Welcome to the stalking age:
I want to know everything I can possibly know about you.
The good is good, the bad is better.
I could be a privacy freak who wants you to know nothing about me,
Or an oversharing freak who shows you all of me… or so do you think.
Even the careless among us cares about what others see about us, whether by us or by others.
We exercise our elusive freedom to choose our online identity,
Better yet: compose that identity from scratch,
From what we think we are,
From what we want to be… at least in the eyes of the others.
Because maybe lying to others will bring us closer to actually becoming those perfect beings we long to be.
And goodness knows how much perfection is relative.
Thank you, technology, for helping us:
Receive emails but not send return receipts,
Attend a conference call but not be listening,
Tell voicemails to pretend we’re not there,
Publish to all friends except the ones who shouldn’t read it (hey, who told you none of those friends will share it with them?)
Read messages but claim they are still unread,
Be invisible on chat,
And blog under fictive names!