How Not to Get Blocked on Instant Messenger

In case the fact that I run a website didn't give it away, I spend a lot of time at the computer. Thusly it follows that I talk to most of my friends online, and I also meet most of my friends online. As in real life, meeting new people is hit or miss; sometimes they become friends, sometimes they drift away without the passage of much time. Just as in real life, a few manage to antagonize me to the point I just won't to talk to them anymore. In real life I avoid talking to them; online, they get blocked.

I have never managed to get myself blocked except briefly by San Antonio Guy, which was his own creepiness, nothing to do with me. Therefore, I fail to understand how some people make themselves so obnoxious that blocking them is the only solution. I gave this some thought after the last person I blocked: Am I really that peevish, or are creeps just drawn to me? In either case, I'm not in any hurry to change my standards; I'll happily live with a smaller social circle if it means feeling happier.

I decided to lay down the facts in the cases of several people I've blocked. Review for yourself and determine if I'm really that picky, or if these people each deserved what they got.

First we have the Stalker, but I don't think anyone would argue that a controlling, abusive guy who stalked me for months deserved to get blocked. I never did find out precisely what he wanted to say that was just so important. I remember him leaving messages on the answering machine saying we needed to talk, but he didn't specify about what. He said the same thing in emails. Then he would instant message me, but when the notification popped up with, "——— has sent you a message. Would you like to accept it?" I would automatically click "No" and then block that user name, and then he would pick a different user name, and we'd start all over again. He chose fairly obvious user names, so I could always tell it was him.

Lesson 1: Don't be a stalker ex.

Then there was a guy I met online; I don't remember how exactly. We exchanged a few emails; he seemed all right; we began talking on instant messenger. Within moments, he "jokingly" asked for naked pictures, which creeped me out. I told him to knock it off, but he wouldn't. I promptly blocked him. Moments later, I received an e-mail from him titled "I'm sorry . . . " He said he knew he should have let it go and apologized. I did not forgive him, reasoning that if that were how he behaved in only the very first chat, who knew what he would do later on.

Lesson 2: Don't ask for naked photos—especially if you don't know the person well.

Many, many, guys have made themselves offensive to me by badmouthing Kirston (my old roommate) or guys I date. It even reached the point where I briefly mentioned Kirston by name in the rules for contacting me through the site. I don't know what the hell people's problem is, but know this: If you insult Kirston, you insult me. The same goes for guys I date. Unless you're commenting on something I've written in an ARSE, I don't want to hear it. I'm well aware of the regrettable lapses in judgement my dating life has shown, but there's no need to rub it in. This is even more true if the guy in question is someone I'm seeing in the present. Whether it's mean spirited mockery or a lame attempt at talking me out of being with the guy to get with you instead, you will accomplish nothing beyond antagonizing me. I blocked at least two guys for that. I also blocked a guy who gave me shit about having a page on OK Cupid when I wasn't looking for dates. I pointed out repeatedly that I stated I was in a relationship and that is perfectly acceptable to be on that site just for friends, but he would have none of it. Thusly, I would have none of him.

Lesson 3: Don't insult guys I date or try to force me into wanting to date you.

Similar to the above, I don't want to hear people badmouthing other friends of mine. I've heard people make rude remarks about other friends of mine, people they don't even know. Usually it's after I've told a story about the other person that I found funny that they misinterpreted or didn't happen to agree with. It's easy enough to just say "meh" or "hm" or something; you don't have to launch into a diatribe or insult a stranger when you don't have all the facts straight and/or I was clearly not painting a negative picture of the person.

Lesson 4: Leave my friends alone.

On a slightly more personal note, there are people who see fit to give me a hard time about my profession. Mostly this comes in the form of something along the lines of "get a real job." Ironically, most of the people who say this lack "real" jobs themselves, like the guy with the crappy part time sales job that paid worse than my job. Without fail, this criticism also comes from people who have absolutely no idea how the theatre industry works, like the ex of mine who teaches math and has never set foot backstage or in a film studio. For those not in the know, theatre and film work is sporadic, and it's difficult to schedule other jobs around it. Other work has to be flexible, which typically means more sporadic work or else a retail job. But unless you know what you're talking about, shut the fuck up.

Lesson 5: Don't you dare mock my profession!

