Isn't it funny how we can meet a random person with just a username and trust them so well that we start imagining real lifelong journeys with them? Like, honestly, the speed at which the digital world took over our lives was unimaginably fast. The scary part is that the easiest place to tell lies seems to be online where people can't see beyond the falsehood right in front of them.
About a month or so ago a story broke of a young lady that was brutally murdered by a dude he met online and developed some form of interest in. I didn't follow the story as further investigations unraveled some things but what I noticed was more of a reoccurring pattern: two random people meet online, they check each other's profiles and like what they see. They interact online, and one party gets sucked in while the other projects a fake persona to lure the unsuspecting one.
Honestly, I've seen guys travel far distances to meet people for the first time, and I was always like, "What the hell is wrong with you? You don't know this person, everything he told you on the phone or online may as well be lies." Online or digital relationships can be scary as hell. A lot of people left home in anticipation of getting a job. They applied for and booked interviews online but never returned. It was a trap that ended their lives. The digital world is crazy as it is; making friends with people one knows absolutely nothing about is even crazier.
Despite all these, we are now in a digital world. With remote jobs still on the rise, improving one's skills in digital relationships is now essential. This was nonetheless fast-tracked when Covid hit the world, and a lot of us were forced to sit behind our computers just to catch up for fun and search for work. Just before the Covid pandemic hit I got involved in an online transcription gig.
Aside from the email I got bearing my username and password, the only meeting place to communicate with our superiors was on Slack. My first day on Slack was rough and unnerving. After logging in I was reading stuff on there when I stumbled upon a guy ranting at the superiors. He wanted clarification on one of the guidelines and went in hard on the leadership. The next response he got was that his account had been flagged and removed for using an inappropriate tone. I was like, "Wow, just like that, huh?"
That day I learnt a lesson on how the digital world can be brutal. It can chew one up and spit one out, leaving one feeling helpless and stupid at the same time. For someone like me who easily used expletives back then, I quickly reined it in before it cost me a job that's paying my bills. It was a steep learning curve on how to develop and maintain online relationships.
So, to maintain a healthy online relationship, one of the most important rules is to project mutual respect. Like, don't just go about using the f-word on people simply because you've interacted with them on a couple of occasions. People don't like it. I once mentioned in one of my posts how a friend of my dad chatted me up online and ended up telling me I was rude and that he would report me. I felt he was being too uptight about everything until I checked that chat a couple of years later. With more maturity, I could see that I used wrong and disrespectful words. I was responding to his chat like he was my mate and that pissed him off. Look, when you're online, mind your tone. That's rule number 1.
Recently, I was accused of not interacting steadily in one of the social media forums I belong to, especially in the aspect of throwing banters. The funny thing is I do follow their posts but their banters become condescending in some cases. So, how do I banter with someone I don't have a steady rapport with? The short answer is I don't. That takes us to rule number 2: if you don't have a steady rapport with a person online, don't go saying shit to them because you've seen them throw expletives at others in the group. You don't know the rapport between them. Don't put yourself in the eye of the storm.
Wow, this is getting too long now. To wrap it up, polite and respectful communication with everyone will save one from unneeded headaches. Don't go jumping at people with stupid words like you've known them all your life when, in fact, all you have are things they told you about themselves online. People have been killed for trolling way too hard online. Know when to stop!
