Last night, I was on a popular social networking site, when I saw an acquaintance of mine online. We'd never chatted online before, but I impulsively decided to say hello.
We exchanged pleasantries, I said "How are you?" and the person responded, "Doing good. Brb, ok?"
That was the last I heard. I was online at least another hour after that. The person's icon showed that they were still online as well. But there was nothing. No response.
I just don't get it. I could handle someone saying, "I can't talk right now." I wouldn't even get upset if the person had said, "I don't feel comfortable talking with you online."
This is a person I see at least once a week, and we've chatted briefly on every occasion. They had even voluntarily offered to put in a good word for me at a company I was seeking employment at. Every interaction we've had convinced me that they saw me in a positive light.
Thanks to this weird, incomplete online exchange, my paranoid mind tries to convince me of several theories.
That perhaps the person thinks I'm mentally unbalanced and that they're only being nice to me, because it's a good idea to stay on the good side of the crazies.
That perhaps while dodging me, they were messaging some other friend of theirs, "That creepy crazy chick is on right now. She just tried to talk to me! What should I do?"
Now I'm worried that they secretly think ill of me. I don't know what to do about the next time I happen to see that person. Ignore what happened? Ask?
My natural inclination, given that I think that they think I'm unbalanced or crazy, is to feel embaressed that I've been inflicting my presence upon them. That I went so far as to friend them or try to talk to them, and they only went along with it because of a sense of social pressure, or out of fear of upsetting me. That perhaps I should avoid them.
I can't believe that one brief chat exchange has so rattled my views of myself, and made me feel so low. What is the outside perception others have of me? My close friends know the real me, but what about those others who only see me briefly? Am I one of those unsavory types, an undesirable?
Why did this happen? That's what I really want to know.
There's no way that you're an undesirable. I'd like to think that I know you pretty well and I feel certain about saying that. If, in fact, this person is dodging you, it's their loss. Then again, maybe that other person is the social retard (pardon my word choice) and they don't know how to talk to you. You want to talk to them? Talk to them. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You don't want to talk to 'em? You can still keep your head high. That's what I think.
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