Social Media

I’m an introvert. Some people might argue that point, saying I’m outgoing and I could talk the legs off a chair. Perhaps I am outgoing at work. It’s part of my job requirement. And if you get me started on something that interests me, I can talk on seemingly forever.

But at the end of the day, I’m emotionally exhausted. The last thing I want to do is socialize.

I like the idea of parties, but I hate the actuality.

 Making plans to go somewhere with someone sounds nice, but once I get the chance to think about it, I don’t really want to, especially if it involves shopping.

In large groups, I’m usually the one off to the side reading a book or writing something (and contrary to what others think, people I know will never end up in one of my stories).

I hate small talk, and I usually miss social cues. I sometimes wonder if I’m on the spectrum.

While I can talk forever about things that interest me, I apparently don’t have the same interests as very many people. I don’t like mystery stories or comic books, which many of the people I know do.

Because I travel a good bit, the thing I particularly hate is when people tell me to bring my travel pictures with me. Maybe they’re just being polite about being interested in my doings, but rarely if ever does anyone bother to even look at pictures I’ve brought with me. Having carted things around unnecessarily, I get miffed at this. My attitude is, don’t say you want to see something if you’re really not interested.

With that in mind, I’ve stopped bringing pictures or anything else with me. I haven’t yet even needed to explain, “Oh, I didn’t bother because you’ve never been interested when I brought them before.”

Which brings me to social media. This is the perfect medium for anyone who likes the idea of socializing, but doesn’t care to be in a room full of people.

I first came to social media via AOL chat rooms. I don’t know if they still exist, but they used to have chat rooms for nearly every interest. Finding an actual interest proved more challenging than one might think.

One room I thought I’d like was supposed to be for writers. It ended up being a group of close friends who did nothing but discuss their aches and pains.

I tried several others, determined to find people I could chat with. Most wouldn’t talk to anyone new, and acted very affronted if a new person dared to say anything.

I did finally find a place where I was actually spoken to, and after a while formed a kind of internet friendship with some.

As with most things, chat rooms devolved into giant drama spaces. The Liars Club could have been the title for a story about AOL chatrooms.

MySpace was another place I found. People had recommended it to me as a great social media platform. Connecting with people was fairly long-distance, hit-or-miss. I would post something and random people sometimes responded. It seemed to me more like a bulletin board I had in my bedroom as a teen. It was something to decorate. It didn’t really meet my needs.

I found Sodahead by accident. It was a strange site where people got points and ratings for posting questions. Others answered them. Some people were so caught up in their rankings they would ask the same questions repeatedly just for the points. They seldom responded to anyone else’s questions.

Sometimes on Sodahead, it was possible to connect with others who had replied to the same questions I had. But by the 20^th time responding to something like, “What is your favorite color?” the site got old, and I left it.

Something I noticed on all of these sites was a bit peculiar. These were sites where people didn’t use their real names, but a screen name of a limited number of characters (I suppose the precursor to @#). If I were perceived as male, people were usually quite nice to me, and wanted to chat with me. I discovered this when someone said something that indicated they thought I was a guy – and that happened several times. Once I told them I wasn’t a guy, I was essentially ignored, if not outright bullied.

When I was perceived as female, it was harder to make friends and more likely that people would say snarky things to me. I don’t know why this was the case, since I saw other women treated far nicer than I was. I’m not sure what it is that I project that causes this to happen. In real life I spent elementary school both at school and at home being bullied or harassed, -- or simply left out -- for no reason that I’ve ever been able to discover.

Perhaps that’s why I prefer to do things on my own. It’s easier to have a good time by myself.

My brother pestered me into joining Facebook. Frankly, I couldn’t see the point. I did finally join, and discovered many of my relatives and friends were also there. I was careful about who I accepted as a friend.

I have an author page as well as my regular one, and a few of the strangers I have accepted on that page have tried to either sell me their children or beg me to marry them so they could come to America to live. Needless to say, such people were unfriended in a hurry. They weren’t going to buy my books, anyway. I’ve also had the occasional person who thought I was a swinger who was looking for discussions of a sexual nature. In those instances, I was glad I had quick access to “unfriend”.

And again, I wonder what is it about me that attracts that sort? I certainly have nothing in my profile that would make anyone think I was that sort of person.

Of course, once I was on Facebook with however many friends it says I have (I don’t know, and I don’t care), people were all about Twitter and Snapchat and whatever else is out there. “Oh, you have to do those,” I’m told.

Somehow, I don’t think so.

Even though my friends on Facebook are actual friends and family, there are newsfeeds one can respond to. Unfortunately, these days people tend to be mean and snarky toward anyone who has an opinion different from theirs.

I’m not a confrontational person. If someone says something I don’t agree with, I leave it alone and don’t comment. If someone disagrees politely, we can sometimes have a nice chat. But once someone gets snarky, I’m done.

I have blocked a few relatives who got snarky with me because they apparently don’t have the reading skills to understand something I posted, and then brought their friends in to keep the snark going.

Taking a page from the, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all,” philosophy, I’ve been known to speak some rather rude comments at my computer, in the privacy of my home office. But I wouldn’t dream of typing to Facebook comments like, “I had no idea you were such a deliberate idiot,” or “Drama queen much?” And no one will ever know if they were the object of such a sentiment, since I would never be so rude outside the confines of an empty room.

I’ve taken the suggestion of one of my cousins to protect my feelings. I don’t bother looking at comments to what I’ve written from anyone I don’t know. I don’t need the negativity in my life.

I’ve read about how addictive social media is. I find the opposite is true. At first, it’s interesting, like being in a bookstore with a credit card.

But negative, mean, bullying responses shot in my direction cooled my interest quickly. I may have had to put up with that behavior in school, but I’m not about to have it inflicted on me on the internet by strangers.

I end up checking in to see if any one of my friends has said or done anything interesting, or posted any interesting pictures. (I do look at other people’s pictures.)

I don’t think I’m anyone special, and when people start making accusations based on an innocent comment – or even a joke – that I think I am, or that I think I’m better than everyone else, or whatever, it’s like being in elementary school again.

Social media could be a godsend, but it rarely remains one. For me, it hasn’t lived up to the promises. Yes, it helps me keep in touch with friends and relatives, but beyond that, I’d rather read a book.