The Accidental Cyberstalker
I don't take myself terribly seriously. Usually I pick a topic that interests me, devise a spin on it, and post some goofy and trite take on it.
I have something extremely serious to say now, and it's based on a series of mistakes that I've made over the last week. These mistakes have affected at least one person other than myself, and in a terrible way. I'm posting this in the hopes that others will learn something from it, and hopefully avoid making those same mistakes, and avoid causing others the pain that I have.
About 6 months ago I split from my girlfriend of 12 years. I never really wanted this to end, so this was painful, but I worked through this and marched forward. I've spent most of my time since then just trying to piece myself back together and develop new a sense of my purpose in this world.
Roughly a month ago, I came across a picture of an old college friend in my Facebook feed, who I had not seen in years. I had largely forgotten about her, but seeing her again, I remembered the way she had about her. It occurred to me that I had no way of knowing if we were romantically compatible, but I was quite interested in getting to know her. She studied ecology, and you can tell that she wants to help the environment. I've learned that nobody goes into environmental science because they're a selfish person, and I've had my fill of selfish people in the last 10 years, because I studied business in college.
She lives in my home state, all the way across the country from where I currently live. I reached out to her to see if she would be interested in reconnecting with me if I came to town, and she said that she would be. This was way more than I was hoping for, so I was happy about it, but I wasn't explicit with her about my intent up front.
We were friends on Facebook, but we also happened to be connected on a site called Goodreads, which is a social networking site based around book reading. I left behind several bad habits in 2015, and since I'm a voracious reader, I decided to try reading a book a day in 2016 to fill my time with something beneficial, to supplant the bad habits. Naturally, this challenges one to find enough titles to read, so I poked around in my Goodreads feed to find things that my friends were reading that looked interesting.
Some of you can probably see where this might be headed at this point.
I did meet up with her last Saturday afternoon. We spent a couple of hours chatting over coffee, and then went back to her place so I could meet her dogs. In the course of our conversation she asked why I had traveled back to my home state, and, wanting to be honest, I told her I had come to get to know her. It never bothers me to spend time in the winter in the state where I passed my childhood, but the reason I had booked a flight and come back was to get to know her.
Towards the end of this, I was upfront with her. I didn't know her, so I had no way of being sure, but I was interested in her, and I wanted to spend part of Valentine's day with her, if she was interested. After having confessed all this, I left her place. I had said my piece, and I didn't want to put any further pressure on her to entertain me if she wasn't interested in me at all.
Later that evening, I got a text from her asking how long I would be in town, and if I were interested in grabbing dinner with her the next night. Naturally, I was quite elated by this. I mentioned that the flight I had booked had been one way, so we had as much time as we needed, and that I would be delighted to do dinner with her.
I neglected to mention the flight was one-way to account for any possible illnesses that arose on our parts, which might have interfered with our meeting, or that I currently reside with smokers where I live. I was ready to get away from where I lived, and in no rush to get back.
The next evening, I sent her a text and got no response. A couple of hours later I called her, and she didn't answer. I sat there and thought carefully about what this could mean. I hoped that she wasn't injured or anything, but outside of that, the most obvious possibility was that her agreeing to dinner the night before had been nothing more than a joke. This didn't seem characteristic of her, so it didn't make sense, but that was what I concluded in the end. I had been ready for her to reject me, but I was not prepared in the slightest for ridicule. My tail hung between my legs and I started to wonder about when I should fly back to my current home.
I received a text from her a short time later, saying that all of this had overwhelmed her and she wasn't ready to have dinner with me.
Now, you have to understand where I was coming from: I had just spent the last hour dealing with the possibility of having been rejected by her. I was relieved, but what to make of what she had told me? In the last couple of years, I have dealt with massive amounts of rejection, for many different reasons (usually related to my social ineptitude), from many different people who I believed I could trust. Deserved or not, these are the scars I bear.
So I projected. Without any information to go on, I assumed that perhaps she had come to be afraid because she was worried that I would reject her. Maybe she had been hurt before, like I had, and was afraid to take a chance. Or, failing that, perhaps she felt she had to oblige me because I had traveled all this way to see her, and she was afraid of letting me down.
