YOUR FAULT OR MY FAULT OR A BIT OF BOTH?

     Is it still considered cyberstalking if you're only passively using the internet to keep an occasional eye on someone? I don't know. Usually when I hear the term I associate it with attempts to crack passwords or creating sock-puppet accounts to surreptitiously follow a person on social networking sites...shit like that.

     But what is it when it's passively done? Y'know, like with no attempts to communicate or harass? Like the girl I had a crush on in high school. We went to the same school...even had some of the same classes, so of course I saw her most days of any given week and would pay attention to her and get to know things about her through observation and overhearing things about her and on rare occasion by her. But I wouldn't bother her. I wasn't trying to use her friends to get to her. Okay, I did steal a picture of her once and followed her home this one time.
      Now I know that sounds bad, especially the latter one, but both were done opportunistically. In the latter case, it's not like I was waiting for her to leave at school and following a safe distance behind (or ahead as was my case). If I had done that, then yes...total psycho-stalker creep. The reality was that I just happened to notice she was walking about a block behind me. I ended up going out of my way, curious to where she was gonna turn. But it was just that one day and time. I even found out totally by chance later on, that that wasn't even where she lived. I dunno, maybe she was babysitting there or something. No, a mutual friend was bringing us home one day (school project...different story) and dropped her off first. So now I knew where she lived...but not because I had TRIED. And I didn't do anything about it. It became something I just knew.

      Anyways, my point is that. Because the internet is the thing these days. What if your cyberstalking is exclusively a passive activity? That is, you're just taking advantage of the person's lax security settings like you're a friend of a friend on Facebook and all the settings on the photos are viewable by "Friends of Friends" or they have a public Twitter feed or a public Instagram/Photobucket/Flickr account? Does that count or is that more like the equivalent of finding a phone number and address in an old phone book?
      Is searching on Google or Bing an e-mail address considered stalking or is that again, like looking someone up in a phone book?

      I feel like these attempts at justification answer my own question and that is, "Of course they are!...but I understand." What compels me to look in the first place? It's that feeling alone which poisons the activity no matter how benign. But still...it feels different. It's more like gathering intelligence and again, it's all passive. It's not like I'm using keyloggers or surreptitiously photographing at a distance or harassing their family/friends/coworkers so what exactly is IT that I am speaking of?
       A slightly different scenario. A girl shared several nude photos of herself with me a couple of years back all linked to a Photobucket account. The folder those pictures were in was marked private. However, the files were either unchanged default names (like IMG_0014 - put that in a Google Image Search and see what comes up! For additional fun, put MVI_00## in a YouTube search and see what comes up) or simple words like "pink", "me", or "silly". Now, you can't see the album, but if you have a direct link you can see the picture so on some bored nights I would try and guess file names and would occasionally succeed. Now that is tougher to justify. In fact, I can't. I think that actually counts as cyberstalking as I was taking advantage of a site vulnerability (since corrected by Photobucket...unfortunately) and not lax security protocol on the part of the user. I remember MySpace having a few exploits as well though the picture ones were fixed (unfortunately) before I ever got an account.
      Facebook offers a questionable example. Back in 2009 I believe, they changed their security settings and defaulted everything on everyone's profile to "Friends of Friends" unless you changed it. I was still reading Gawker at the time and was immediately aware of it and fixed my settings immediately. Not everyone did, including one of my crushes. She eventually did fix it but only after Facebook made it much easier to do so (I'm gonna take it she's not very computer savvy). Its current privacy screw-over is that all cover photos and all new profile photos are Public by default. You can change the profile picture setting, but not the cover photo. She hasn't noticed this...yet. But is that a site vulnerability issue making it thus cyberstalking or is that a user issue making her responsibility and thus I am merely seeing what anyone is allowed to see?

     It's such a confusing thing...

The first six unfiltered Bing Image Search results for IMG_0014:

IMG_0014 collage

MVI_0014 on YouTube

INTERESTING...

     I saw this post on Facebook not too long ago. I'm well aware of the faulty reasoning contained therein, but nevertheless, it remains an interesting thought:

I never got why people would kill themselves.

So if you want to die you obviously don't give a shit about anyone. Because if there is anyone who loves you, you don't give a FUCK about them, or hurting them, and if there's not, then there's no one to give a shit about.

