Not your usual Skeezball
OK, I rant and rave about assholes online. Here's something different.
In addition to the totally clueless come-ons and the jerkoffs telling me to lighten up, there is another class of person who contacts me online. The Guy Who Has Nothing To Say.
He's the guy who sends me an email with a total amount of 4 words in the content: "Hi, how are you?" I have only one answer for that. "I am fine". Now what? This same guy either has nothing in his profile or it is so absolutely generic that it's like reading my horoscope ... it could apply to anyone. Y'know, the kind of guy who likes to have fun and do fun things, considers himself to be a nice guy, he watches movies sometimes, wants a nice girl, likes to go out sometimes but also likes to stay home, eats food, bla bla bla. Who isn't? And among them, who would admit it?
So there's nothing specific or personal in their profile for me to read on my own and provide a starting point for me to initiate a dialog. And they contact *me*, which, IMO, makes THEM responsible for providing the starting point for the conversation.
So this guy IMs me. The memory for OKC IM window is small, so I lost the text for the beginning of the conversation but it went something like this:
counstaache: hi
Joreth: hi
counstaache: how are you?
Joreth: fine
counstaache: hmm
counstaache: unusually harsh or naturally that way?
Joreth: that is an incomplete sentence and I don't know what to do with it.
then there goes a bit where he says something to the effect of he can't get through to me, so have a nice day. I said that I just didn't understand his question. First of all, there were no verbs to the sentence so I didn't parse it. Second of all, even after I figured out that he thought my one-word answer of "fine" was rude and was commenting on it, I don't see the phrase "unusually harsh" as being an either/or choice from "naturally that way". I mean, can't I be naturally unusually harsh? So even if I re-write it to say "are you unusually harsh or are you naturally that way?" I *still* don't know how to answer that. Yes?
So anyway, he says that I'm difficult to talk to and I reply that he has to give me something to talk about, since he's the one who contacted me. He asked if that was a rule somewhere. I said that his contacting me implies that he wants to talk to me ... so talk about something. he says we are talking and I said that no, we're debating about whether or not we should talk. He says he didn't read my profile fully and I respond that if he had read it fully, he would have learned the kinds of things he could talk to me about. I finally figure out that he thinks I am "harsh" because of how I answered the question of how I was. I said that wasn't being harsh, I answered the question. I am fine. So, now what? He wanted to talk to me, so what are we supposed to talk about? If I had anything to say to him, I would have contacted him first. But I don't. So he needs to give me a reason to want to talk to him. He kept saying that he was "responding" to my profile. Yeah, so, what about it? You see my profile and you IM me to let me know you've seen my profile. And? Yay, someone has seen my profile! So what? OKC has this new "stalker" feature, which gives you a list of the last handful of people who have visited your profile. So I can see that he saw my profile. Now what? Why contact someone if you have nothing to say to them? Isn't that what "contact" and "response" means? That you say something? At least in the virtual world where eye contact, physical contact, unspoken facial expressions, body language, etc., don't exist?
counstaache: you were worth
counstaache: but as i said
counstaache: its hard to talk to you
counstaache: anyways
joreth: it's only hard to talk to me if you try to talk to
me when you have nothing to say
counstaache: you have a good one
counstaache: not really
counstaache: i can talk about various things you do
counstaache: but still i can say
joreth: then talk about them
counstaache: you are not that easy going person
counstaache: what i thnk
counstaache: anyways..
joreth: that's because you don't know me
counstaache: hmm
counstaache: maybe
joreth: I'm actually a very easy going person. But I
still need something to talk about in order ot have a
conversation
counstaache: so you expect me to know you by just
reading your profile
joreth: you're giving me nothing but a debate about
whether or not you can talk to me
counstaache: yeah take it that way
joreth: actually, yeah, you can learn a LOT about me
by my profile
counstaache: hmm
counstaache: hmm
counstaache: then you are a closed box
joreth: at the very least, you can learn what kinds of
things I find important and what kinds of
relationships I want
joreth: I give up
joreth: fuck off
counstaache: haha
Considering the novel that is my profile, and the fact that I introduce subjects that most people feel uncomfortable discussing even with long-term partners, I find it a bit offensive that someone would call me a "closed box". I'm so not-closed that there is an article about my relationship style in a prominent local newspaper! You could close your eyes, point to the screen, then write to me about anything your finger landed on, like "so tell me more about your thoughts on BDSM or poly, or gun control, or women in the military, or bringing flowers, or how many boyfriends do you have now" or a hundred other topics. That, at least, will give me a reason to talk ... it gives me a question that cannot be answered by a one-word answer and it requests that I do something proactively in the conversation. Ask me a question, I'll answer it. If the answer is only one word, that's what you get. Especially when it comes to stupid things like "how are you". I don't know you, so I don't really care how you are. If I did, I would have asked you. "How is the weather there in FL" is another one. It's hot. It's always hot. Where in our society's history of social niceties did we decide that asking about the weather was a good idea? Especially for strangers who have nothing else to discuss after we've exhausted the possibilities of temperature and relative humidity?
If you don't want to ask me to elaborate on something in my profile, you can ask me something that I didn't already answer. Or you can give me a statement of your own thoughts and feelings on a topic and ask what I think about that. The bottom line is that if you are contacting me (or anyone), you have to give me something to work with. I don't know you, I don't care about you because I don't know you. You are not a person to me, you are an IM window with some very uninteresting text on it. You have to give me *something* to work with, some reason to want to talk to you. If your profile is interesting, either I would have already contacted you or, if I hadn't seen your profile yet, I will at least find material there to initiate some kind of discussion. If you ask me a question, you give me the material I need to talk about something.
Do you people (who do this) ever actually walk up to someone in real life, say "hi" and have that person launch into a discourse on the latest political scandal or summarize the book they're reading or give you a synopsis of their all-time favorite movie just because you happened to say "hi"? If not, why do you expect online correspondence to be any different? At least in person, someone can comment on your clothing, hair, jewelry, physical appearance, objects you're holding, or even the place you met. None of that is available online. If you initiate contact with someone, you have to have SOMETHING to say, some reason for that person to say more than "hi" back.