Desperados
July 27, 2007
What is it with live chat lately? What happened to etiquette? All three of my new MSN buddies got straight into looks related questions with me, within one minute of conversation:
What do you look like? Like a girl. Do you have a picture of yourself? Actually, I don’t. I’ve never even seen one of those camera thingies. Are you tall? No, I come from a long line of midgets. It’s a real problem, actually: in another decade or so, we won’t be visible to the naked eye.
When I got fed up with cracking jokes, I tried to sidestep the question with a question of my own: what do you do? Answer: computer stuff. Hello-o? Could you possibly treat me like I have half a brain? I’m sure I could figure out the meaning of your job title if I really really put my mind to it.
Getting more and more irritated, I tried the straight forward approach: hey, I’m only looking for friends and I’m really not interested in appearances. Which hailed five minutes of visual silence followed by, Oh ok. And then, X appears to be offline. Talk about rude! I bet the guy thought I couldn’t be much of a looker. Hah! Your bloody loss, mate…
It’s not like I’ll be missing out on meaningful friendships with these people, but that’s not the point. What are these guys expecting, really? Not only do they come across as hyper desperate, they also make it clear they’re not willing to make the least bit of effort to get what they so obviously want. What girl could possibly be charmed by a dude like that?!
Next time, maybe I’ll say beforehand I’m not looking for anything but friendship. Something like this: no romance please, I’m short, fat and ugly…does that help?
Isn’t that the purpose of chatrooms, though — to chat people up? Call me crass or uninformed, but i’ve always thought of chatrooms as places where one can be totally straightforward about one’s intentions, i.e. to get one’s rocks off somehow without having to pretend to want to buy someone a drink and hear about how their week has been.
ok, i should have been more clear: this wasn’t a chat room but a penpal site more geared at language exchange and making friends. but i agree, if getting one’s rocks off is the idea, then there’s definitely a chat room to be found for that purpose…
Right. In that case, i reckon it’s because the normal rules don’t apply online. Because you’re not ‘face-to-face’ as such, people think they can simply be as forward/brazen/rude as they like… regardless of the forum.
i think you’re right: anonimity gives people guts, doesn’t it?
I agree with Jaded re: the forward/brazen/rude bit. People tend to get a little too cocky the moment they realize that they don’t have to be face to face with other people. I actually make it a point to avoid chatrooms where I don’t know anyone because I’m so sick of all the perverts already.
You should change your handle whenever you’re in a chatroom… like fartface or something (that sounds so high school).
thanks for the tip, i’ll remember that…so next time you’re in a chatroom and that handle is taken, you know i’m there ^-.