Online Etiquette

I observe some unwritten rules of online etiquette.

As much as possible, I try not to leave people hanging.  I respond to emails, texts, and voicemails as soon as I possibly can.  I don’t pick and choose who I respond to.  I simply fucking respond.

Here’s an example of bad manners.  There are people out there who do not respond to your emails, texts, and voicemails, BUT they’re out there on the interweb writing on other people’s walls, uploading photo albums.  Yet, they seem to leave some of their friends hanging.  Those of us who don’t have our communications responded to are thinking, WTF?  Apparently you have time to comment on a beautiful sunset, but you can’t be bothered to let me know if you’re coming to the wedding?!

I don’t understand how people can open up their lives to chat or IM.  I don’t want people to know when I’m on- or offline.  Can you imagine the repercussions of knowing when people are home or not?  Relationships have broken up over this.

Let me share one of my former tactics from online dating.  I actually had two accounts on Match.com.  One was my real account and one was a dummy account.  I used the dummy account when I didn’t want people to know I was online.  Why?  Because if I started sorta dating someone seriously, I didn’t want him to know that I was on the damned site every single hour of the day. That way you get them to think, ‘Oh, I think she must like me since she hasn’t been active in over a week.’

Here’s my point.  Every click that you make is monitored.  It doesn’t even take research.  Stalking comes naturally to those of us who work on laptops and Blackberries 24/7.  Don’t make a dumb move.  Or more importantly, don’t let me catch you making a dumb move.