The World Wide Web is where I conduct my business. I stepped into it in 1995 and with each year I grew braver and more trusting. I now regret making certain friends. I know what betrayal feels like. I no longer am willing to play in any social networking games because someone gets hurt.
These lessons I’ve learned:
1. The pictures a guy sends you from a dating site are not them or if they are, that was them 20 years ago.
2. Someone can sound awesome on the phone and write in a way that will sweep you off your feet. They’ll tell you everything you ever wanted to hear. Just remember. They will tell you everything you want to hear.
3. You can know someone for a dozen years online, work with them and network with them and wake up one day to find they were never your friend.
4. The Internet is not real life and you soon learn that once someone figures this out, all bets are off. There are no rules and everything you ever thought was right and fair resolve to a big fat nothing if it lives and breathes online.
5. Some of my most dearest friends of all time were made online. They enrich my life.
6. It takes years to feel comfortable enough to know someone you “met” and converse with only via the Internet. As you peel away layers of masks, and learn of someone’s beliefs, fears, life’s journey and values, it’s possible to add enormous depth to online friendships.
7. If you choose to deny someone a request to “follow” or “friend” online, you can be bullied, stalked and harassed for the rest of your days. Some people have to be accepted and don’t take “no” for an answer.
8. If you want to be famous online, hire a damned good law firm. You’ll need them.
9. Step away from the computer. If you have nothing to add to the Internet other than hatred, revenge, judgment, and insist on your way being the only possible way, you’re contributing to all that’s wrong with the world.
10. My children and family must not suffer for any actions that come my way as a result of my being online, regardless of whether or not I ever had any control over how people treat me.
If I leave my presence on the Internet, I won’t be missed after, oh, maybe 3 days tops.
That’s the most amazing lesson of all.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Although your presence may not seem to be missed after 3 days, a hole would exist. That hole might be one that is seemingly invisible; others may not even know the hole is there. But it would be there. Future encounters that might enrich other lives would fail to take place. On a conscious level, no one may miss that encounter, but something deep and important will indeed have gone missing. All may not be obvious, but may still be true.
Hence the true tragedy of intentionally hurting people. Online there’s this perceived wall of protection. A “They can’t get me” belief, so writing anything, however abusive or downright wrong, goes unpunished. Everyone has heard me state that if its not kind, true and necessary, its best to hold off and not type.
Fame, on the Internet, fascinates me. It’s a perceived reality. I can walk outside my house and I’m nobody. But online, I walk into certain “rooms”, and I’m known not by sight but by my username. And yet, I still feel as though I’d be less forgotten if I left the online world, where I know more people, but the loss of me would be felt greater if I were to leave the earth, where I’m lesser known.
Very strange.
Well, I’ve not received any pics from guys on dating websites – thankfully!
But the whole online relationship/friend “thing” is interesting. I remember coaching some colleagues on the use of text, i.e. “what they type” in emails and reports because their “sense of humour” etc may not be understood by the person on the receiving end – who may pass it on to someone else. And thus, what you thought was a harmless, throwaway remark has now formed the basis of what, (maybe?), several people think of you. And some of those people you’ll never even know about – and never will, because they’ll never be contacting you. From a business point of view that can be quite damaging.
From a personal point of view, my “internet fame”, lol, is not that big that I’ve made a huge amount of “online friends and relationships”. The “usual suspects” from a certain forum not a million miles from here know who they are ;O) Thankfully, in the formation of “Online” relationships today, I think the use of audio and video gives folks the feeling of something tangible they can relate to. And it’s true – the internet is not real life.
But, I suppose as in real life, as friends come and go, and bust-ups happen in relationships – the BIG difference between the offline and on-line worlds is that on-line – there’ll always be a permanent printed record of something somewhere, which can be dragged up by anyone at any opportunity. Whereas in “real life” our memories fade, (like that old Bob Dylan cassette you used to play in the car ;O)), and it all becomes a bit distorted and blurry.
This is very philosophical: “And yet, I still feel as though I’d be less forgotten if I left the online world, where I know more people, but the loss of me would be felt greater if I were to leave the earth, where I’m lesser known”. And if you replace the words “online world” with something like “movie business”, or “stage”, then this would equally apply to all those folks who have attained “fame” which has taken them up to a different level, (a different world), from the normal world we live in. But the beauty about the anonymity on the net is that you have a far greater control over it. I mean, if you want to disappear – you can – at the flick of a switch, literally!
In a macabre kind of why, or, indeed, as a business experiment – it may be worth exploring the effect of reducing time online in certain areas of the net, (if this were possible), just to see the effect – if, indeed the effect could be measured. (Sorry, I’m rambling now!)
If I leave my presence on the internet… it would take a team of archeologists and researchers in a hundred or so years time asking “Paul who?” ;O)
I’d miss you after 3 minutes and for the following 30 years