According to my profile on FaceBook I’m wide open to sex and shenanigans with anybody. Rather unseemly for a syndicated religion columnist, don’t you think? It was a Technosaur oopsie on my part, and now I know why strange men have been sending me emails that typically begin, “You sound verrrrry interesting.”
This is where I went wrong. When I signed up on Facebook eons ago, there was a section that asked who was I interested in – Men? Women? In my naïveté I thought, “Now why would I limit new friends to one gender? Of course I’m interested in everybody.” So I checked both.
How was I to know that checking both men and women now signaled I was cruising down the freeway of love, hogging both lanes?
Then the emails from men started, Baby Boomers like myself. The messages were creepy flavored, with no personal information posted on their profiles. Yet they appeared to be impossibly, magazine model handsome, supposedly rich and successful, or high ranking in the military. I may be a Technosaur, but I’m no dummy. Why would an American general write in broken English like he had a foreign accent?
Invariably, the wink-wink-leer email would say, “Tell me your dreams. You sound like a very fun lady.” Then I’d write back, all huffy, “If you bothered to read my profile, you’d see that I was happily married.”
Well, my bad. I forgot my profile showed a blank marital status. That’s because my husband didn’t want to appear on Facebook in any way so nary a mention was made by me. So who could blame the casual FB passerby for thinking, “Ooh-la-la, unattached and swings both ways!” (Thanks a heap, David. This is your fault.)
So did I tell my husband about the emails? Yes, but I won’t get all “high-horsey” on you about openness and trust. It’s called keeping his two feet in one shoe. I’d show him some strange man’s photo (even though I believed the picture was totally faked to a handsome extreme) and then pronounce with great annoyance, “Can you believe this guy? He’s crazy about me.”
Well, once I discovered my Facebook faux pas, I unchecked men and women in the “Interested In” section, and the wow-you-sound-really-interesting emails stopped. On some very odd level, ouch.
Have you ever given the wrong impression of yourself in error (or maybe on purpose)?
So that’s how it’s done! I have trouble getting anyone to pay attention to me on Facebook. This reinforces my idea that I am invisible to most people. Scientists don’t agree with me, but how else can you explain it, when I clearly indicated that I like men?
Well, I have, kinda. People on the internet often mistakenly think I have an interesting life.
Rookie mistake on the FB settings although that is how Scurvy Jane moved in with Jill Y!
It’s amazing to me how all of us have surrendered our privacy. We now have to categorize everything about our lives.
Billy, you are so RIGHT. Sexual preferences, favorite songs, movies just watched, Homeland Security has its hands full these days.
For relationship status you can check, “It’s complicated.” Maybe that would start the emails rolling again! 😉
Ginger, Under Relationship Status, I can write “Technology” and post a link to this column because it is a complicated daily encounter.
It’s always the little sweet ones that shock you Suzette!
This does not, however, erase all the OTHER shenanigans you are undoubtedly up to, SMS. lol.
Wa….hahaha! Oh, you’re good at catching THAT one. Nothing under the radar for you.
Yes, I have accidentally given someone the wrong idea, with hilarious results. Well, I can laugh about it now, anyway. At the time it was just really weird. Love this post!
Lisa, food for column fodder. I once sent out a press release that said, “Open to the Pubic.” Another column for another day perhaps.
Holy crap! I never thought about that! I’d better make sure I didn’t goof it up on my status, either! This was hilarious, though!
Marcia, that makes me feel great, because you’re hilarious!