I’m a relative newby to the twitterverse. The majority of people I tweet with have been tweeting for quite some time. I did try over a year ago to use Twitter but could not for the life of me see what use it was. For goodness sake, who really cares whether I am working hard, going out or cooking spag bol for dinner? No one I’m guessing, because no one Tweeted with me during that 1 month period. I felt like a social outcast. I felt like I was having 140 character conversations with myself. I felt like I was one of those kids in the playground that no one wanted to be friends with. There was a lot of chatter going on around me, but none with me. Needless to say I snuck away, unnoticed by anyone in the twitterverse, to Facebook where I had real friends.
Fast Forward 1 year. I met Mel Kettle (@melkettle) at a meeting where she was giving a brief of the presentation she was going to give on Social Networking. Mel is a big Twitter fan. After listening to her I thought I might go home and add her as a friend on Twitter and see what happens.
The rest is history … I’ve been twittering regularly for about a month now and my follower list has gone from 20 to 334. The missing link from my prior experience was the word “connect”. Twitter is all about connecting. Instant connection. 140 character snippets of you. I finally got it. Now I love it and continually preach about it to anyone who will listen. Someone, I think @problogger, said “Twitter is about now and Facebook is about the past” – I think he’s right.
However, yes there is a however. As much as I love Twitter, it has brought about all types of strange feelings which I haven’t felt since school days. I am quite a confident person, I have wonderful friendships and rarely in my real life do I feel these feelings any more.
Perhaps it’s just me? Perhaps it’s just a girl thing? Let me explain.
- I follow some really interesting and funny people who share common interests I have. They also appear to have firm Twitter (and maybe real life) friendships with fellow Twitterers. They are having a funny conversation – do I join in? Is it rude? If I do, will they DM each other and say “who does she think she is?” So being me, I join in, sometimes I am included and other times there is deadly Twitter silence. For the next 1/2 hour I beat myself up because I think I was too forward and these nice people think I’m a stalker or some kind of hangeronerer! Remember at school when all the cool girls hung out together and if you tried to sit with them you weren’t really included in the conversation. No? Maybe that only happened to me. Oh dear – paranoid much!
- Someone I like Tweeting with, gasp, horror, “unfollows” me. OMG what have I done wrong? I feel hurt. I want to write and say “Why? What did I do? Don’t you like me anymore?” but I can’t because I can’t DM them anymore. I don’t want to say this in the public Twittersphere because then everyone will think I’m a loser and just a weeny bit needy! And … paranoid much!
- This one is a bit freaky but I’m going to put it out there – I am 47, but like I said in my Mojo post, I feel 30. Most of my friends are 10 – 20 years younger than me – this is where I fit in better. My online world appears to mirror my real world in that respect. I enjoy Tweeting with the “yummy mummys” who are 10 – 20 years younger than I. Then I worry; won’t they think I’m odd? Are they thinking – I wish this middle aged woman would leave us alone? Who does she think she is? We don’t even find her funny! Ok … creepy and paranoid much!
- And lastly, I really like tweeting with some people, but they hardly follow anyone, including me. I wonder how I can get them to follow me. I’d like to ask “why don’t you want to follow me?” but again, I can’t DM them and I don’t want to appear “needy” by putting it out in the public arena. So I tweet regularly with them. Sometimes they tweet back, other times that deadly Twitter silence. Then I worry I they might think me a stalker. Yes, as feared, paranoid much!
This blog is scaring me … I think I’m needy, paranoid and just plain creepy!
Yep, reading back over that, I’m not sure I want to post this blog. However, I will (and you know I will spend the next hour freaking out about it, wondering how many followers I will lose on Twitter etc). I will also be checking it every 5 minutes to see if anyone reads it or leaves comments. OMG it’s going to be a paranoid day – thank goodness I’m in meetings all afternoon!
Seriously though – these thoughts are fleeting, nevertheless they are there and I find it quite fascinating that Twitter of all things has stirred them up again. Does anyone else ever feel this way … or is it just me? Someone please tell me how you feel …. please! (yep paranoid!)
Living Life as Me 
Nope, not a girl thing – unless I am secretly a girl.Great post
1. You are one of the nicest tweeters!2. Please don't tell me the ppl I tweet are in their 20's. Don't they have myspace or something?3. I was stoked to get to 100 followers but I'll be more stoked when I get to 300 plus like you :)4. Bloody wonderful post that captures what we probably all experience early on. I'm an early oner too. But an excited one :)Love your work xx
OMG, I am right there with you. I angst over this stuff. Did I tweet too much, too forward, not enough, not funny… It's like being at a party where you don't really know anyone but know you have to mingle. But then there are those people who just really make the whole experience worthwhile… 🙂
Wow. Thank you so much everyone for your amazing comments. I don't feel so alone in my paranoia anymore 🙂 . We all love Twitter so much yet it causes us so much angst at the start. I guess it is human nature for us to want people to like us and it's no different on Twitter to real life situations. I think the key is to be myself and just the way it is in real life, some people will like me and some won't. I'm glad that I now now u all. Thank u xx
Hilarious! Seriously, hilarious. So what night did you sneak in and read my mind about Twitter? It reminds me of old school days, the hurt, the anguish, ‘did I laugh too hard, not enough, did I just titter when I should have donkey bawled?’
Omg.
Thankyou for posting this Annie, you champion, you!
Some days everyone wants to chat to me, to the point where I literally turn around in my chair and look behind me, expecting a battalion of tv cameras and sniggering dierectors and actors laughing at me…to other days where NOT.ONE. of my ‘supposed’ 1500 follwers can be bothered to wish my husband a happy birthday.
Hilarious. *shrugs …. keeps me on my toes though, that’s for sure.
Oh, and another thing Annie…my mum and I bread Cocker Spaniel puppies for yonks, I had to hand feed them and still think of fat little grunting pups smelling of poo and milk. *happy days. BLISS!! *faints.
Keep writing! 🙂