Since the beginning of the internet, Emails are an integral part of life be it for work or for play. It makes it so easy for communicating with people. Type in your contents and click the send button and that’s it. It would be unspeakable to take away emails from daily life.
But there are days when I just cant stand looking at my email. And just to be clear, I’ve received many nice emails and has had nice conversations and went on to become friends to even meeting them in real life, which is really nice.
Sometimes there are a conglomeration of people who email me the same questions. While its not so bad once or twice in a span of time, it does get overwhelming when it gets back to back. Its like back when I was teaching computer applications to a group of kids, and the situation inevitably becomes like this :
Me : Okay kids, click on this button and you can make a circle. Try it!
Kid1 : Miss Marina! Miss Marina! Is this how you make it?
Me : That’s good
Kid2 : Miss Marina! Miss Marina! Did I do it correctly?
Me : Yes dear
Kid3 all the way to kid40 : Miss Marina! Miss Marina! Miss Marina! x 100
Me : Sigh
But in the end, that’s not so bad because although annoying, that these kids don’t mean bad and instead, genuinely interested to learn and get information. And throughout the years, I learnt to be a little more patient and understanding because its just better that way. But what are the biggest thing that really ticks me off is rude, demanding, and tactless people.
Example 1 : Dear Marina, could you please tell me how to _____ ?
I take precious time out of my busy domestic goddess life to reply back to you, and give you information. And that’s the end of it. The end. Nothing heard back from you. Not a “Oh hey, that worked!”, “Sorry Marina, I think that its too far for me”, “Thanks for helping me out, I really appreciate it!”
But no, not even a thank you. Would it kill you to have the courtesy to reply back to give feedback?
Example 2 : GIVE ME FREE!
Ok. So let me get this straight. You want to use my photo that I have taken to be used in a commercial website but you want my watermark removed, you don’t offer payment, or at the very least, not even a credit back to this site?
The answer is no.
Example 3 : I want you to do link exchange with me!
Did you even read the sites that you go to before putting your copy and paste text in their contact page? Is it so difficult to do a search on who the blog owner is? And is it so difficult to type our their name to make a little bit of a semblance that you give a crap.
No Scott, I am not interested. And if you took the time to read a few pages of this blog, you’ll see it is completely unrelated to your site.
But this guy that I’m going to show you really takes the cake.
Exhibit 4 : The creepy spammer
He starts off being a blog reader, putting his comments in blog posts. I thought that he was an eccentric, but mostly a harmless, retired man living in California. Then he started to use my contact page and eventually, I gave him my email address for easy communication.
And then he started to put comments like this :
And in the emails :
He tried to add me on facebook :
All of which I’ve ignored since he’s already has lost my trust. And not content that I’ve been ignoring him, he starts to spam me instead.
This is so creepy, its not funny! He compares me to my blog-mate Claudia constantly, he spams me even though I’ve already asked him to stop, and having known my email, he stops commenting on the blog post and instead EMAILS me his comments about my blog posts, and even my TWITTER! It is as if he has something to hide by not replying to the sites directly.
The last I’ve heard is that he’s been bothering other Singaporean female bloggers too! What is with this guy?!
Thank goodness there is a block function on gmail and facebook. I’d probably go ballistic without it.
I know I don’t usually rant in my blog, but you know, I’ve had enough!
Oh man. I love that video. Do you think Claudia has posted it on her blog? Hang on a minute, send me your email so I can let you know about all of the things I don’t remember if I told you about yet, like these cool rocks and these other things that you and Claudia can get your hands into together.
By the way, do you know where I can get a Swiffer in Rome? I think Claudia posted about it but I can’t remember. I’ll send you a Facebook invite soon so we can be bestest friends, do a link exchange and then even share photos for commercial websites for free!
Claudia is pretty cool, but so are you!
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LOL. Sorry Rinaz! I couldn’t resist! That guy sounds a bit odd to me. A little too stalker-ish. I’m glad you found the filter on GMail. ^_^
Man that’s annoying! Is a good thing you’re not in Rome or I’d throw a rolled up newspaper at you! Or maybe I’ll just let Margee know :p
Free newspaper for me! ^_^
Seriously though, I can understand how annoying it must be to constantly have him comparing you to whoever Claudia is. If he’s commenting on your blog, it should be about your blog. I suppose it’s ok to mention other people’s work sometimes, but not all the time. It’s a matter of etiquette.
I occasionally have people sending me messages or emails instead of replying to my posts on the post. I’ve never had one get creepy like this though.
Indeed … there’s a lot of weirdos out there.
You just can’t trust anyone online these days.
For me, I try to keep an open mind and see how it goes, because in my opinion, everyone have their own merits but once the trust is gone, that’s it buddy.
That’s called stalking online, Marina!! So freaky and creepy that guy is! Like Uncle Sha wrote, can’t trust anyone online. Oh yes.. i think in yr post of the Carpisa bags..there was a lady who asked u if u could help on her worn out purse… strange people..shouldn’t she just email directly to Carpisa?? ;( What annoys me sometimes in emails that some people dont read anymore what they write.. u can find typo errors and might lead to misunderstanding. Glad u hv that filter in yr mail system! Phew!! 🙂
Oh, that lady was probably just trying to up her SEO by commenting in my blog because she also attached a link of her estate realty website, I’ve deleted it already, probably another copy-paster.
And yes, hooray for filter function! Oh my, its a huge improvement from the very first time I touched email back in 1998!
hey I have similar experience as you. One university kid asked me for lecture notes, I zipped them and emailed him, and then no more news from him. Not even a thank. Maybe it’s time I disturb him.
Oh my!! I didn’t know that he actually compared us this way! And boy its been 2 yrs this started! Crazy man!
Hope all is well for you now.
Oh wow you have a stalker! You’re a celebrity! Cool! I wouldn’t mind having a stalker, then I can complain about him to my friends and make my life seem so much cooler than it really is. 😛
The most that’s ever happened to me online is that weird people add me up requesting to get to know me better and if possible, start a romantic relationship with them or something, which is kinda gross, considering they are like, 5-10 years older than me, sometimes older? GROSS. You should make like, a parody of these kind of online psychos on your Youtube page! 😀
Diana
i hope Gary sees this and decides to stop, since nobody (neither you nor Claudia) care for him to continue stalking you…