So instead of killing yourself why don't you get
the fuck out? Leave the basement, leave your house, leave your motherfucking country. Go on an adventure. Spend your time doing something awesome, like tracking down some terrorist. Go be James Bond. Go fuck up a shark with a harpoon. Danger? Fuck that, you were going up against a 100% death rate before, you're being safe now. Fuck EVERYTHING, man, the world is your oyster.

Sometimes I wish I was suicidal, I'd pull the barrel out of my mouth, point it in the air, and start a revolution. LIVE. Move to Barcelona, hit the bars, bang some chicks.

And then when I'm done, maybe I wouldn't want to kill myself, because I've seen how beautiful this world is.

tl;dr GO FUCKING DO SOMETHING!

ADDENDUM: A follow-up post from this user on Facebook had this to say:

Amanda Todd

Ok, well let's just get this all out of the way so you all can stop your bitching about this dead girl. A lot of what is posted in her video and on her page is fabricated to make her look like she was an angel. Think again.

1. She was 15 years old when she flashed those guys.
2. She did it out of her own free will. She CHOSE to do it.
3. She already flirted with many guys before.
4. She got 'beat' up at school not because of the picture, but because she slept with another girl's boyfriend. (refer to #1)
5. The guy 'bullied' her once only about 6-8 months after she flashed online. Not multiple times over 2 years.
6. She was known to have slept with multiple men and to sell herself out.
7. Her home life wasn't the best. (family troubles)

You people who are giving her sympathy and pity should all be ashamed of yourselves. Instead of giving pity to a girl who already committed suicide, how about you talk to that lonely kid at lunch? Yea, the one who sits all alone in the corner. But no, you'd rather sit with your friends and then come home and get on facebook and say shit like 'Oh, how come no one helped poor Amanda, she's so pretty, why did she have to die'. FUCK YOU! Go crawl back in your shell of safety while the ones who really need help are only an arms length away.

We should be talking about the ones who were bullied and managed to survive through it all. The success stories. Because that's what gives kids hope, the ones who know what it's like to be in their shoes. The ones who have walked that road before and came out ok.

What kind of message does it send to impressionable teens that if you go ahead and kill yourself that you will get thousands of likes on a facebook page and everyone will feel sorry for you and give you attention? If you have any self respect for the future then you'd stop and think about where your morals are. If you're too confused with your emotions and common sense, then just get off the internet entirely. No one wants to read your idiotic comments and your emotion filled rage tantrums.

tl;dr Stop giving pity to a dead girl. Give it to the ones who deserve it.

Again, not saying it is a valid point nor am I attesting to the veracity of the statements above about Amanda Todd's personal life...just another interesting point and yes, as a kid left to sit alone and be friendless in the days before online was a big deal and social-networking was just a dream (assuming anyone was even having that dream) and when cellphones were for rich douches...yeah, talk to that kid. Be a fucking friend instead of a fucking douchebag. And yeah, what about the survivors of bullying? If I was bullied at all, it was through ostracism. I'm not much of an inspiration. My Best Friend had it worse as did my former roommate who came out at a time when that still was a difficult thing to do and he was made to suffer for it rather than be praised.

I don't know. I have to go to bed. Maybe I'll amend this thought later. For now...just pause, and consider.

FACEBOOK CUTTING ROOM FLOOR

     It's been a while since I've done a Rejected Facebook Statuses dump. So let's begin, shall we?

HEART OF FACEBOOK DARKNESS...

      I am finally in a depressed-enough position to present another edition of rejected Facebook posts. A girl took a sudden interest in me on Plenty of Fish, and though we had texted and actually talked, I fear once again I am a One-Call Wonder.

     As with previous posts (follow the tag), Facebook status updates get rejected due to changing circumstances, because they have fallen out of favor, or because I wrote too many on a single topic. I limit myself to a single update per day (if that) so multiple variations on a theme means many of these updates end up in "the pile". They get mixed up over time so I wouldn't concern yourself with chronology...

I GUESS BETTER NOW THAN THEN...

      Fuck! She changed her privacy settings! My days of passively cyberstalking Digby on Facebook are over. For a long time now, she had her profile set mostly to be viewable by "friends of friends" of which, I was. I deleted her back in about March 2011 and only then discovered this delightful exploit in her settings which allowed me to more calmly decompress after her leaving where I work. Having that access I guess could be likened to a nicotine patch that if I didn't have, I would've been considerably crazier in response.

