I guess it’s happened enough times to me now that I will discuss the topic. I have online friends who now and then will send me a harsh message followed up by blocking or deleting me. I’m usually left in a state of, ‘Wow, no idea what happened there.’
The human imagination is pretty powerful. I love that it can lift a plane off the ground or send people into orbit. I love that it can write a song or paint a picture. I love that it can make us laugh, giggle and have a good time.
The human mind however has the tendency to create falsehoods that aren’t even real based on what I would call a ‘colorful imagination’.
For many years online, I have been pretty clear about my intent without trying to be assuming with everyone’s intent. Right in my bios, I have written, ‘only online for friendship’ or ‘only interested in friendship’ or ‘I love you guys tone, but please keep it pro’.
Some people are really cool and will just need a one sentence clarification from me to clear up why I am online. Others react according to a movie that has obviously played out in their mind.
Imagine watching 10 minutes of a film, leaving to go run some errands and returning home to catch the paramount part of the film where one line all comes together. You would feel like you missed a lot, right? Well some people will play a whole movie out in their heads about relationships they are developing and the character they inserted in their imagination doesn’t get to be let in on what they are thinking. They just give them the first line of the movie and the last line they are to deliver. That’s how I feel.
The kind of confusing message happens to me when I go about my daily work life, check my email and the last line of the film I know nothing about is there. All other topics aside for a minute, if you want to really annoy me, just send me one random line and don’t let me know what you are talking about.
The whole thing is, I probably won’t spend too much time investigating. I’ll ask you what you mean and then move on because I hate mind games.
I would say 80 % of these messages are from people who are delusional while the other 20 % really did think I was following a previous thought process. I’m not going to say I don’t miss a lot, because I do, but when constructing an email I think it’s smart to give a brief synopsis of the background. For instance, if you send an email which says, “2 o’clock on Wednesday”, there’s a good chance I will respond and say, “What?” Communication skills have become so poor though, that people will email me back and say things like, “don’t act like you don’t know” as though I have time to act like I don’t know.
How about, “Hey Karen, that cool TV show on puppies I was telling you about is going to air 2 o’clock on Wednesday”. Ok then! You will get a sincere, heart-felt thank you from me for sharing because first, I love pups and second of all, it was a clear email.
What happens though, is that people will become immediately offended that I didn’t recall our conversation about puppies. (which is unlikely with THAT topic, but just using it as an example…hahaha) I notice that many of these kinds of reactions come from people who don’t have as much going on in their day or maybe just a couple friends on their friend list. If I had four people on my list, I think it would be a bit easier to remember each and every interaction, but even then, people have busy lives outside the internet.
The reason I believe people become offended is because they feel like their conversation was worthless or that they were worthless if I didn’t remember having it. This is actually my inability to remember everything that takes place in a day, it’s not a reflection on how I feel towards people.
The more extreme case I will sometimes experience is when someone on my friend list thinks we are going to develop a relationship past the kind of community relationship I am interested in. That is where they write a movie in their head. If they had some high hopes about us becoming romantic or even just best buddies going for coffee and I don’t play out the film the way their script reads it, there’s a good chance I am going to be reprimanded based on something completely imagined.
It’s not a good feeling when you have a crush on someone and they don’t feel the same thing. I am mostly concerned that people are taking it way too personally as though they did everything they could to be my new best friend or romantic partner and they failed. That is not a failure, I have no intent to date online or go hang out with anyone so my intentions are what is causing the boundaries, not something a person who has a crush is doing or not doing.
I generally tell people I am too messed up and you wouldn’t want to hang with me anyways; that I am a nightmare. ;)
The best kinds of friendships and romantic relationships happen when they happen naturally. I would never want to be involved in something that I had to chase down or force, so why would anyone else want to do that? That would lead to a disaster if you have to push someone to love you.
I believe that if a crush is not reciprocated, it’s not necessarily because you are not doing everything you can to be attractive to someone, I think there are a million other possibilities inhibiting that kind of relationship and they simply might not be a good match.
I also believe it’s better to really look at relationships realistically and not play out potential scenarios in our heads. I wouldn’t suggest you imagine yourself married to someone on the first day they say hello. Wouldn’t life be more fun to just wake up and see what happens? I suspect these types of people can’t stand waiting until Christmas morning to open gifts either. Some people don’t like life’s little mysteries.
Maybe our imaginations could switch over to actually writing screen plays instead of just keeping it in our heads.
Karen :)
“If poets were realistic, they wouldn't be poets.” ~Peter Davison
No comments:
Post a Comment