So, I responded to a really great Craigslist post in the women-seeking-men section, and received a nice brief response.. seeming to agree "much in common" and so on.
Like any normal netizen, I googled the woman's name, which she'd included as part of the email addressing.
Seemed like a really great lady, someone I would respect, admire, and wish to befriend -or at least have a coffee-date with (VeryBigGrin)
So, Mr. Google told me that this woman had lived at some time in the recent past, in the same part of Maui where I once lived - so I mentioned that in my 2nd email to her.
Imagine my surprise: her next email was apparently sent only to inform me that she was not intersted in getting to know me.. citing differences in sense of privacy. ??
Privacy online ?? I mean, unless you're using a nym.. unless you're taking specific steps to create an alternate/pseudo persona online... isn't "privacy" exactly the OPPOSITE of what you're doing ?
It is interesting what a cultural divide there seems to be here.
I guess some people don't absolutely KNOW that anything they upload to a website, any emails they send to public or semi-public email lists, and LOTS of other stuff ... is pretty much PUBLIC information (as in "not private")
Now, I know this as well as I know I'll be dead when I've stopped breathing.
..and I guess that having known this for uhm, ah, maybe the last 13yrs or so must've contributed to my current state of being Completely Perplexed by a person (especially one who has done significant amounts of self-promotion online, using her True Name or close to it)
... feeling like I've transgressed against "privacy" by looking up very Public information.
Is this one of those bizarre "men are from mars, women are from venus" things ?
Am I just too much of a geek to relate ?
blech.
whatever.
Labels: Internet publishing / publicity vs some odd sense of privacy ?
1 Comments:
Hm...a while ago I came across an interesting ad by a guy, which ended with:'if you're one of those women that googles people, don't bother responding!'. it stopped me in my tracks. So,it seems as if this is not a male/female thing.
I can go into a number of directions with this (and I probably will, if they let me type that much ;-) )
- maybe it's a 'control issue', meaning that openness is good as long as I can set the terms.' So, by googling her it made her feel like a 'loss of control' and to get that back, she decided to be the one to take the next step - end it.
- In this time of 'image being everything', it's easy for people to appear more than they are. But with that being the norm, peopel tend to now discount whatever others say and do, expecting it to have been more than reality in the first place. So, people try to be 'perfect' at the initial contact, afraid of showing flaws, because the other person has 10 other people that are perfect on paper, so noticing a flaw on one person may let the other turn towards the other 10 'flawless' ones. So, there may be something to be found by googling that would show a flaw
- maybe a trust and intimacy issue. Isn't there a certain intimacy involved in people slowly exploring each other and finding out what the other is about? And wouldn't 'googling' contribute to this exploration? So, maybe this says something about the other person's willingness to allow that kind of intimacy. It's easier for a lot of people to keep a relationship on a surface level.
In the big picture I would think it's really a compliment,if someone googles you, as it shows that there's enough interest for them to put a little time in finding out who you are.
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