Today, I initially felt violated when someone (who I don’t really want any contact with) emailed me, using a diferent address, and mentioned that he’d read my posts on this board. I realized later on that maybe I shouldn’t feel quite that way, since this is a public message board, and not at all the same as, say, a private journal or an IM/PM session.
Still, my feelings were valid to me at the time, and I knew there was the likelihood that he’d read my posts. Especially since I had blocked his email and ICQ… and I was on the point of un-blocking them, too! Now, I can’t, or at least really don’t feel like it… I’m not sure if I care if he sees this one. I have since un-blocked his email and ICQ; I can’t really say why I did that.
The email was 4K long, and I opened it in the (admittedly very faint) hope that there was someone else with that person’s name who would want to talk about the Straight Dope. (that was the subject line: “Straight Dope”) Unfortunately, that proved not to be the case. Since I was going out of the house anyways, I just read the first and last paragraphs, and sort of skimmed / ignored the rest. (didn’t have either the time or the desire to read all of it) I got my brother to empty the trash folder afterwards. (yes, I’m a wuss)
I do know that there was something about my missing his point about how I never answered his simple questions within a reasonable amount of time. If anyone asks me a question, I do my best to answer them, and if I don’t know the answer, I tell them that. (same applies if I’m busy)
However, towards the end of our association, I was feeling annoyed and/or uncomfortable with his messages. Not that he said things that made me feel uncomfortable, but I didn’t like the amount of “chat abreviations” (“lol” being the most prevalent), smileys (he overused them like crazy!), misspellings, and actions contained within asterisks. (like looks innocent) Not that I’m against any of these things (definitely not), but I wasn’t feeling roo charitable towards that guy at the end. (not spurious excuses to take him off my list, for sure)
Other people on my list do the four things above, and mostly I don’t care, so I can’t say why I ultimately reacted so violently because he did them. Maybe it’s because he did all four at once, with extremely steady regularity? (hey, I once deleted someone off my ICQ because they misspelled practically every other word, but that’s another story)
I don’t know how I should feel in this case… I admit I was thinking of emailing Tuba about changing my username, but I don’t know if I should do that. I didn’t take the decision to not have contact with him for now lightly, you know. Admittedly, I still have thoughts of him, and I know that these are normal. I’m not trying to block these thoughts, but this morning in church, I thought about him more than I had in a week and a half. So if my thoughts this morning in church service would have made weird reading material if it was projected on the overhead:
You get the picture. The last question is one that’s been going around my mind today. I’m not sure if I should, because then I might have to change my sig, profile information, email address, etc. (and I really don’t want to do it unless I really have to… like in extreme cases) It’s true that reading a few (or more) posts on a public message board isn’t the same thing as being stalked by a vengeful ex/psycho killer, but still.
So what do you think? (about the situation, my question, etc.) I’d like comments, thoughts, advice, etc.
F_X
