In this increasingly virtual world...

In this increasingly virtual world, it is sometimes easy to forget that the people on the other side of the screen are more than the sum of the text they choose to share with us and what we read between the lines may not be reality. Often times, what people choose to share online fails to give the complete story. There are many reasons for this. Perhaps the person doesn’t feel like sharing the full details – they are real people, after all, and entitled to their privacy. Perhaps they aren’t writers and don’t have strong non-verbal communication skills. Perhaps the medium – as in the case of Twitter – doesn’t lend itself to providing full details. There’s only so much you can, or should, say in 140-characters. Maybe the person is just tired and doesn’t feel like typing all the pertinent details out. Or, again, just maybe, it’s none of your business and the person on the other side of the screen is not obligated to share every detail of their existence with anyone with online access.

In a post I would like to see made famous, Neil Gaiman informed a group of readers who were attempting to demand George R.R. Martin do nothing but write – no days out, no watching football, no nothing except writing – that George R.R. Martin was not their bitch. He was entitled to a life apart from the characters and series they had fallen in love with. In fact, he might need a life apart from the character and series in order to be able to create it. When it came to his private life and personal decisions, Martin did not answer to them.

During my growing up years, the only ways people had to reach out and touch you over long distances were by postal mail or telephone. The only individuals with that sort of access usually already knew you. You were highly unlikely to encounter a stranger’s opinion about the letter you wrote to grandma when you answered the telephone or to find that someone you had only conversed with on the most basic level had reached a conclusion about who you were and how you needed to improve based on a comment you had made to friend during a late night phone conversation. Such things were, generally speaking, private. Not so these days.

These days, you can have deep lasting friendships with people you’ve never met anywhere except online. Many of your exchanges with these friends are in the public domain. Snippets of dialogue found in one online locale are continuations of much longer conversations from other internet dominions. Those snippets are used by passerby to form a full image of you devoid of any background or other contextual information. From these snatches of dialogue they feel free to evaluate your existence and judge how you are living your life.

My father’s parents and siblings were not the nicest of people. Sometimes, his siblings would call into the house, intoxicated and belligerent. I was taught from an early age that there was nothing that compelled me to accept a phone call from anyone. Just because someone called into the house and I answered the phone, I was under no obligation to listen to them. I was free to hang up the handset and walk away any time I chose to do so.

Increasingly prevalent technology has not changed this. It is still merely a tool and if someone uses it to cross the boundaries of acceptability, I am not obligated to allow them to continue to do so. As much as people are free to say whatever they want, I am free not to listen. It is an empowering realization and is true not only of phones, but also forums, blogs, twitter, IM, and e-mail. Nowhere, in any contract or agreement that I’ve signed, does it say I must accept communication from any individual not affiliated with the companies providing the service to me.

Life is just too short to allow people who raise your blood pressure or who only want you to feel horrible to have access to you. Life is too short to allow others to judge you and tell you how to live your life. You are the only person who can make the best decisions for you. I am the only person who can make the best decisions for me.