Somewhat similar to the above, we have people who mock my hobbies (e.g. knitting). Not many people do this, but I have received the odd negative comment on my favorite pastime. Most people think it's interesting that I'm creative and can design and knit clothing. People who think otherwise tend to be immature, which is not a trait I look for in friends. Once some guy referred to me as a grandma, frowning at the shawl I'd made that everybody else was complimenting and calling warm, soft, and pretty. I didn't talk to him again. Occasionally people give me a hard time for enjoying writing and happening to be pedantically good at spelling and grammar, which speaks of their insecurity or inability. The Idiot did that; look where it got him. The same thing happens with reading; the only people who think reading is lame are the people whose empty heads can't handle things like words.

Lesson 6: Don't mock my hobbies . . . unless you're willing to get double in return.

Now. Still slightly on the topic of hobbies, one guy said I talked about the relationship I was in at the time and nothing else. When I challenged this, he said I also never talked about anything other than my website. First, I would like to point out that every time he instant messaged me, he would ask me what I was doing. Seeing as how ninety per cent of the time I'm at the computer it's because I'm working on something for the site, I would answer his question with, "Working on the site." And before I could even go into any detail—which frequently I wouldn't bother to do since half the time it's something boring like updating the code or something—he would whine, "Again?" and ask if I didn't do anything else. I mean I could have added, "Well, earlier I washed the dishes and did some knitting and then I played pool online," but seriously, what the hell's the point in that? If you want to know what I've been up to lately, ask that, not what I'm doing right now. Duh. Anyway, the other problem with that guy's accusation was that he never bothered to change the subject. My friends all know that I have plenty to talk about—politics, atheism, knitting patterns, work, cooking, my cats, films, music, literature, all kinds of things. But if you don't make conversation, you'll never know. Anyway, I grew weary of his own lack of conversation and general whininess and blocked him. A few days later, he instant messaged me from a different account and said, "I was just wondering what I did to get blocked." I blinked and blocked that account as well.

Lesson 7: Get to know me before you accuse me of not having many topics to discuss. At the very least, offer something to talk about.

Lesson 8: Don't ask what you did to get blocked. Not to wax all "as if you didn't know," but seriously.

Speaking of people who can't carry on a conversation, not having anything to talk about is just as bad as people who can't shut up. I readily admit that I am quite talkative with people I know, although I do freeze around guys I like. But at least my stories are entertaining or have a point. I maintained a friendship for a couple of months with a guy who could not seem to grasp this concept. He talked far more than I do, and none of his stories went anywhere. I remember mentioning that I worked at Linens 'N Things, and he told me about how he bought a trash can from there, or maybe it was WalMart, but anyway, it looked this one trash can, which was about fifteen dollars, or maybe it was seventeen, and Linens 'N Things had some pretty good deals, and . . . you get the idea. Another time he longwindedly told me about a minor car accident he'd been in, and he retold the story not long after. I reminded him that I had heard the story before, but rather than stopping the story or very hastily finishing, he continued the story as though I said nothing, ignoring my repeated insistence that I'd already heard it. I delicately suggested that he curb his garrulousness, but he wasn't willing to do so. He knew he had a problem with talking too much, but he was totally unwilling to deal with it. I told him that he should make sure his stories had a point or were funny; he didn't need to talk just for the sake of talking. He said well he had to say something; I said no he really didn't, or he could at least get a hobby and talk about that. He refused to change, saying he didn't want to go along to get along. I asked how he was supposed to change without changing, which he could not answer. The last straw came when he took fifteen minutes to tell me about a trip to WalMart. I waited patiently the first couple of minutes, thinking, 'Well, maybe he got in a wreck on the way back or the building burned down or something,' but nothing happened. I got up and left, going downstairs to make tea and wash dishes and start laundry. Fifteen minutes later, I returned to the computer, and he was not only still talking but hadn't even noticed I was gone. I blocked him. Not long after that, I received a rude e-mail from him asking what he did that I found "sooooo" offensive that I couldn't tell him. I didn't bother to answer; there would not have been any point.

Lesson 9: Allow room for give and take in the conversation.