And so, with this in mind, I called her and left a voicemail saying that I didn't want her to feel this obligation to me. And sensing that she might be afraid of me rejecting her, I reassured her that I knew she was a good person in her heart. Perhaps the two of us never could have been romantically compatible, but that doesn't mean I can't sense this about a person.
For the next couple of days, I received no response. Still assuming that she was afraid of rejection, I sent her a text message each day, two of which were just emojis, and a final one that let her know I cared about her, enough not to be capricious in my judgment of her if we were to meet.
Last night I received my final correspondence from her. I had been completely wrong in my assessment of the situation. She had hesitated to take dinner with me because my approach to the situation had been too intense, and not forthcoming enough. Why not try and get to know her long-distance first? Why hadn't I been more upfront with her about the reason for my visit in the first place? How was it that, not knowing her, I was able to say these things to her about her being a good person, or to genuinely express any kind of caring in a romantic fashion?
She concluded by telling me that all of this frightened her terribly, and that she never wanted to hear from me again.
I saw a lot of possible ends to how this might play out, but I didn't see this one coming at all. I'm a male, so I think that the Internet is a pretty swell place, but I understand it's not this way for everyone. Women have a terribly difficult time being online; they are harassed and stalked by men who objectify and intimidate them to their own ends, which is usually just malicious and petty self-seeking. It's violence. That this happens breaks my heart.
So upon hearing this from her, I felt completely destroyed. I imagined her sitting at a friend's house, surrounded by close friends and family, worried about her well-being and sincerely worrying that I might be a threat to her. I have always hated these kinds of atrocities, that we live in a world where people do need to fear for their safety about these kinds of things; that I had inadvertently caused this kind of terrible situation in someone's life is absolutely horrifying to me.
What I find most devastating is that this is the kind of thing that a person can never completely get past. Going forward, I'll leave her alone entirely, but how much time must pass before she can be sure she need not worry about me? And even if she does get past her fear of me, she's going to have an awfully difficult time feeling comfortable sharing anything about herself anywhere on the Internet.
I will concede to several mistakes on my part here. The most serious of them is that I used information that she had shared with her friends (including me) on social networks to develop a sense of common ground that might seed our conversations. I've done this in the past, many times, before taking business lunches with possible partners. In the realm of business networking, this is acceptable, but in romantic situations, it is folly. Each person must be allowed to completely control what they reveal about themselves, and in a time frame in which they are comfortable. The fact that we were old acquaintances was irrelevant.
I wasn't up front with her about what I was going to do and my reasons for doing it. I didn't consider this beforehand, but what I did was ask to meet her under a false pretense. I should have given her all of the information I had, plainly expressed my intent, and given her complete control to decide if she wanted to accept my invitation.
So why the later, cutesy text messages from me to her? When she had offered to have dinner with me, I completely mistook this for possible interest in her part. I didn't think this meant that I had won her over completely; far from it. A married man, if he's smart, never thinks that he's hit a home run with the woman he's married to, no matter how long they've been married. You must keep swinging, and never think you can just run around the bases without effort. This is what I was doing: I was swinging, trying to make an effort, but I didn't realize that I was swinging at her in a way that she would perceive as threatening.
I made all of these mistakes because I don't know what I'm doing. I haven't gone on a first date with anyone in over a decade. I'm incompetent, but not malicious. I now wish in my heart that I had re-entered the dating scene at a time similar to when I last parted from it, before the world of social media and online networks, and maybe I would have avoided causing anyone this hurt, or making them feel threatened. I will eventually move past this, but I'm going to have a difficult time forgiving myself for this, if I ever can.
Guys: be careful. We have it good in this world, but that's not a given for everyone. As part of my 2016 Goodreads challenge I mentioned above, I recently read Jimmy Carter's book A Call to Action, in which he talks about how women worldwide are oppressed, and the acts of violence that are committed against them, in cultures where this is acceptable, overlooked by legal systems, and often justified by religious scripture. If you haven't, read it. This book made a terrible impression on me, and I've given serious thought since reading it to making fighting these kinds of things in the world my life's work. I never wanted it to be something I started considering for myself as an act of atonement.