      I was like that when she first deleted me back in 2008. This was before one of Facebook's controversial revamps - the one that defaulted everyone's privacy settings to "friends of friends" - so I lost access to her pictures and posts totally and I got quite obsessive watching her friends for any new picture posts with Digby in them. It was not a fun time. Eventually Digby and I reconciled and we refriended until 2011 when it all ended once and for all. I was happy to have continued access...until yesterday that is. Now all I can see is whatever her current profile picture is. I can't see her infuriating posts either (infuriating because she would lament for things that I knew damned well I could provide or was spouting philosophies which were exactly what I was doing to no avail...I'll consider posting some day...I have to remove her identity from the posts but leave enough to show it is her). It's all gone. Sigh...but better now, about six months after she quit than six days.

      She finally clicked on the privacy settings tab. Motherfucker! I got some good pictures over the months though :-)

MORE REJECTED FACEBOOK POSTS...

      It really does bug me just how prolific I get when I am sad. It hasn't even been two months since the last time I made one of these posts and I've already got so many slips of paper that I'm making another entry while stalling  going to bed so I don't have trouble sleeping tomorrow.

Here goes:

HELPFUL TIP FOR THE LADIES

      This has happened to me twice in a row now. Hardly a trend, but no less annoying.

      What I am talking about is relationship statuses online...specifically Facebook since that is the hub website du jour of the internet. Don't be like Digby, who I know for a fact had three boyfriends over the past four years but never once changed her status from Single to In a Relationship with So&So. Sadly (and I say this for her), she could have avoided my numerous advances entirely had she been "In a Relationship with So&So". If a girl is taken, I'm not gonna hit on her (at least once I know). Now, maybe you don't want to change that little status marker for fear of the embarrassment that comes if and when it needs to be changed back to "Single", but there's a way around that.

      Number Twelve, while it listed "In a Relationship", made me question it because when I first friended her, she was listed as "Married" to one of her female best friends so when it switched to "In a Relationship", while a fair hint you might say, the fact that it had not indicated with whom and the fact that none of her friends "Liked" this change nor commented on it suggested to me that it might be a feint. I searched her pictures and saw nothing to indicate she actually had a boyfriend.

      This was also true of Digby. I know these boyfriends existed because I learned about them afterward through hearsay amongst her friends. But never once was a picture posted of her with one of these boys. And here is your helpful hint.

      Now, while I'm aware there are those guys who simply do not give a fuck and will proposition you anyway regardless of what you post, you can still relieve yourself of the headache of better mannered men by simply posting that you are "In a Relationship with So&So". The "with So&So" part is important as it puts a hope-killing fact right in your face. But there's a better way...a blunter way.

       What you do is, create a photo album with just one picture in it of you and your boyfriend. Label him as your boyfriend whether by name or by status. Secondly, call the album something very in-your-face like "I Have a Boyfriend So Leave Me The Fuck Alone". Simple. Elegant. Blunt.

       Now, if you're the type who posts a lot of picture albums, just remember to add a photo to it once-in-a-while to keep it up to date. You can leave the total photo count at one, but make sure it remains visible.

       Thank you.

      And yes, should I ever get a girlfriend, you can be damned sure I will enjoy posting just such an album myself for the sheer pleasing arrogance of it.

TERRA INCOGNITA ON THE HORIZON...

      The fourth incarnation of my online dating profiles seem to be the charm. I may finally be on course to securing successfully a date off these things. So far, OKCupid seems to be a place to meet new friends as I am up to two so far and Plenty of Fish seems the better place for finding a date. I don't know why that is.

      The timing was even good. I asked a girl out at work whom I am convinced is totally attracted to me. Although she accepted at first my invitation to "buy her dinner tomorrow after work", I think she misheard me and thought I had said, "get some dinner tomorrow after work." Hours later, she figured it out and told me that she had a boyfriend so I was sidelined. She still wants to be my friend, though. Though brief, I am going to classify her as the twelfth one and for want of a better alias, will refer to her as Number Twelve (or simply Twelve or whatever I feel like settling on).