Now, just being able to carry on a conversation is not good enough. I expect people to know how to spell, which apparently is too high a standard for some people. I exchanged a few emails with a guy on OK Cupid who said I seemed like I was a "riot to chat with." I enjoyed that, but then he described me as "pretty as hell for a nerd" and had the gall to ask if my website were intentionally funny. I told him yes and said something about how my dry sense of humor makes it difficult for people to tell when I'm joking. The advantage of that is that it's harder for idiots to know when I'm laughing at them, though I'm not sure whether that's a plus or minus. Anyway, we continued emailing, and he learned fairly quickly that I am quite snarky and never happy unless I have something to snipe at. In one message, he had a misplaced apostrophe, which I pointed out mostly as a joke before changing the subject. In a chat window with a different friend, I mentioned it and asked, "How much do you want to bet he gets all bitchy and defensive about that?" I was right. The apostrophe guy promptly unleashed a diatribe labeling me a grammar Nazi and said, in essence, that grammar didn't matter. I of course pointed out that since when was using your native language properly a bonus and rather than a baseline? He replied with another bitchy rant (at this point I told my friend that yes, I was right about the bet), and he accused me of ruining the conversation. I pointed out that I wasn't the one who perpetuated it and bitched about it; then I blocked him.

Lesson 10: For GOD's sake, learn to spell, punctuate, and use correct grammar.

Of course, not everyone who bothers me gets blocked; some I just ignore and hope won't talk to me again. Case in point, one guy with a bunch of mental problems. He's not actually a bad guy, he just has a lot of issues of which I was sadly unaware before starting to talk to him. I found everything out when I Googled him and located an old blog in which he went into excruciating detail about some of his . . . crazier moments. Sooner rather than later, naturally, this hitherto unknown side of him came through in our chats. He freaked out about small things and then began describing to me, in unnecessarily lurid detail, certain dreams he had featuring me. I hastily mentioned a guy I was dating at the time as a means of forcing a change in tack. Luckily, that proved effective; he mentioned a couple of other times that had it not been for the perceived competition, he would have been more aggressively pursuing me. In his dreams. Literally. He's not blocked yet, but he sure will be if he makes one more remark like that.

Lesson 11: Don't be creepy or disturbed, or at the very least, hide it well.

And then of course we have the really batshit insane drama queens or people who are just plain mean. There was a girl I was happy to ignore completely, but months after the last time I saw her, she sent me hate mail and impersonated Kirston online to me before posting a rant addressing me by name online. Needless to say, she got blocked. There was also a guy who was a friend of mine until he talked shit about Kirston, which irritated me, and then he befriended aforementioned girl. He still tries to contact me every so often, but he has been blocked too. I don't feel that either of those two were blocked simply because I was being petty. Of course, those two were never true friends of mine in the first place, so it wasn't hard to block them, but sometimes it's more painful. I ended a friendship of over a decade with one guy who had grown increasingly mean over the years. I tried to deal with it and look past it for old time's sake, but eventually, he insulted me on his Facebook wall, which was the last straw, and he is now blocked as well.

Lesson 12: Don't be a bitchy little drama queen.

I met one guy off OK Cupid. We talked online almost every day for several weeks and hung out in person a couple of times. I noticed, though, that he made the odd remark that struck me as idiotic. When I told him about my chronic lateral ankle pain that caused my ankle to hurt before it rained, he didn't believe me. I told him to Google it, and he didn't believe what he read about barometric pressure affecting the joints. Yes, because meteorology is such an uncredited field, whereas the ladder theory is totally credible. Oh yes. He told me he believed in the ladder theory, to which I replied, "Only guys who can't get laid believe in that." I pointed out that it was a pseudo science that had begun as a satire and didn't have a single study behind it. Mysteriously, he changed his viewpoint to match mine. I doubted the veracity of his change in opinion, but I was too relieved he shut up to argue the point. Another time, I told him about a guy I knew who suffered from anorexia, and he said, "A guy with anorexia?" and didn't seem to believe that men suffered from eating disorders as well. Yes, genius, anorexia does not fall exclusively under the heading of women's health. Then there was the time something about my family cropped up in conversation. As I mentioned in the story of the Stalker, I haven't talked to my mom's side of the family since I was fifteen, for good reason. So this guy asked about my family, and I didn't feel like talking about it, so at first I tried to hedge around it by saying, "Ever notice that I talk about my dad, but I never talk about my mom?" He said no, which didn't say anything good. People almost always remark that I never talk about my mom; how clueless do you have to be not to notice that? Anyway, I said, "Never mind; I don't want to talk about it." He asked, "What?" and I again said, "Never mind." He couldn't seem to get it through his skull that I don't like talking about my mom's side of the family. Fucking duh. I remember thinking right about then that I probably wouldn't talk to him that much longer.

Lesson 13: Get some street smarts.

Sure enough, the same guy got himself blocked not long after that. Sometime previously, he had referred to the Nazis as national socialists, which I thought was a bit odd but shrugged off. That returned to haunt me during a discussion on charity. He mocked a woman on OK Cupid who had posted a photo of herself at a charity event, and he said he hated charity because all it did was create more homeless people. I said WTF? and asked what about the Red Cross and Goodwill, etc., since those didn't seem to create homeless people. He wouldn't budge and said all charity created more homeless people and that they should help themselves or die. I quoted A Christmas Carol, the bit where Scrooge says something about how the poor should die and decrease the surplus population. I hoped that if he didn't get the allusion, he would at least get the point. Sadly, he missed both and agreed with that regrettable sentiment. Then he said something that I said sounded like eugenics, which he said was a good idea, even after I reminded him that the Nazis were all for it. I pointed out that eugenics is not only inhumane but it also messes up the gene pool, which I don't think is a good idea. I also pointed out that if you judge other people that way, sooner or later, you yourself will probably also be judged as unfit. At length he said he was going to bed and would talk to me later. I said, "Don't bother." He laughed that off, and I said, "I have this thing about not including fascists in my circle of friends." He said, "Because democracy is working so well," at which point I concluded I did not want to talk to him anymore. He tried to say hi to me twice after that, so I blocked him.

Lesson 14: Don't be a fascist.

And finally we have the reason I posted this rant. A guy I met online and talked to only occasionally managed to say something offensive almost every time I talked to him. I only talked to him rarely for that reason, usually allowing enough time in between chats for me to forget about whatever idiotic remark he'd made last time. But then, in the span of about a fortnight (during which no one else was online for me to talk to), he made an ass of himself several times, leading to the predictable blocking. First he asked me for some music recommendations, so I showed him a video on YouTube of the Wipers, one of Kurt Cobain's favorite bands, which he apparently didn't like. Rather than saying "meh" or "no thanks," he said, "Oh my God, this is HORRIBLE; that guy's voice is AWFUL." I rolled my eyes and said nothing. A few days later, I asked him if red lipstick on women were good or bad. All the other guys I'd asked said roughly the same thing: Yes, provided it's the right shade in the right setting. He, however, said he hated all makeup on all women, no matter what; if he could tell she were wearing makeup, it was bad. Almost within the same sentence, he brought up his obsession with Scarlet Johansen. I asked if he really believed she woke up looking like that, and he showed me a photo of her with minimal makeup, saying, "She's wearing lipstick, but it doesn't look like lipstick." I pointed out that you could tell she was wearing it . . . I gave up; what was the point. Some days later, as I was right in the middle of telling him about some guy I had a crush on who had unfortunately turned out not to be single, he sent me a link to a YouTube video with some football song in it, asking if it that were exciting or what. I said or what since I'm not much of a football fan and prefer hockey and didn't even recognize the song. He asked, "Oh, so that song only works on football fans?" to which I replied, "Yes, duh." Then I finished my story about my non-single crush, saying I'd Googled him to find out if he were single before I said anything to him. I had found out something rather disturbing about him, which made me doubly relieved that I'd not said anything to him previously. Everyone else who heard this story agreed with me, but this guy said it was creepy that I Googled him. It wasn't like I was trying to find out where he lived or anything; I just clicked on the first search result was all. Deciding it was time for him to go but not wanting to block yet another person, I asked a friend, "How do you get rid of people?" and then, without waiting for an answer, I added, "Oh never mind; I'm just blocking him." I felt a little bad about my shrinking social circle, but that was drowned out by the relief I felt at being rid of him.

Lesson 15: Don't be a tactless idiot.

Now. Am I truly peevish and finicky? I acknowledge that I am picky about whom I talk to, but these are people who have made it past that barrier only to be pushed out again. There must be an easier way to meet people you truly like. I could probably be friendlier with some of the people I work with, but I hesitate to mix my work and social lives. My reputation for snarkiness precedes me, and my desire for solitude rivals that of Severus Snape, but dammit, I cannot possibly be so fastidious that I have the same dozen or two dozen friends and can't meet new people who don't suck. If nothing else, at least those of you reading this and considering messaging me, take a few lessons on what not to do.