The perils of the Internet

This morning I was messaging with the grandson's fiance, who has been, and still is, sick with what is probably the flu.  She had said something in a message about how she would like to lie in bed all day but the grandson would want her to get up and do something.  "Tell him his grandma said you are sick and need to rest," I ordered.

She answered that she would, and that Arick wouldn't argue with that.  But before she could answer, I somehow found myself in an old message with a local friend.  Thinking I had told HER to tell somebody what grandma said, I apologized and told her that message was for Heather... and then I realized that the message did not shown up there, but in the message with Heather.   So how did I end up in the middle of an old message with this friend?  I have no clue.  I do know that when something like that happens, I always feel like an idiot.  We chatted for awhile and I tried to back out gracefully.

In the first place, I have too many Facebook friends... local people that I don't know at all, or perhaps only know by their faces; this makes it easier to end up with these "duh" moments.  For the most part, they were the ones who sent the friend request, not the other way around.  If I know who the person is sending the request, and we have mutual friends, I accept, but it always puzzles me why someone who runs in entirely different circles and who is obviously out of my league would even care what I post on Facebook.  Funny thing is, if one of these people unfriends me, it's usually someone who sent me the friend request in the first place, and often I don't notice they are gone for months, if at all.  Because how do you miss someone you don't know?  Occasionally I go through my list and un-friend people with whom I have no interaction.  One of those re-friended me the other day.  Honestly, except for the guy's last name and that he's a local, I don't have a clue who it is.  As far as I know, I've never met him.  But I once again accepted his request even though he never has a thing to say to me.  

Truthfully, most of my faraway Internet friends are the ones I really "know", thanks to blogs and the old chat room.  Some I've met face to face, some I haven't, but I still know a lot about them because of things we've shared online.

I was reminded of the early days in the Christian chat room when I was new to the Internet.  Someone emailed me (remember when we used email?) a funny joke, which I don't recall now.  While it had had a slight innuendo in the text, it was barely even risque; I forwarded it to all my Christian chat friends, including WESTBILT, a Baptist preacher.  Unfortunately I didn't read to the end, because after the hilarious joke I had laughed at was another joke that WAS dirty.  Believe me, it didn't take long for people to tell me about it, but not WESTBILT.  Redfaced, I sent him an apology and explained that I had not read the email to the end.  He kindly let me know, in his unique way, that it was no big deal, and I felt much better.

If you've been on the Internet long, I'm sure something like this has happened to you.  I think these days maybe it's the text-messaging that embarrasses most folks.  Thank goodness I don't text.