Bad Impressions Are My Forte, Apparently

I am having a, "people are being weird on the internet," day.

 

More specifically...people I've never met or interacted with are being weird, *at me*, on the internet.

 

I'm not sure what I did to generate the weird, because as I mentioned above, I remember no interactions, but I'm cursed with a mind that notices inconsistencies, so of course I did notice the weird, even if I barely noticed the people.

 

Huh.

 

Did you ever have that in real life? Where you find out someone has a strong negative reaction to you for some unknown reason, and you don't even really know them?

 

Strangely...that's happened to me dozens of times! I must be a real joy of a person.

 

This time (the internet time) it was someone with whom I have never interacted who blocked me on Twitter. I have no clue who this person is outside of a vague geographical reference, and they appear to be friends with someone with whom I occasionally interact but who is also not a friend of mine, just...another fucking person on the internet. I don't recall ever speaking to the blocker and I definitely don't recall ever speaking to them in such a way that would warrant any action, positive or negative.

 

But...blocked. Ha!

 

One time a guy blocked me on Twitter for correcting his spelling of the word "Bismarck."

 

Perfectly fair!

 

No, really! That's acceptable. Sometimes you just don't want to fucking hear it and that's OK. I've blocked people who tried to join an amicable conversation as a devils advocate, because I wasn't in the mood to debate a stranger in 140 character intervals. Mute, block, whatever. But...if you've never had a conversation with a person, or an interaction that you remember, and they block you...what is that, exactly?

 

Ultimately, it's the internet, so, who cares? Assigning any real value to those interactions is ridiculous, and besides, if you don't want someone to see you, either A) Don't go on Twitter or B) Have your account set to private so random people can't look at it. Invite your select group of people and stay in your little hide-y hole. Trust me, no one will give a fuck one way or the other.

 

It's the real life stuff that makes you pause and wonder what goes on in people's heads.

 

One time, a lady I worked with decided to hate me (to this day, no idea why...) and I specifically remember a day when we met in a hallway and she turned her head away and wouldn't even look at me.

 

If you've worked in an office, you know that's completely odd--you spend 8 hours a day exchanging non-committal pleasantries with people at work, or at least I do. Nobody is purposely rude. To go out if your way to be UN-pleasant is...very weird.

 

Then there was the time someone from work (different job) invited me to a Halloween costume party at their house. I had no intention of going because it wasn't my kind of thing, but I accepted their invitation with office-level non-binding graciousness. A couple of days before the party, the host informs me that they had to cancel the party. Obviously, this didn't affect me in any way because I had no intention of attending the stupid thing in the first place. I gave them the old, "Oh, that's too bad!" and went about my day--wasn't even a memorable blip until a week later when I found *pictures from the party* on one of the desks at work!

 

I...what?

 

I mean, I didn't care about the party enough to want to go but apparently somebody didn't want me there enough  to go to the trouble to make up a lie to uninvite me.

 

Aaaand we have arrived at the point.

 

Sometimes, when you're out there being you, and thinking nothing of it, you end up taking up space in someone else's head, quite by accident. You don't notice anything in particular, but they notice *every fucking thing* and it upsets them in some way, for reasons you will never understand.

 

The bad (and good) news is that there is not a damn thing you can do about it. If you tried to find out what the problem was, there is a fair chance you'll just piss them off even more, and you don't need that kind of aggravation. Nobody needs that kind of aggravation.

 

Accept the fact that you're on their mind. Take it as a compliment! You made an impression! It was a bad one, but hey, you're not forgettable...