This time it's not Kyle.

[falcongrrl]

I don't know why I do this; circuit_four, it makes me feel a little bit like you with the trolls when I do, tilting at windmills. And yet, I just want to make them think, or be honest, with me or with themselves. Gah.

What i don't know is why i feel this wild rush of aggression right now, just like, "Stop. Being. Stupid."

Reaching out for connection is normal. It's human. But not like this. I've got to get better about not wasting my time with this, though...although, if it's the only way I'll let my aggressive side out to play, I guess it's better than a lot of the alternatives.

***

chiaman1974: hi
*** Auto-response sent to chiaman1974: I am currently away from the computer.

calbrit648: Hi there. Do you have a lot of chia pets or something?

chiaman1974: nope...lol ur funny

calbrit648: Thank you.
calbrit648: Then what does the name mean, just out of curiosity?

chiaman1974: just charles i am a man lol silly i know

calbrit648: Is it, "Charles, I am a man!" as if he were in doubt, or is it "Charles I am...a man..." kind of like poetry.

chiaman1974: lol ur funny

calbrit648: *curtsies proudly* Thanks again. So, what brings you to my little corner of the world today, Charles?

chiaman1974: just wanted to wish you a happy new yr...
chiaman1974: and know a lil bit more of you

calbrit648: Thank you. Have we met before, either online or in person, or is this the first time I have the pleasure of making your acquaintance?

chiaman1974: wow such a words...first time
chiaman1974: u are so poetic

calbrit648: So since we don't know each other at all...may I ask why you've chosen to IM me? I only ask because sometimes people don't realize that I am married, even though it is on my profile.

chiaman1974: well ur profile is real so i hope u are real too...thats all
chiaman1974: i am not here to bother u
chiaman1974: just would like to chat thats all

calbrit648: What did you want to chat about?

chiaman1974: what do you do for living for example

calbrit648: I'm a mom and I volunteer at my kids' after school center.
calbrit648: I don't have a paying job. What do you do?

chiaman1974: i am an architect, work for a big company, just chillin now, we ae slow, how old are u?

calbrit648: Older than you, if 1974 is your age. You're the same age as my little cousin.

chiaman1974: cool...
chiaman1974: if my age is a problem let me know..yes 33 here
chiaman1974: hello
chiaman1974: i guess its a sign for me to go away, i dont want to bother u

calbrit648: You're not bothering me, but I do feel kind of sad, because I don't know what impulse drives someone to IM someone they don't know out of the blue.
calbrit648: I imagine that you are very lonely.

chiaman1974: not very but yes my life sucks in that matter...
chiaman1974: i feel lonely sometimes...u
chiaman1974: well u are happily married so i know u are ok

calbrit648: I am. I am happily married, and I have really good friends. What do you think is keeping you from developing more of a social network? Is it lack of time? Shyness?

chiaman1974: communication...
chiaman1974: do u have a picture

calbrit648: Why?

chiaman1974: i would like to see who am i talking thats all

calbrit648: Do you work in a cubicle?

chiaman1974: no why
chiaman1974: i have my own office

calbrit648: *nods* If you get up, and walk out of your office, and down the hall...where would you end up going?

chiaman1974: why is taking u too long to answer

calbrit648: Because I'm also parenting two kids and having another online conversation with a friend i know in real time.

chiaman1974: ok sorry...i can stop if u want, to answer to your question would be to other offices...why do u ask

calbrit648: Is anyone else in those offices?
calbrit648: Or are you alone in the building?

chiaman1974: there are other ppl in the office but nobody in my office...nobody can see me chatting...why so concern?

calbrit648: Because if there are other people...and what you want is to see the person with whom you're chatting...you can walk down the corridor and start a conversation with anyone. What are you hoping to find here that you can't get there?

chiaman1974: somebody not fake and real and not looking at me cuz i am the boss...can i see ur pic or not? just tell me and i promise i will go away

calbrit648: Hon...I am real. But if i weren't - if I were a balding, fat, sixty-year-old man...or a twelve-year-old boy laughing at you...I could put up any picture I wanted. Pictures aren't facts. If it's something you use to convince yourself, that's fine. But i think you have to ask why.
calbrit648: I have to wonder if I'm an object you can imagine is...well, beautiful, I guess...and woo, and why that gives you some sort of satisfaction. If you're imagining me as some kind of horny housewife like actresses on soap operas portray. The reality is that I'm a 36 year old woman with kids who's just online to chat with some close friends.

chiaman1974: ok sorry

calbrit648: I'm not asking for an apology. I'm asking you to ask yourself what you're *doing*, and why this could possibly be gratifying? And if you know that, I wish you'd tell me.
calbrit648: Because I'm genuinely curious. I don't understand.

Comments

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Wow. Chiaman1974. He hit on explosiveantelope a couple years ago. I remember teasing him about his name too.

[mmsword.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't feel too bad about this myself. I mean, it isn't exactly mean spirited. It is Socratic and asking some real questions there. Whether you'll get the result you desire out of them or not isn't really the point. Some one needs to ask those questions, some times.

[virtualcourtney.livejournal.com]

Well put--that's exactly what I wanted to say, except my response had "dharma bell" in it. ;)

[gleefulfreak.livejournal.com]

I just block them, and have been known to put notes on my profiles saying "I don't respond to IMs from strangers; notes or comments are a better way to start a conversation." But then, I'm introverted enough that I feel very put upon when people with whom I have little to no connection IM me expecting to have a conversation when there's nothing to actually talk about.

