Ignore That Little Voice...

...at your own peril.

My social anxiety is largely a non-factor online, especially as my space here became well-defined, fairly popular, and largely respected. I am confident in these waters. Yesterday, I ran smack into old feelings.

My primary email is on Yahoo. I decided a few days ago to try out their new mail beta version. It's a bit more versatile with a sleeker layout. After a few days, though, I was suddenly without the usual indicator of my friends' presence online. I don't chat much, but I do like to see that I have friends engaged in parallel play. And when I want to chat, they are right there. Without that graphic, I felt like one of my senses had been shut off.

Well, if Yahoo Chat is not going to be available to me, I had better get serious about Yahoo Messenger. I set about importing my contacts, a simple task. I checked off a few that I had no current relationship with. This left another twenty or so, some of which I may never chat with, but I am accustomed to seeing them in my sidebar. I hesitated. Each of these people were going to get a request from me, an opportunity for rejection. Maybe I should remove a few more names, folks that are fairly peripheral to my life. Nah, let 'er rip.

Within ten seconds, I had a rejection. This is from someone that I greatly admire, though we haven't corresponded more than a couple times. Okay, maybe she didn't recognize the user id, maybe she gets these requests all the time and rejects them out of hand.

I went off to take a shower. When I returned, I had a note from someone local, asking who I was and why I wanted to chat with her. Specifically, the absence of a profile photo was of great concern to her. Well, I have sat and spoken with her at meetings at least twice this past winter, lengthy personal conversations. My heart sunk. Was this going to me the norm? I went off to work, but this bothered me all evening. I felt stupid. I had overreached socially, crossed lines of demarcation unknowingly. This had disaster written all over it.

As usual, I was overthinking things, doubting myself and my place in the community. When I got home, I wrote an explanation and apology to my acquaintance. I hope she responds and understands.

As for the rest, there are still a few outstanding requests, but it seems that everyone else has simply clicked the Accept box and gone on with their lives. Maybe it's time for me to click the Accept box and get on with life.