I refuse to start anything partway through. I always have to do things in order. As I’ve said before, when I start reading a blog, I start at the beginning. Always. I can’t just start reading at the present day, because it takes a while to figure out who all the people are and there’s always history you don’t know. It feels like starting a book in the middle. It drives me crazy.
One of my favorite shows is Friends. I love it. I watch it a lot, but always in order. I watch every episode of all 10 seasons, then start over. I never skip an episode, even if it’s one I don’t like. Sometimes I’ll go awhile without watching Friends, because the next episode is one I don’t particularly like. I just can’t just skip it.
My husband sometimes finds a movie we like on TV and starts watching it – even if it’s already started. It drives me crazy. I don’t care if I’ve seen the movie 20 times and have the whole thing memorized, I CANNOT start watching it anywhere but the very beginning. If we missed the beginning, then I just can’t watch it.
Also, I always finish a book. Even if I am hating it. I have to read the whole thing to make SURE it doesn’t get better. What if the first half is terrible, but the second half is great? If I stop reading after the first half, I’ll be missing out. I can’t actually think of a time when the first half of a book was awful and the second half was good enough to make up for it. But I always finish the book anyway. I don’t understand people who can return half-read books to the library. Even if its overdue and I don’t like it, I keep it, finish it, and pay the fine. I PAY to read a book I don’t like!
Don’t even get me started on people who come back from vacation and say “my feed reader had 1000 unread posts, so I just hit ‘mark all as read!’” IT ALMOST MAKES MY HEAD EXPLODE.
I tend to do the same thing (although, I can watch a memorized movie from any point and it doesn't bother me). I can only name a couple of books which were so awful, I quit reading them partway through. Mostly for moral reasons. If it offends me to much to continue (and I have high morals, but a liberal tolerance, usually, when I'm reading) then I realize that I don't want it in my head and I stop reading it. If it's just "bad" I finish it. But I don't read it again, which is my habit with books I enjoy.
ReplyDeleteI used to always go back through the archives of a new blog I'd find. Anymore, I don't have the time to do that as much as I'd like, or they don't have their posts archived easily enough that I can do that (if I have to go to a central page to click each post individually instead of next, next, next - it drives me CRAZY!) I don't mark blogs I come across nearly as often anymore, just because I don't have the time to devote to them. And I often want to comment on years-old posts... which is annoying.