“She’s outrageous, scandalous, the way she rocks is too much” ~ Lionel Ritchie
Or, as defined by my dictionary
Outrageous (adj): unusual and shocking, shocking and socially or morally unacceptable
“Twitter is outrageous” is exactly what a Twitter friend said to me in a message recently. Went to say how he (yes, it was a boy, quiet at the back!) found it a hotbed of perpetual flirting. Now, I’m personally not so sure how much of Twitter is flirting vs politics vs religion vs sport vs tv vs trolling on all of the previous topics, but it certainly got me thinking.
I flirt on Twitter. I flirt in real life. I flirt when I don’t even realise I’m doing it. I walked away from a conversation with someone a few months ago and was complimented by a friend on how well I’d been flirting with the guy. I still maintain I was just making conversation! But my point being that for me, as for many, it is a perfectly innocent and harmless way of communicating, be it via social media or otherwise.
Then there’s the flirting that really is flirting. Now in real life you don’t to be privy to these chats between a potential couple so this is where it becomes all about Twitter. I have seen some frankly salacious chats between people on Twitter on the open timeline that leave me massively queasy. Do we need to know? Really? And in this I include tweets from people that I know are engaged in similar practises in real life, so why do it on Twitter too? Is this some social media version of the thrill from having sex outside and possibly getting caught? (No, I never understood that one either). Take it to the world of private, direct messages, please, and do us all a favour. Of course, that can also go a bit wrong when you tweet something you meant to DM. but at least it means generally the rest of us are unaware of exactly what you like and are getting off on.
There is a dangerous side to this. As we know, you can be whoever you want, real or otherwise, male or female, straight or gay, married or not, from the anonymity offered by the internet. And then we stray into the world where people get hurt. The lovely @nosweetnothings kindly let me link her blog post on this subject here. She writes much more eloquently than I could about these dangers and pitfalls. So just think about it. As she says, what is your kick is somebody else’s kick in the stomach.
As always, am interested in your thought and opinions so please drop me a line in a comment box-shaped postcard.
Princess
ps.all names (bar the lovely NSN) have been left out of this to protect the guilty
Princess of VP Blog 