vendredi, juillet 09, 2010

I have the feeling...somebody's watching me (you)

Recently I had an extremely unpleasant conversation with someone online.

If conversation it could be called.

Given that this is a relatively public forum, I'm not able to go into the details. I will tell you that I'd said again and again to this man that I preferred meeting him face to face, rather than trying to communicate through emails.

No nuance. No super ego! And multiple possibilities for malcommunicating.

After our ongoing miscommunication culminated in a general rending of my character and what he perceived as my behavior, he alluded to the fact that he had "seen me online" somewhere -- and felt that made a lie out of what I had told him. Regardless of the fact that what I had attempted to tell him wasn't what he heard.

And, to be honest, that really does creep me out. It's not that I have something to hide (would that I had so many fascinating secrets), but that I have (as have many of you in various contexts, like Facebook) allowed my privacy to be violated in the interests of disclosure.

Of course, most of the times, this kind of disclosure (chatting with your pals online or sharing links) is quite innocent -- and will have no troublesome consequences. It's only when a contact goes south that you have the feeling that someone has his or her eye glued to the spyglass. That someone might be an individual, an ad sponsor, or a corporation...or even, possibly, the government.

And it is in times like this that I wonder -- what part of myself have I surrendered?

What about you?

Aucun commentaire: