As many
of you know from reading my essays, I am a fan of life-long learning. Some of
the things I have learned lately, however, have left me scratching my
head—metaphorically speaking. Will someone please tell me when
facebook became the 21st Century's answer to the happy-hour pick up
lounge? Egad, it is crawling with lounge lizards!
I guess
I've been rather naïve because I just do my thing and never think beyond certain
limits when it comes to people and how I interact with them. For example, when
my daughter said that a lot of people on social media sites post pictures of
other people and say it's them, I kind of blinked. Really, I said. Why on
earth would they do that? My daughter just shook her head sadly as if she had no
hope for my ever "getting it" whatsoever.
I can
assure her that I get it. It's not that I don't know that some people lie with
impunity. I guess it's more that I dismiss that fact and need to be reminded of
it every once in a while.
I have a
facebook account in my first pen name, "Morgan Ashbury". I do not have an author
page for people to "like"; not yet. I might create one of those sometime in the
future under my other pen name, "Cara Covington". But for now the facebook page
I have allows me to keep in touch with my readers. That's why I have a face book
page in the first place, and that is what I very happily use it for.
I
understand the value of social media with regard to getting the word out about
my work, and more importantly, keeping in touch with my readers.
Because
it is important and because I had been more or less slacking off in that regard,
about a month ago, I decided to add some more "friends". These were people I
thought would be interested in returning the favor, as they were already friends
of some of my fellow authors. Almost all of them accepted my friend requests.
And then
the rhythm changed, and I became the recipient of friend requests myself. It was
something to watch. There would be two and then four. One day there were twenty.
Twenty! Some of these requests were from men. I didn't think anything of it. Men
do read romance—my husband is one of them. I don't discriminate between persons,
neither was I prepared to quiz each one sending me friend request to ensure that
they are indeed a reader or at least that their interests were "pure".
So for the most part, I simply accepted every friend request that came my
way.
My
"friends" have gone from about 600 to over 1300 in just a matter of
weeks.
And to my
dismay, I have discovered that some of these new friends are lounge lizards.
They are interested in hooking up.
For the
record, one way guaranteed to put my back up is to send me a message beginning,
`hello, dear'. The first time, I was quite surprised and yes, maybe just a
little flattered. And then it happened again. And again! So I responded kindly,
informing all who asked that I was very married, and planning to remain
so.
That
seemed to take care of most of them—although I did have one slimy
son-of-a-biscuit-eater come back with "well do you have a daughter,
then?"
I was
delighted to discover that I could "unfriend" someone as quickly as I had
"friended" them.
I suppose
facebook is one of those modern conventions not meant for older people like me.
Or at least that is one theory I have heard from someone who is much younger
than I am. I take reasonable precautions, of course, and have since my first
foray into the world of the Internet. I never give anyone any personal
information, and I don't encourage what my mother would have called
"familiarity". I am an old fashioned woman. I chat with a few fellow writers who
are male, but I consider those to be, for the most part, professional contacts.
Anything beyond that—any communication that starts either, `hello dear" or "hey
baby", I cut short.
I don't
believe in being rude. It's a waste of time, and it puts negative energy out
into the cosmos. Negative energy, in case you haven't yet figured it out, is
magnetic and attracts negative energy at least ten fold right back to
you.
So I am
never rude. I simply explain that I'm not interested in that kind of personal
contact. Nine times out of ten the response I get is an apology and then no
further attempts are made at "chatting me up".
I just
wish these lounge lizards would come with a warning label so I could avoid the
situation in the first place—sort of like the Internet's version of the leisure
suit or greased back hair.
Love,
Morgan
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