One Problem with Social Media: U don’t know ME, son!

No cheerful hellos or gentle lead-ins today, diving in the deep end.

The problem with social media is that people think they know you when in reality what they have are slivers and slices of the parts of yourself that you decide to share with the world. Now I will admit to being relatively candid and bringing the true Chele-ness out in my posts, my tweets, my emails and my Facebook updates. But that doesn't mean that all the complexity of me, all the rivers and valleys are out there like a roadmap. So while I expect you to get a good idea of who I am, I don't expect you to know me like my peeps and BougieFam. Doesn't that make sense?

Oh Chele, what done happened now? I hear you asking. Well, let me take a breath and tell you. First, I got hoodwinked into following this one random broad whose tweets were so flagrantly foul that I immediately unfollowed her. She shot over a message, "Thanks for unfollowing me, you stuck up high yellow B*TCH!" Wow, am I all of that? Do we still say high yellow? Oh but it gets better:

I'm typing away on my book last night, pausing here and there to glance over at TweetDeck to see what's on and popping in Tweeterville. A topic caught my eye and I typed in a witty response. Garnered a few LOLs and BWAHAHAs and went on about my way. Then the BlackBerry buzzed with the DM (Direct Message – for those of you not up on Twitter, a Direct Message is a private Instant Message between you and whoever sends it) notification.

Some dude I'd never heard of says he's catching my tweets and visiting my blog and thought I was very clever. I thanked him and asked how his night was going. Just being polite. Clearly my bad. He launched into a six DM dissertation about how he cut his "main bitch" loose this evening because her bedroom game had fallen off. His words, not mine. I had to read it a second time to make sure I had read all of that correctly and finally I typed, "You read my blog, right?" He replied that he did.

So I responded that I was confused as to why he would type this sort of thing to me since nothing on this blog would imply that I'm okay with his thoughts, words or deeds. "Are you offended?" He typed back. I said yes I was and as a matter of fact busy so I hope his evening improved and good night. His response? "That's what's wrong with you pretentious, pampered b*tches – you think you too good for any damn body." My fingers hovered over the keyboard and finally I decided it wasn't worth the rant. I clicked BLOCK THIS USER and went back to work.

Not five minutes later a different twitter account with the SAME dude (same picture!) pops on the DM, "I knew you would block me, I was prepared. Women like you have to be told! That's why I cut this fake-ass princess tonight; she thought she could slide by on her cuteness without giving up the premium p! I bet you are just like that, I bet you-" CLICK, BLOCK THIS USER. Followed up with the warning to twitter spam and moved on… though now I'm wondering if when he says he "cut" a girl, he did mean relationship-wise, right? Cuz he was giving off the crazy, chain-saw welding vibe. Like he could wind up on CNN as one of those dudes who barbecued his girlfriend on the back patio grill (did ya'll catch that last year?) like that was the sane way to end a relationship.

Ding! ANOTHER account, same cuckoo cat. "I realize you probably think I'm some sort of crazy stalker right now but I actually need your advice. I keep running into girls like you one after the after and I always get dogged and played, they don't respect me. I'm actually a really nice person, what am I doing wrong?" Le Chest Heave (far deeper than a sigh). Clearly he isn't going to go quietly into the night without some sort of response, "I think you have me confused with a relationship counselor or therapist and I'm quite sure you don't know enough about me to compare me to the women you meet. Take care."

"I know you are that girl who never had to work for anything, had everything handed to her on a silver platter and men fall at your feet so you can walk all over them. You just use men up and spit them out. I told you, I know you. Now tell me I'm wrong. TELL ME I'M WRONG, B*TCH!"

"Wow, I'm not going to be too many more b*tches this evening. I will say this: You are wrong on every single assumption. Maybe your problem is your inability to read people? At any rate, it's been interesting. I'll be blocking your account now." CLICK and BLOCK.

At this point, I've been pinged by Twitter to see if Captain Crazy is still at it, they ask me to notify them if he DMs from another account so they can trace his IP address and block his ability to use Twitter from that location. Ding! Capt. Crazy account number FOUR pops up and I tell Twitter. They say (just like on CSI) to keep him reading/writing for two minutes so they can cybertrace his nutty ass.

"That's the other thing; women like you think you know everything. You think you can tell people anything and they will do it. All I asked for was some advice, are you too siddity to spare a few words for a brother?"

"Dear whoever you are: from the tone and context of these notes, I would say you are doing plenty wrong. In the span of a few hundred words you have indicated a degree of misogyny, cluelessness and crazy that can only be solved with therapy and high dosages of prescription medication. You say you keep running into girls like me. I'm going to assume you mean attractive, intelligent and able to see you for what you are? You may want to pick a different kind of girl to get with (stupider, looser, deaf?). I can only imagine what you mean by premium p! and what means you used to try and get it. I suspect some sort of felonious assault/stalking case in your future (if you haven't caught a case already). You have (so far) four different twitter accounts, clearly for the purposes of hunting your prey." I pause and Twitter says they need 30 more seconds, so back I go, "But since you asked, here you go: stop referring to your girlfriends as your "main b*tch", stop thinking of excellent sex as "premium p!", erase the phrase "women like you" from your vocabulary and oh yeah… don't ever contact me again." Twitter DMs me his IP address and says he will be blocked from the site in less than a minute, "One more thing, I have your IP address – you aren't welcome on Twitter or in BougieLand ever again… consider yourself blocked."

Now this was a WAY extreme case of someone probably TWOPOM (tweeting while on parole-off meds); but it is along the lines of a few other people that have approached me assuming they know my entire life story based on a few cleverly written words in cyberspace. Well, if nothing else – I figured out how to block certain IP addresses from ever commenting on my blog and was pleased to know that Twitter has some sort of stalker filter beyond just protecting tweets which still doesn't stop a random inmate surfer from directly reaching out.

However, this does beg the question, BougieLand… do people think they know you because they met you on some social media format? Do you think it's really possible to "know" someone without truly spending time in their presence? I was asked on Facebook whether I thought it was possible to fall in love with someone you have never seen face-to-face. Based on my experience (think my eHarmony tales of woe); I replied no. What do ya'll think? How well do you really know your cyber-pals?