      Her behavior though, is confusing. Maybe she just likes me as sees something in me that she really needs in terms of friendship or maybe I'm right and she not only is really attracted to me but has also optioned me in the even of her current relationship's end. After her shift ended on Saturday, she spent a half hour exclusively with me at my register (despite other choices remaining available...VERY unusual for me. In fact, that's the first time that has happened to be in nearly eleven years), even bagging customers groceries so we could talk. She is not wanting for friends: I know this. So I'm confused as to what is going on. It's potentially a poisonous mix, but I intend to be a good boy and be solely her friend. She set the rule and now only she can change it. However, because she is confusing me...I feel it in my Mind that she has been reclassified as a Secondary.

      To help my dear reader(s) out with my insanity, crushes come in four flavors: Primaries, Secondaries, Dormant, and Past. You can blame my Best Friend for this because simple answers were never enough for her. She long ago started me on a path of introspection. You get to suffer with the results. A Primary is an active crush and intense. A Secondary is more a passive crush that, while weaker in intensity, remains persistent. A Secondary can exist without a Primary but is usually overshadowed by one. Rabbit is an example of this. For over four years, she was never able to become a strong focus. A Dormant Crush is like an ember. The fire has gone out, but it still glows, fading as time goes on. The First One and Digby are examples of this. A Past Crush is a dead one. I have moved on completely in terms of longing. They will always be extremely attractive to me because that never changes, but...they're over. There are also Potentials,  those who could be crushes but are missing that certain something to push them over the edge be it predictability of presence (don't see them enough...I have one in mind right now), immediate knowledge of their unavailability (either they're introduced as a girlfriend/wife of so&so or make their disinterest in you known immediately - a prerejection if you will), inappropriate context (let's say, at a funeral for the sake of example), etc. The list of Potentials would be quite long but often I've never learned their names because I only saw them once (or a couple of times at random).

      If I sensed no attraction from Number Twelve, I would move on from her, but her confusing behavior is causing me to retreat into the shadows and watch...and wait...should the day ever come that I may be called upon. It could persist for years or new information could cause it to die quickly. For example...

      I have received attention from four women in the past week on Plenty of Fish. One is just looking for friends (I hope, because I am not feeling it otherwise). Another seemed interested but I guess I failed that audition because I have not heard from her in days now. Another week and I'll delete her from my phone. Then I got two this morning. It's exciting, especially since both seem accepting of my baggage (my place of employment and lack of car/driving). One is moving faster than the other. I just hope I don't have to choose...that it works out to one or the other or the other because the last time I had to choose, I chose badly and have suffered under the effects of that "curse" for thirteen years now.

     I am not in terra incognita yet, but I may very well be soon. This could be the first time in a while that I will really be putting my intelligence to the test...see if I can pull a relationship out of my ass with nothing to go on except suppositions, experiences with friends, exaggerations learned from television and movies, articles read, and anecdotes. Should be interesting...to say the least of it.

     And here I wrote in a fit of sadness quite a number of Facebook status updates that were wonderfully depressing. I guess I won't be sharing them with my FB friends now...keep an eye out for them here one day :-)

ODDS & ENDS

      I have a growing pile of discarded Facebook status updates that are no longer postable as the time for them has passed or they weren't funny enough or because I try to only post one depressing status update when I'm sad rather than like ten in-a-row over the course of a day so I don't worry my friends both real and Facebook-only.

      Here goes...

THE SECRET LIFE OF MY FACEBOOK ACCOUNT...

      Like far too many people on this planet, I have a Facebook account and like other social networking sites, an option for a status update exists. Nowadays, I try to only post updates that are unique compositions (as far as I know anyways) while avoiding overly personal content, updates giving away my current location, and pointless updates (such as what I am about to do or eat - unless I'm being sarcastic of course!). I still occasionally post quotes but will acknowledge sources where available and have moved on from posting song lyrics. However, that doesn't mean there are updates which have been passed over for one reason or another; fallen to the wayside; ones which have lost their context; ones which I couldn't quite work out; or simply were, upon further consideration, inadvisable to post (be they passive-aggressive to obvious parties or really, really depressing).

        However, that does not mean I would not like to share them as well as any reason why I passed them over (if I can recall it of course). So without further ado, here are some examples: