Please Don’t Harass Me Because You Believe We’re Soul Mates. I Assure You, Sir. We Aren’t.

That’s me in the photo. Just your regular ol’ writer and sometimes a Superhero on the weekends, but only when the need should arise. Not a model, not 22, just me. I thought that at this age, at this junction, in my life, I wouldn’t have these problems any longer.

I was so, so very wrong.

I use social media for one purpose; marketing. That’s it. You can scroll through any platform, and there are links to my column, and memes I think my readers will find funny. Again, it’s just me selling my craft, nothing else. I’m not even all that interesting these days.

I’m absolutely not a stranger to weirdos in my DM’s, or inappropriate pics, as I am a woman, and it’s just a part of that. But, what does make me clutch my pearls and be certain I’ve loaded my clip is when men get aggressive in my inbox.

Especially over things that imply they’ve developed a “personal connection” to me that I wasn’t aware of. Follow me to the whiteboard, class, and I’ll provide an example.

Today, I’m posting my column, as I do probably five days a week, and I’ve got messages lit up across the board. A few of them, that’s normal, but I also have some obscure spots I draw a crowd from, so I post there as well.

I check the messages, and it’s one guy who has lit me up in 4 different places. Three of them, okay, sure, on the first page when you Google me, but the fourth, he had to put the work in for that one. And I start to get a yucky feeling. I think you know the one I mean.

Reading through these messages, I discover this man has cultivated some sort of connection with me, and it simply does not exist. I don’t know this man, and I’m pretty good with recognizing my readers, because I connect with them regularly, and most of them are great people.

As I get to the fourth, obscure, inbox, I can feel the yuck really starting to take hold. Because evidently the fact that I don’t check my messages, sometimes for a couple of days, has angered this man who thinks that he knows me personally on some level I’m sure that he does not. In fact, he says to me, “thanks for being such a bitch and wasting my time”.

Mmm.

Mmm ummm. Nope. No that’s definitely not going to work for me. I’m certainly a bitch, but I wasted nobody’s time.

I’m very direct and it is to the degree of downright rude if you show up in any online format demanding I carry on a conversation. I have no problem at all telling someone they can either cram it, cram it and be blocked, or they can get their keyboard cowboy ass right on over here to The Bay and I’ll meet them on the porch with my pitbull and my pistol.

It’s not a problem at all. I’m here with those things anyway.

However, the narrative this man has deluded himself into believing. That I’m aware of his affinity for my writing. That I’m somehow magically seeing him do all of this legwork to run down my email and inboxes on social, that I’m surely ignoring him on purpose just to get him in his feelings. And that it merits him calling me out of my name, and I should be sorry I wasn’t more attuned to the sensitivity of this stranger to me on the internet.

It’s now an issue. Now this is a problem.

As a sometimes true crime writer, and often antipolitical political writer, I have a toolkit that is unbelievable. Some private investigators don’t have the kit I have. I will smoke you out, even if I have to use the Wayback Machine. If you have left a digital crumb in your babymommas’ Aunties’ name, I’m coming for it. And I will find your ass, and I will expose your ass.

I’m excellent at it, really, have me run you sometime. It’s great for a laugh.

Of course, this is what I immediately do. And I’m not happy to report, not only is he here in Florida, he’s in the damned Bay. And yet, I’m still 100% sure, I don’t know this man.

And now I’m at that shitty place where I want to block him, but I also need to be aware if he’s sending me other crazy ass ramblings that I need to stay on top of. Because if you can read their playbook, they can’t catch you with an audible.

Again, ladies, I’m sure you know what I am saying.

So, I’ve decided I’ll let this be my column here tonight, and we’ll give it a wait and see. Because I was just able to say today, “please don’t contact me again”, there’s not really a lot else I can say.

I have been in this position before, many years ago, with a severely unhinged individual. And currently have another individual, a woman, surprisingly, who has done something extreme not too long ago. Just part of telling your personal life story as part of your craft. I understand that, and take it as it comes.

But, in those other cases, and in this case from today, it is beyond uncomfortable. It is unnerving. I am okay being a spectacle. I’m not okay being an imaginary girlfriend, or the object of a rapidly growing obsession. I am simply a writer, sometimes true crime stuff, sometimes antipolitical politics, but never tales of the people who try to get too personal and scare the shit out of me.

You hate to call it what it is and say you’re making it public record, but yes, I guess that’s it. There’s no way to filter it into something less than that.

That’s all. I’m just here to write, tell a few stories, maybe do that Superhero on the weekend thing I do. Please don’t harass me because you believe we’re soul mates. I assure you, sir. We aren’t.

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This post was previously published on April Hawkins, Ask A Bitchface.

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