Even a couple of close friends (never you!!) get on my nerves sometimes because they IM me about nothing at all and they're just saying really obvious stuff over and over again ("We had such a great time at that get-together! We were really rocking out!" Umm, yes, $person, I am in fact aware of this, as I was the last few times you said it). I don't have a problem with long stretches of silence, in person or on IM, and I feel bemused-to-annoyed when someone seems to be carrying on for no other reason than to avoid silence.

I guess I just don't feel that it's worth my time and mental space to try to gently make random strangers stop being stupid, just because they've gone and been stupid at me. But I admire your generosity of spirit, that you're willing to engage with people under those circumstances and try to get them thinking. :)

[illuviel.livejournal.com]

If I have not mentioned this often enough lately (and I know I haven't), you rock.

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

*awww* Thank you.

And I miss you! We should get together for coffee @ Dandelion sometime.

[circuit-four.livejournal.com]

I'm with Mmsword. I think the trolls are different because they're actively trying to be mean and I consider that to be their polite request to be used as a dumping group for all my pent-up rage. Situations like this IM are based more on ignorance, desperation, emotional sterility, and unexamined sexism -- and given that, I think your response was totally proportional. You didn't seem to be needlessly cruel or hurtful. You were blunt and a bit provocative. I think is not only your every right, given the circumstances of contact and what he seemed to want from you, it is a public service, because you're presenting him with a serious challenge to unhealthy behaviors. You gave the poor little guy a taste of the Perspective Vortex, and while that's never particularly pleasant, it is eminently fair.

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

I think that's what I was attempting, and I agree with you that it was meant as 'public service' of a sort. But I also know that when he asked me for a picture, I was suddenly, inexplicably, really pissed off.

And I need to think about why.

[tahkhleet.livejournal.com]

Am I correct in reading your tone right that you didn't believe he had a reason _except_ something sexual related (conscious or not) ? I would certainly have thought that if I was talking to him, anyway. In any event, it seems very likely to me that he was a liar. Architect _and_ leader of the firm by 33? If he founded his own, he'd have better social skills and be assertive. If he was in another one he wouldn't be in charge by 8 years out of school or so.

Was part of your motivation in replying just a sense "well, either this is based on a bad impulse on his part...and maybe I can teach him better...or he's legitimate and who knows he might be an interesting person to talk to?"...or something else? I think that successfully teaching a lesson about an idea or a feeling or a behaviour is very difficult. Finding someone randomly who is inarticulate but interesting to talk to is even harder (for me anyway). So I think you were in "forlorn task territory" early...but it seems you felt you had an obligation to plod on rather than say "I don't talk to strangers, sorry, goodbye" ?

(I have only met one or two inarticulate people whom I like and I feel good about spending time with. And the other score or two of such people I've met have just felt _wrong_ to be talking to...and this wrongness hit me hard early on. (I know that isn't a sign of something necessarily wrong with them. Its a sign I'm just too biased against people who sound like my peers in high school. My bias may cost me the acquaintance of decent folks, but I don't have the energy to resist it.) The way we use language (and understand it) is the filter that the meanings that other people send are poured through in our minds. If language is a barrier, it can easily restrict things harshly and abruptly. (I wish I talked more simply, most people find it too much of a barrier to understand me. But the extra effort is seldom worth the reward when I do talk plainly.) )

It's ok to make longshot social gambles of various types. Nothing wrong with wanting to do something exceptional or experience something novel. When I make my own gambles, I try to remember the odds are against me and smile ruefully rather than in vexation as I have to pay out to the bank when I lose. Of course, I often discover I didn't really _have_ the spare energy to gamble...or that my mood is especially fluid and small things impact it disproportionately . So I have my own lessons I'm trying to learn...

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

Oh, I definitely thought he was lying. And I think I wanted to just make him examine his attitudes and see that they were illogical.

But, if I'm honest...it also puts me on a bit of an ego trip. It's like I'm saying to him: I am smarter than you. I am laughing at you while you try to exploit me.

I really need to examine my attitudes about gender and feminism, 'cause there's definitely some hostility that is coming out to play when I do this...and I'm not sure why.

[magnifelyn.livejournal.com]

i don't think there's anything wrong with people who randomly IM me.

i've had a couple who tried to shock me with vulgarity, which was fun because i got to play around with them until they were thoroughly freaked out, as i am the Shock Master. ;-) i've had one who bluntly interrogated me about my connection to Amma (and called my poetry "shit"), and i was able to turn that around into a meaningful discussion of spirituality. And plenty of other times, i've just blocked people or ignored them, because i had no desire to deal with them.

i think there are differences between various 'internet cultures,' for lack of a better term. Some people use the internet to build connections based on shared interests and experiences. And some people like the internet for its possibilities of randomness. And yeah, some people are just lonely; what's wrong with them for feeling that way? Not everyone sees a random IM as an intrusion, and not everyone who randomly IMs is a jerk looking for cybersex.

[magnifelyn.livejournal.com]

(And not everyone looking for cybersex is a jerk.)

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

It's not that I think cybersex is bad. It's that it seems like there's a whole 'I want to make sure you're a girl b/c I ain't cybering with no guy' culture out there, and it just really pisses me off, for reasons I haven't quite pinned down yet. Also, the whole 'are you real?' thing is annoying. Is a fictional character real? Is the self I create real? What makes my body more real than the words I'm typing? Those kind of thoughts circle in my head as I become annoyed.

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I really think that you have a much better perspective on the whole thing than I do.

Fwiw, the thing that annoyed me most was the request for a picture. And I think it's because I make a lot of assumptions around that - that I'm going to be evaluated as an object based upon what I send. But what the person said "I just want to see who I'm chatting with," could be true. It just seems like breaking anonymity is something that comes after trust, not after a few sentences.

Just out of curiosity, would you have sent the pic? What would you have said?