The list of “critics” grows. Today I was accosted on Biggercity by a member named “BartmanLA” who threatened to “report” me for violation of TOS because I was “lurking” on that site! He must not have anything better to do than to monitor who is online for how long. He actually complained that I was taking up bandwidth, but I reminded him that I was allowed to chat and that if I had not used the name “HaydennetDotCom” he never would have even known who I was! I don’t like to be anonymous like so many people online, but I also reminded him that I could assume in infinite number of identities on there in the future and he would never know it. BartmanLA on Biggercity.com is the jerk who exemplifies the caliber of men who care what I do with my social life. For convenience I have posted one of his glorious pictures here. He’s a real beauty, isn’t he? Inside and out.
I wrote this blog because I think it ridiculous how some people can speculate as to what my online agenda is. I hope that this will clarify that while I have a very busy life, my computers have helped make me a more efficient father, friend, lover, son, sibling and citizen. Besides, I’m an adoptive New Yorker. If NYC never sleeps, why should my online persona?
Some people have prejudged my personality and social ambitions because I leave my computers online and often in chat rooms pretty much all the time. I do have family on the West Coast of the USA and the East Coast, as well as in Europe and speak to people all over the world, so one never knows when someone is going to want to drop me a little note.
However, there is more to it than that. I’ve always been the kind of person who likes to stay in touch and much of my days are spent keeping a meticulous database of the people with whom I like to stay in contact, even if I never meet them in person but have established some common interests either based on my web sites or wherever or however else they found me. Isn’t that what life is all about?
Like books, computers are here to serve us humans. I paid for my computers, I pay for my internet connection and I often pay for some sites that I use chat rooms on. Even if I don’t, I am exposed to the advertisers on such sites. Some people think I should explain my presence in profiles (not personal ads in my opinion as personal ads are solicitous). If anyone should be questioned for their presence in various places on the Internet, one would think it would be those who refuse to do profiles because if everyone was like them, no one would ever find each other!
I guess I should just admit the truth. I am trying to be omnipotent online (like gawd) so that I can rule the world. Actually, the truth is that I do not subscribe to the school of thought that shutting down idle computers is necessarily good for them. Many of my boxes (I have 11 at this time) do not even have monitors as I use switch boxes and remote control software to view them. With live updates and low voltage on most computers it makes sense to keep a computer regularly connected and updated with patches and saves me the down time of starting the up and shutting them down.
More importantly, I run a business and a server from my home. I have paying clients who depend on their web sites and email to be delivered around the clock, as well as my domains like this one. If my computers were shut down, then none of these web pages would work and the email would bounce. Accordingly, if my friends do not see me online, that means my server is probably down and will contact me to let me know, so it is a bit of a alert system for me.
I also shouldn’t have to explain that it would take a huge portion of my day if I was constantly logging in and out of chat rooms so that I would never risk the possibility of not responding to someone immediately. Not everyone even deserves my immediate attention, but I endeavor to at least say “hi” to everyone who saw fit to private me in one forum or another and I always return mail as my schedule permits and depending on the time-sensitivity of the content. If the person who chats me up when I am away has a profile with adequate means for me to reach him (or her) after I return to my desk or he has decided to log off for some reason or got disconnected, then I always prepare an apologetic email with how to get in touch with me more efficiently. Not everyone checks their email or even allows email from my domain (AOL users please check your settings and Yahoo users check your quotas), but I do my best.
Furthermore, I think some people get the impression that I am sitting at my screen fixated every moment at what others are doing. I have never been one to watch what is often insipid chatroom banter, but I certainly would not do so in all of the rooms I am concurrently in. I am much more interested in people with whom I have something in common and who have an interest in me, physical or otherwise.
I have been told that I’m a hard-nose about chat netiquette, as I have a web page on the subject. However, I like to think of myself as a zero-bullshit person and I think that most of the people who get to know me understand that when it comes to forthcoming people, I am a nice guy with no attitude, even if I have no interest in communicating with someone indefinitely, but that I lose my patience very quickly with people who are evasive online for whatever reason.
My online persona, including the perpetual room lurker, is not a fair assessment of who I am, but often people who wish to criticize me find fodder in my presence — or omnipresence as the case may be. What I don’t understand is how they could possibly know that I was “everywhere” if they weren’t also. And how could they know that I was “always” online if they were not logging in themselves around the clock? Indeed, some of my friends use me as a test case to see if theirbuddylists are working. If Joe Hayden is not listed, then they probably don’t have a valid connection!
Do I over-expose myself? Perhaps. What do I have to lose? It’s not like I — as a single, custodial gay father — can go out hustling myself like many gay men and show my face in the bars every night, not that that would be appealing. I have responsibilities but can be in various online areas simultaneously with very little effort. I don’t have to be actively LOOKING for anything or anyone to be there. It is my business, after all, who I engage in chat with and I know I have high standards for that.
So at the risk of over-exposing myself, I do have a valid argument. Sometimes if I was not seen on various buddylists I would not be considered “available” for various social outings. The old adage that “out of sight, out of mind” holds very true for buddylists.
Incidentally if I’m in a love or romance chat room, please don’t think I desperately expect to find a romance. I’m lucky if I can even find a good conversation some days online. I am probably in the rooms I am in just there because there were more men in there than the otherwise more appealing “intellectual” room, for example (even though it amazes me that even in there some men find difficulty in doing profiles). I have made many wonderful communications with people who I originally met online so I’m not knocking it, but I am not desperate as I have chosen to be single and will deal with whatever comes my way.