mercredi, août 01, 2007

Pet Peeve...games people play

I don't know if other servers have this option, because I am one of those neanderthal women (hear me lumber) who still uses AOL as their primary browser, and has an AOL email address. It may be getting time to change that.

Not only do I have an AOL address, but I've never felt the same about it since some guy told me it was very sexually suggestive-in an unintentional way. If I'm going to be suggestive, fellows, you are going to know about it.

I'm not about games. I try to be as direct as possible, and I like people to be direct with me. It wasn't until about seven months ago that I discovered, from a potential date, that one could block people on the AOL "buddy list." Then I found that a few guys would block me most of the time (they blocked most everyone) and unblock me when they wanted to talk to me.

Little Ms. Purer than the Virgin Snow hated this-in fact, I still do. It so smacks of gamesmanship. Then came the day when I blocked a guy who signed on to chat with me around 11:00 on nights when all I wanted was to sit blankly in front of my computer and read in relative privacy.

My suspicion is that this AOL feature is used by some folks I know to remind me they are still around. And I find the temptation to play around with it a distraction and, frankly, an annoyance.

But I wonder...what is a game, and what is a healthy relational strategy? What is adaptive and what is just silly? What is the tipping point in this new relational technology? Any answers.. or even more questions are welcome.

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