Hello internet... you bloody weirdo.

Things discussed at the office #03:
(Lets go with 3 because I can't think I've done this enough to warrant a higher random number, but I do know I've posted about something spoken about at work before and am too lazy to go back and read how many)

A friend had something happen to her over the holidays that upset her enough to delete her Google+ profile, sign out of facebook, shut down her blog and generally get off the grid for a while.

This is what I'm thinking.
Remember when we were young girls in school and you'd have your work book which you'd painstakingly covered with magazine clippings of all your favourite things? It took hours and felt like "you". You couldn't wait to use your new khokis to pep up the title of your next creative writing task.
(Yes it was the 90's and yes I was a registered nerd...)
You turn to talk to a friend for a minute.
You swivel back as the teacher comes through the door to start the class and there, on your beautiful work, some boy has gone and drawn a penis.

WHY?!?!

Now here we are as happy (in some cases still a bit nerdy) adults, writing our blogs, putting ourselves out there and expressing ourselves with virtual equivalents of magazine clippings on Pinterest and the like...
Who comes along to make us regret our adventure of "putting ourselves out there"?
Why a man who has to show you his penis of course.

Not that much has changed in the world since the social networking age it seems.

Yes I know some people may say "Oh don't take yourself so seriously!" or "Don't let it get to you, it's no big deal". I agree that sometimes we can suck it up, block, delete and forget and go back to feeling empowered for having done that. I'm just saying there are some days when it actually feels more like you're going online and are about to bump into that terrifying flasher from when you were a small kid on the playground instead of a book scribbler...

Do my friend and I need to work on developing rhino hides to survive the neanderthals that prowl with their clubs momentarily leaning next to them allowing for better typing?

I'm almost tempted to thank the dumbass who sat in class with me back in the day for better preparing me to face the internet trolls of today... but I won't. Because I sincerely hope you've grown up and aren't taking photos of your penis with your smart phone.

I hadn't written in a long time on my blog for other reasons, but I hope that this post inspires my friend to get back out there... Her writing is beautiful (much better than mine) and the net would be a nicer place to have her back on it.