I have something extremely serious to say now, and it's based on a series of mistakes that I've made over the last week. These mistakes have affected at least one person other than myself, and in a terrible way. I'm posting this in the hopes that others will learn something from it, and hopefully avoid making those same mistakes, and avoid causing others the pain that I have.
About 6 months ago I split from my girlfriend of 12 years. I never really wanted this to end, so this was painful, but I worked through this and marched forward. I've spent most of my time since then just trying to piece myself back together and develop new a sense of my purpose in this world.
Roughly a month ago, I came across a picture of an old college friend in my Facebook feed, who I had not seen in years. I had largely forgotten about her, but seeing her again, I remembered the way she had about her. It occurred to me that I had no way of knowing if we were romantically compatible, but I was quite interested in getting to know her. She studied ecology, and you can tell that she wants to help the environment. I've learned that nobody goes into environmental science because they're a selfish person, and I've had my fill of selfish people in the last 10 years, because I studied business in college.
She lives in my home state, all the way across the country from where I currently live. I reached out to her to see if she would be interested in reconnecting with me if I came to town, and she said that she would be. This was way more than I was hoping for, so I was happy about it, but I wasn't explicit with her about my intent up front.
We were friends on Facebook, but we also happened to be connected on a site called Goodreads, which is a social networking site based around book reading. I left behind several bad habits in 2015, and since I'm a voracious reader, I decided to try reading a book a day in 2016 to fill my time with something beneficial, to supplant the bad habits. Naturally, this challenges one to find enough titles to read, so I poked around in my Goodreads feed to find things that my friends were reading that looked interesting.
Some of you can probably see where this might be headed at this point.
I did meet up with her last Saturday afternoon. We spent a couple of hours chatting over coffee, and then went back to her place so I could meet her dogs. In the course of our conversation she asked why I had traveled back to my home state, and, wanting to be honest, I told her I had come to get to know her. It never bothers me to spend time in the winter in the state where I passed my childhood, but the reason I had booked a flight and come back was to get to know her.
Towards the end of this, I was upfront with her. I didn't know her, so I had no way of being sure, but I was interested in her, and I wanted to spend part of Valentine's day with her, if she was interested. After having confessed all this, I left her place. I had said my piece, and I didn't want to put any further pressure on her to entertain me if she wasn't interested in me at all.
Later that evening, I got a text from her asking how long I would be in town, and if I were interested in grabbing dinner with her the next night. Naturally, I was quite elated by this. I mentioned that the flight I had booked had been one way, so we had as much time as we needed, and that I would be delighted to do dinner with her.
I neglected to mention the flight was one-way to account for any possible illnesses that arose on our parts, which might have interfered with our meeting, or that I currently reside with smokers where I live. I was ready to get away from where I lived, and in no rush to get back.
The next evening, I sent her a text and got no response. A couple of hours later I called her, and she didn't answer. I sat there and thought carefully about what this could mean. I hoped that she wasn't injured or anything, but outside of that, the most obvious possibility was that her agreeing to dinner the night before had been nothing more than a joke. This didn't seem characteristic of her, so it didn't make sense, but that was what I concluded in the end. I had been ready for her to reject me, but I was not prepared in the slightest for ridicule. My tail hung between my legs and I started to wonder about when I should fly back to my current home.
I received a text from her a short time later, saying that all of this had overwhelmed her and she wasn't ready to have dinner with me.
Now, you have to understand where I was coming from: I had just spent the last hour dealing with the possibility of having been rejected by her. I was relieved, but what to make of what she had told me? In the last couple of years, I have dealt with massive amounts of rejection, for many different reasons (usually related to my social ineptitude), from many different people who I believed I could trust. Deserved or not, these are the scars I bear.
So I projected. Without any information to go on, I assumed that perhaps she had come to be afraid because she was worried that I would reject her. Maybe she had been hurt before, like I had, and was afraid to take a chance. Or, failing that, perhaps she felt she had to oblige me because I had traveled all this way to see her, and she was afraid of letting me down.
