Oh yes, we have all heard those strange stories of Facebook friend requests becoming Facebook message sessions turning nasty, but for some reason we seem to associate this strange (sometimes creepy) behaviour with men. This weekend I had a rude awakening.
I enjoy Facebook, unlike a lot of people I honestly believe that most people on Facebook are real, that if you take the trouble to get to know the people you make friends with they are sincere, well meaning and genuine. I have developed genuine online and real time friendships with some of the nicest people I have (N)ever met. Of course, there are a few crazies out there and now and again you will cross paths with them.
When I receive a friend request the first thing I do is take a moment to view their profiles; do we share mutual friends, common interests, political and social views (many times it is the fact that we don’t share political views that leads me to accept, what’s the point of not learning from others or at least annoying the shit out of them with your own views?) and just take a moment to see if their pictures are genuine.
And so it was a few weeks ago when I received a friend request from Ms X. I took a look and I accepted. This is followed by a slew of likes on almost every post I ever made (First warning lights start to flash dimly). I mean really you can’t like EVERYTHING I post, not even I do!
Then boom, the first message arrives on messenger.
No real warning bells, just a little hello BUT as a rule I use messenger to send Facebook related posts or when there is no Whatsapp signal for some reason, generally I do not conduct conversations on Facebook messenger. For that reason I tend to keep my answers short and to the point.
The next message is complimentary and of course the way to this man’s heart is clearly through his daughter
So far I am keeping my answers short, not volunteering anything and not showing too much interest either, perhaps she is just being friendly and will realise this is not my favourite means of communication. She volunteers some personal information and once again I show little interest, it’s not that I am not interested in people close to me but I am trying to ensure this peters out on it’s own. Silly me, perhaps a little more direct next time but I certainly can’t be accused of leading her on.
And then finally another personal question, the answer to which can be found on my Facebook page.
I reply
This is followed by telling me again where she lives and asking me where I live.
And this time it is followed up by a question “would you like to meet for coffee?”
I simply ignore that as though it was never asked.
She carries on the conversation with herself and I am hoping this will just stop and go away without me having to be rude.
But then she asks again and this time I think I will just explain in a really nice way that I am not interested without hurting her feeling (Boy did I get that one wrong!)
Well clearly she is either not used to rejection or simply doesn’t handle it too well because this clearly pushed at least one of her buttons. Suddenly we go from “would you like to meet” to… Well read for yourself.
Strange that she had no problem with my abrupt, unacceptable or offensive messages before I said no thank you. Then a little anger gets flung my way…
Well that’s the first time I have been called a “vastrd” but probably not the first time I have been called a BASTARD. Really? Just because I declined an invitation to meet?
I tried to leave her with a few final parting words…
But alas by this time she had either blocked me or accidentally blocked herself but I thought it was safer not to take any chances and blocked her on Facebook and Messenger.
I would like to say it was fun while it lasted but it really wasn’t and I now have a much clearer understanding of women who are friendly enough to strike up conversations on messaging apps only to have the man turn rude and insulting when she draws a line. Perhaps the lesson I learned was to be much clearer from the outset but I am pretty sure I did not lead her on, in fact as Sasha would say that was “friend zone” stuff from the outset.
To the lady in question, I wish you happiness and here’s hoping you find someone out there who is NOT “abrupt, unacceptable or offensive”.
