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| Blogs > matt-battler > Captain Caveman finally speaks |
Crazy fun with role reversal
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Crazy fun with role reversal So this here website has been making various changes in the past few months, making it far less attractive to be a Standard Member. One set of changes has been increasing restrictions on the use of the Instant Messenger which, outside of these blogs is the main way I communicate with people. The Instant Messenger has never worked as well as the dedicated messengers provided by mainstream internet companies, despite this I've always been keen to use it as I like to do my homework on people (you need to find out a certain amount to make sure that if you meet, it's going to go okay) and I'm not interested in anyone not capable of holding a conversation from start to finish. Recently the website has limited Standard members to just five Instant Messenger invitations a day. This means I'm very careful and selective in whom I page but it also means that women, many of whom get handed Gold membership for free, have to be a lot more proactive than before as approaches from men have dried up. Now I'm getting more pages from random strangers than ever before. This is a dubious pleasure - there seems to be a common thread running between those who page and ask for a pic immediately - they're all very rude! They're all after something but the one thing they're not interested in is a civilised conversation. So I've started to refuse requests for pics if made early in a convo - if you have a computer monitor you can actually see my pics properly and don't need to ask in the first place.  Belated Halloween pic - tips for proactive messenger users - be nice and don't rip flesh too early on in the conversation When I page people I try to do two things up front - I try to show them I've actually paid attention to their profile and I've got something nice to say. If you don't like what you see or what you read about someone you shouldn't bother making contact in the first place, and I'm done with wild speculation. So I'm a random stranger but I'm not hostile and I already know a bit - this helps avoid the tepid non-committal approach that many take from a starting point of total ignorance, i.e. the 'hiya' 'hey there' 'hello you' line where you're putting yourself on someone's radar but you're totally unsure of what to say. Without giving too much away about my working life, it's often spent dealing with senior managers (and some famous people) in large organisations that negotiate multi-million or even billion £ contracts. These people are very hard-working, very smart, very socially adept and very skilled at getting what they want - not in a crappy aggressive Alan Sugar way but using wit, charm and diplomacy backed up by a bit of steel. They make you feel important and at ease while extracting the maximum from you. The contrast with the randoms on here couldn't be starker - most couldn't negotiate their way out of a paper bag. Anyway - thank you random crappy rude women I've been offended by in the last month - you've given me a greater understanding of what my friends go through on here paged by strange guys with all the social skills of Concentration Camp guard.  A bit of wit and charm goes a long way with me, even if you're dressed like a vicar, not a tart |
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