was so expensive and I just stopped swimming in it.

[MerEmma]

Welcome. Who did you purchase the tail from? I'm curious. :)

[Chrissy]

Hello and welcome!!!

[Nana]

Mertailor. I went a bit over board with the addons and stuff. I was pretty naive too.
A lot of the price are where shipping costs.

I'm now aware of the reputation of the mertailor so I don't wanna talk about the stress it was getting the tail and other stuff.

[Mermaid Wesley]

Do you still have it? What's it look like?

[AniaR]

Yeah I'd love to see it :)

[Nana]

Sorry I like to keep pictures private. Still not quite comfortable telling basically strangers all about this.

[Raayvhen]

Its not like posting a picture of just the tail is a violation of your privacy. But whatever.

[PearlieMae]

:eye twitch:

[AniaR]

why are you on a mermaid forum? lol. I dont wanna come off rude, but you're the very first person in the history of this site (I've been here since the beginning) who didn't want to share their tail pictures. I mean, it's fine, it's your decision how much you share of yourself online... but you certainly dont have any issue sharing loads of other stuff I just find it kind of odd. Maybe you feel a bit defensive because of your past experiences, but I can assure you that kind of behaviour isnt tolerated here. We'd never let anyone say anything bad to you about your tail or invade your privacy or anything like that. I can appreciate if you had issues with your tail not wanting to talk about that specific stuff. People try to make the best of situations all the time. You say you wanna share life stories in your introduction. And if you really do want to start again, I think mernetwork is a good place to dip yourself in and test the waters.

A few people on the forum (including myself) had bad experiences when they first started out. A lot of us had conflict with our workplace and people not understanding. But thanks to all the media coverage on mermaids people are starting to have a much better sense of it. We also talk a lot on here about how to handle negative stuff.

While I respect your right to keep certain things private, we have trolls, banned users, and multiple account people who make stuff all the time just to cause problems on the forum. When someone is too anonymous on a forum that is dedicated to COMMUNITY it can make people a bit suspicious. If you don't mind that, then by all means keep it to yourself. No one is asking for your phone number, location, or a picture of your face ;) But mernetwork IS a community, and in order to support one-a-nother we tend to need to know a little bit about each other.

I would also argue that most of us are easy to background check. Forums yes are essentially all strangers, but here people have linked to their facebook pages and websites etc. People who aren't actually in to this, don't last very long here. Not to mention loads of us have met in person and it's been well documented. Meet ups, conventions etc

edit: for example of background checks, I just looked up your profile pic and see it comes up on a bunch of asian websites. While people do use avatar's to represent themself here, it's odd to find someone use someone else's face

[Raayvhen]

And as usual Raina, you articulated what I wanted to say better than I could.

[PearlieMae]

You have a Mertailor tail, all fancy, with extras, you swam in it until people made fun and then you put it away. You don't want to show it. You know Mertailor's reputation and don't want to talk about it. And yet, you know SO much. You think split tails are stupid, but you've never seen one...I wonder what the mer making one thinks of your opinion. You called ME a troll when I was joking around in the Drama thread.

Raina is kinder and much more diplomatic than I ever could be.

I've bitten my tongue so hard it's bleeding.

[AniaR]

I do find it odd when new people join and jump right into the drama thread. I find they often miss out on all of the context because they havent quite figured out how the site works yet.