(This started off life as a journal entry, but as it evolved I realized this is something I really need to post. It deals with a subtle form of psychological abuse on the internet, in which someone offers you something and makes it almost impossible for you to say no, even if deep down you are uncomfortable with that person and don't want to play. In some cases, there is bad blood in the past which is being denied, glossed over, or twisted around to be your fault, while excusing the perpetrator as having only the best motives at heart. I had an example today on YouTube, just a small one, but my alarm bells went off like crazy.So this is more personal and emotional than most of my blog posts.)
I had a strange offer this morning from a woman who, like me, has a YouTube doll channel (specifically, troll dolls). She has been very nice in praising a couple of my videos, but then offered to send me a troll, and I refused it. I won't give out personal info, but it was more than that - I could feel a hook in it. I know I`ve been suspicious before about things that turned out to be OK, but I don`t know this woman, and sometimes fulsome praise (I mean fulsome in the sense of much-too-muchness) IS suspicious. Yes, she has come up to me on the playground, skipping along in a gingham dress and pigtails, etc., and said, "Let's be friends!", and here I am being all suspicious.
But my God, the CRAP that goes on on the internet, and sending me something like that out of the blue makes me beholden in some weird way, even guilty and feeling I maybe "owe" her something, which of course I do not. Over-gifting or completely unexpected gifting is aggressive at worst, even an ambush, though it also makes the recipient feel THEY are crazy or "off" for being suspicious of a generous gift which has been freely given. What is wrong with you to think there are strings attached?
I don`t know this woman from Adam, or Eve, or anyone else, and she has hardly any videos on her channel at all. That alone is reason to be wary. She referred me to her website, which is generally a sales pitch. Sending me a troll after seeing only two of my videos is an odd thing to do, and even if it didn't lead to "you owe me", psychologically it DOES do that. It`s also real Nigerian prince stuff at its worst. Falling for it leaves you feeling angry, ripped off and ashamed.
I don't want to give her my personal info, least of all my mailing address. Then she will know where I live. A complete stranger. I have heard of the most diabolical things coming from letting your boundaries down, though to be so wary of her makes me seem weird and over-suspicious. She also said, rather snippily, "that is, IF you're interested" in a completely different tone, implying that if you're NOT, you're not being very friendly to a fellow enthusiast.
It's better to err on the side of caution, I think. So I think I handled it right in graciously declining and telling her I don't give out that sort of information. My troll channel is meant to be pure joy, and if someone likes it, thats great. But it is set up a certain way. No commerce, no freebies, no offers or trades, no buy and sell or even being made beholden by sending ME something I never asked for and really do not want. It`s actually pressure on me to MAKE me be interested in her work (for surely I must thank and praise her profusely when I get it!), or making me feel guilty if I am NOT interested in her work, which at the moment I am not.
So there may well be more snippiness ahead. "That is, IF you`re interested" had a nasty core to it, coated in sparkly sugar. Postal stuff is dicey at best, especially with the border closed, and I don't know where she lives, but I assume it's the States. I don't want her finding and criticizing the stuff I post about the States. It could start a war. She may be one of these DETESTABLE Paula Deen-like Southern women, a type I need to stay miles away from. A large number of crafty women on the internet are, maybe because they are traditionalists and egocentric busy bees.
This is the etiquette I think is sensible: don't offer something free, it'll make the other person feel they "owe" you something even if they insist you don’t. Don't agree to receive something when it is offered out of the blue by someone you do not know. When you get that twinge of quease in your belly, something subtle but unhealthy is going on.
That quease means you are sensing a manipulative ploy from someone who doesn't know you from Adam (OR Eve). When I see the nasty leech behaviour of Lynne, my former high school friend, who stood by and silently watched while I was systematically eviscerated in front of her close friend Lori – WHY ON EARTH would I want to connect with her again? But that was exactly what she wanted to do, and insisted on it over and over and OVER again. If I feel uncomfortable with her and choose not to connect, she should accept it as my decision without questioning it, not pursue me all over the internet, finally driving me to explode and then REALLY be the villain.
I did not stay on my hometown Facebook page (which is the way Lynne somehow connected with me again, trampling the boundary of my blocking her a couple of years ago) for more than a few days, before realizing everyone had their head up their ass and was obsessed with the past. She took my brief interest to mean I wanted to endlessly reminisce about a place that nearly destroyed me. In retrospect, certain things can look very different, and now I see that what she did was every bit as savage as what Lori did (prompted by nothing, by the way), or worse, because her utter silence and total lack of ANY semblance of defending me was making her complicit. Quite simply, she literally stood by and watched.
I don't want that energy in my life, but the way it panned out made it, guess what, ALL MY FAULT for refusing her 'concern'. But even that didn't stop her. By some devious means, she found my YouTube channel (which goes by the name of ferociousgumby) and left a comment on a video about side effects of meds, telling me I should taper off! If a person blocks you, GUESS WHAT, they do it because they are uncomfortable with you. Those times she visited (she invited herself to have coffee with me twice when she was in town from Ontario), I did not want to see her and did not enjoy the long conversations about Chatham and the past, which is where everyone STILL lives now, including telling me in detail about one person I barely knew who committed suicide. The rest was about how no one in the school system understood her son. Her conversation was one-sided, a monologue, and a drag on my spirits. I felt awful, yet relieved when she left. I did not know how to say no in those days, at all, and now that I DO know, it still causes an interior struggle.
I don't know why I tolerated it, except SHE phoned ME, assuming we were still "best friends" or even friends at all after decades, with a lot of bad blood in the past. Later I dodged the bullet, but as usual with these things, I was left feeling bad for what I had to do. I saw just the beginnings of a tirade from her on Facebook messaging (and HOW can you message someone when they have been blocked??) and didn`t read it, knowing what it would be like and how I would be cast. And how it would leave me feeling, basically ruining my day.
When someone says no, when someone erects a barrier or a boundary, you MUST accept they have their own reasons for it which you may know nothing about (and are NOT owed an explanation for because it is none of your business), and respect it. Otherwise you don’t respect the person, and then why are you even trying to get the so-called friendship from decades ago (laden with bad blood) going again? Why try to trample down those barriers, and just arm-twist and arm-twist until that person says, Oh, forgive me, I was wrong! I DO want to be your friend again! Let me just push down this barrier I erected because I am so DAMN uncomfortable with you. And kindly do not twist this around and leave ME feeling bad, when the violation is YOURS.
I guess these people just HAVE to win this somehow, to push themselves on you repeatedly until you give way, or even tackle you in the name of friendship.
I have learned from Linda L. and that really insane Terri chick who was obsessed with Harold Lloyd that you MUST be careful not to get swamped or even sucked into a little whirlpool that has its own sick agenda. There is this bizarre sense that time has stood still (which it apparently HAS in Chatham) and youll just happily fall into step again and be best buds, which we never were. At all.
I am actually shocked at what she did, but what with her, Linda L. and that HL-obsessed chick, I am now much more careful. They were much more blatant examples of actual mental illness, personality disorders, but I learned from them (mostly, what to avoid). And what do I lose? Nothing at all, though having to push back on the troll offer left me feeling subtly dampened during an already hard time. It just left a bad taste in my mouth, something I did not need on a grey day like this.
But it's all a potent reminder that no matter how the internet has evolved, it is still the wild west, and right now it seems to me it reflects the worst of human nature far more often than the best.