And so, with this in mind, I called her and left a voicemail saying that I didn't want her to feel this obligation to me. And sensing that she might be afraid of me rejecting her, I reassured her that I knew she was a good person in her heart. Perhaps the two of us never could have been romantically compatible, but that doesn't mean I can't sense this about a person.
For the next couple of days, I received no response. Still assuming that she was afraid of rejection, I sent her a text message each day, two of which were just emojis, and a final one that let her know I cared about her, enough not to be capricious in my judgment of her if we were to meet.
Last night I received my final correspondence from her. I had been completely wrong in my assessment of the situation. She had hesitated to take dinner with me because my approach to the situation had been too intense, and not forthcoming enough. Why not try and get to know her long-distance first? Why hadn't I been more upfront with her about the reason for my visit in the first place? How was it that, not knowing her, I was able to say these things to her about her being a good person, or to genuinely express any kind of caring in a romantic fashion?
She concluded by telling me that all of this frightened her terribly, and that she never wanted to hear from me again.
I saw a lot of possible ends to how this might play out, but I didn't see this one coming at all. I'm a male, so I think that the Internet is a pretty swell place, but I understand it's not this way for everyone. Women have a terribly difficult time being online; they are harassed and stalked by men who objectify and intimidate them to their own ends, which is usually just malicious and petty self-seeking. It's violence. That this happens breaks my heart.
So upon hearing this from her, I felt completely destroyed. I imagined her sitting at a friend's house, surrounded by close friends and family, worried about her well-being and sincerely worrying that I might be a threat to her. I have always hated these kinds of atrocities, that we live in a world where people do need to fear for their safety about these kinds of things; that I had inadvertently caused this kind of terrible situation in someone's life is absolutely horrifying to me.
What I find most devastating is that this is the kind of thing that a person can never completely get past. Going forward, I'll leave her alone entirely, but how much time must pass before she can be sure she need not worry about me? And even if she does get past her fear of me, she's going to have an awfully difficult time feeling comfortable sharing anything about herself anywhere on the Internet.
I will concede to several mistakes on my part here. The most serious of them is that I used information that she had shared with her friends (including me) on social networks to develop a sense of common ground that might seed our conversations. I've done this in the past, many times, before taking business lunches with possible partners. In the realm of business networking, this is acceptable, but in romantic situations, it is folly. Each person must be allowed to completely control what they reveal about themselves, and in a time frame in which they are comfortable. The fact that we were old acquaintances was irrelevant.
I wasn't up front with her about what I was going to do and my reasons for doing it. I didn't consider this beforehand, but what I did was ask to meet her under a false pretense. I should have given her all of the information I had, plainly expressed my intent, and given her complete control to decide if she wanted to accept my invitation.
So why the later, cutesy text messages from me to her? When she had offered to have dinner with me, I completely mistook this for possible interest in her part. I didn't think this meant that I had won her over completely; far from it. A married man, if he's smart, never thinks that he's hit a home run with the woman he's married to, no matter how long they've been married. You must keep swinging, and never think you can just run around the bases without effort. This is what I was doing: I was swinging, trying to make an effort, but I didn't realize that I was swinging at her in a way that she would perceive as threatening.
I made all of these mistakes because I don't know what I'm doing. I haven't gone on a first date with anyone in over a decade. I'm incompetent, but not malicious. I now wish in my heart that I had re-entered the dating scene at a time similar to when I last parted from it, before the world of social media and online networks, and maybe I would have avoided causing anyone this hurt, or making them feel threatened. I will eventually move past this, but I'm going to have a difficult time forgiving myself for this, if I ever can.
Guys: be careful. We have it good in this world, but that's not a given for everyone. As part of my 2016 Goodreads challenge I mentioned above, I recently read Jimmy Carter's book A Call to Action, in which he talks about how women worldwide are oppressed, and the acts of violence that are committed against them, in cultures where this is acceptable, overlooked by legal systems, and often justified by religious scripture. If you haven't, read it. This book made a terrible impression on me, and I've given serious thought since reading it to making fighting these kinds of things in the world my life's work. I never wanted it to be something I started considering for myself as an act of atonement.