Say What Now?!
I had the weirdest thing happen to me today, and I think the incident serves as one of the reasons why I am super cautious about who I befriend in the wide, wide interWeb. At 33 years old, and having come to the internet when I was in my early 20s, I have gone from a wide-eyed web friendster (thinking that everyone who links to me is actually a close friend forever) to an adult with physical, mental and cyber boundaries.
This cyber wall building extends to my instant messaging domain, which sadly is also linked to my office life. This means that friends, cyber and otherwise, sometimes chat to me when I am in the middle of doing something which needs my full attention. I am a big softie and I hate to cut folks off at the pass, so I tried to juggle being an attentive IM’er and doing my job. It just didn’t work. So, I recently took the step of only allowing work colleagues and very close friends to see my online status (I rarely use IM at home). It has been a huge help to my concentration levels.
Unfortunately, someone whom I have never met but have chatted with via one of the few social networks I am linked to, took this very personally and posted one of those passive aggressive WTF messages on my network page. Now, this really pissed me off, because if you haven’t seen me in a while the friendly thing to do is to drop a line and say: hey, how are you? haven’t seen you online in a while.
My tolerance for such behavior is incredibly limited of late. Having never met this person, I felt that such a message was not only inappropriate, but also very childish. I was told — after i sent off a private message saying “uhmmm, the truth is, I hardly know you, and as someone who has connected with people via the internet before, I do not necessarily feel safe carrying on intense internet and online-only interactions,” — that I could have sent an email saying I was no longer going to be available on IM.
Though I might have been a bit harsh, I do not think that someone I have never met has the right to demand that I notify them of what I intend to do with my personal and cyber space. I honestly believe, though, that this bitter exchange is a consequence of age and expectations. My upset friend is in their early 20s and I can see that having spent much of their adult life communicating with friends via the internet, certain expectations are in place for how these unseen and unmet persons ought to behave. Frankly, I am of an age where my mobile is the best way to communicate with me, and as I wrote to my upset friend, i am not in the business of forming emotional attachments (and therefore answering to) folks I have not properly met. This is from years of experiencing the exact opposite and I would be crazy if I did not learn from those previous interactions.
hmm it would seem by her reaction that you are completely justified in your fears! (even though I was an on-line friend until only recently hehe)
but my dear conortje, you were not passive aggressive, nor did you behave ever like I owed you a damn thing...which made our lunch in Manhattan all the more enjoyable and blessed:)