I'm Safer Using My Phone

I hate invasion.  IM invasion to be exact.  I know thats a weird way to start a post, but its something that bothers me.  In the world of acronyms, smileys, and buzz's its getting to the point where being online via a laptop or a desktop is getting pretty annoying. 

I guess I can say that I've been an online user for over 10 years.  I think the way I conduct myself via an IM conversation is basically the same as if someone that I didn't know just called me out of the blue.  "Who is this?".  But those 3 letters is what really urks my nerves... ASL. 

I've included my online status here on my blog for people that have questions or just want to give "props" so to speak.  I enjoy chatting sometimes.  Recently I was on AIM and a IM came through.  The normal "Hey how are you" was stated and then followed by that dumb acronym.  Now obviously if you know the screen-name than you know I'm a female.  Then the next thing... wanna trade pics.  Why would my age or location be important to you?  I'm not even sure if this made sense to me 10 years ago!! 

Instead of just ignoring it I always find myself questioning the people that IM me.  Lol, call it being inquisitive.  I often find that the user behind the IM is in there teens and this must be the IM protocol for users.  ASL, ASL, ASL... I must be getting old if something like this annoys me.

Thats why I chose to use my mobile.  I can check my email quietly, IM people that I really want to talk to without issues, surf the net, hang out on IRC and listen to music. 

Comments

[Anders Borg]

I solve this on PCs by not allowing anyone that's not in my buddy list to contact me, and I only grant people to be part of my buddy list if I know I want to be contacted by them. I use IM only when working, so that's not been a problem.

If you want to, but I guess you don't, you could do IM via AIM etc from your phone too. Just check out www.getjar.com for a number of free or not-so-free IM clients.

When you say IM in the last paragraph, do you really mean IM, or SMS?

[Xen]

dearest diva, I know what you're talking about... LOL
I let them take 2 min out of my time (they might be readers or other interesting people) before I add them to my blocked list :)