The Spray On Condom: Meeting People On The Internet

Posted 4/15/2009 by smartblackboy in Labels: , , , , , , ,

Today I had an interesting occasion to think about internet courtesy.

Basically, how much respect should one give to the veil of freedom provided by anonymous to anonymous interaction?

A young lady left a comment on one of my older blog posts, and usually I just get kind of happy when my Blackberry shows "[Art Star] New comment" on it, but today I actually felt led to respond to the person.

I supposed I could have responded on the blog but it was a very old post, and I wasn't sure she would see my reply but it had an email address attached to the userID.

So, I emailed a nice little reply and she emailed me back.

Now by this time, gmail had provided a full name.

And any regular reader of this blog (yes I'm talking to the 20% of you who have read Art Star over 200 times) knows one of my guilty pleasures is googling peoples names.

So, I googled her name, found out some interesting stuff about her.

She seems to be young, a good writer, graduating from a well respected school, attractive (not that it has anything to do with it, but I love adding the pretty, not pretty, cute, adjectives when it comes to girls, one of the few ways that I am not a feminist).

After looking at all of this I am thinking, okay, she seems like a legit person, I should friend her on facebook.

Now, at this point, I realize - whoa - this is just a random person who randomly left a message on your blog post - and not just any blogpost (but one of the most honest blogosphere moments of your life) pre-bar tales series.

Is it okay to just friend her on facebook, or keep emailing her, or would you be crossing some sort of digital line of etiquette?

But then I started rationalizing, well ya'll are just a year apart, she might become successful in life, and friendships have started in much stranger ways (like randomly bumping into someone at a grocery store, or a concert, or anywhere).

And she is a journalist and I wrote my thesis (one of them) on political journalism (basically), so maybe I should recruit her for a writer (since all of my writers have unilaterally decided to take the entire month of April off, even though it is my birth month...bastards).

Is writing on someones wall or leaving a random person a comment, the digital equivalent of bumping into somebody at the grocery store?

And if it is, does the guy have to strike up a conversation, tell a funny joke, and give the girl his number?

Is that the equivalent of a facebook friend request?

Well as a former dating columnist, I never think you should go with the status quo (every guy is asking for the number).

So, maybe this post is really the digital equivalent of a bouquet of white roses, or a hot cup of coffee from a stranger when you have been studying in the same union, library, lounge for a couple hours.

Maybe it will even make her smile, or brighten a fairly conventional day.

Maybe she will even tell me to go ahead and friend her on facebook.

2 comment(s) to... “The Spray On Condom: Meeting People On The Internet”

2 comments:

fotoloka said...

hope she asks you to friend her...



CtotheB said...

No worries my dude, this is what serendipity is all about.

It's gonna be a hot summer for Art Star pham! Believe that!




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