Is It Paranoia Or Coincidence?

Some people allege I have done things to make my guardian angel(s) want to scream with anger and or quit.

I cannot confirm nor deny the veracity of such claims anymore than I can prove or disprove their existence.

Nor can I tell you whether there is a connection between the stalker and the strange things that have happened this week.

But I will say I looked askance at the connection request on LinkedIn from the person who only had one connection and was in a similar field.

Maybe it was paranoia or maybe just coincidence, doesn't really matter to me because I chose not to connect.

It had more to do with their profile looking strange in general than whether they may or may not have been connected to the stalker.

No connections, no real work history and no letter of introduction asking for a connection or suggesting why it would be mutually beneficial is usually going to get a no.

Is It Paranoia Or Coincidence?

The digital world our children are growing up in is a very different one than we did and that causes mixed emotions.

Part of me is thrilled for them because it provides them with access to a wealth of information we could only dream about. There are so many resources and tools that deserve to be described as amazing.

But it also creates some situations we never had to worry about and some potential stranger danger that their grandparents never had to be concerned about.

Identity theft, catfishing, cyber bullying–these weren't things our parents worried about. They didn't spend time teaching us how to deal with them.

Sure we learned not to take candy or accept rides from strangers but we had the ability to use our eyes and our common sense to get a feel for whether the stranger had good intentions or otherwise.

That is harder to do when you are dealing with words on a screen and or pictures. You can't immediately see if the picture resembles the person sending it or get a feel for what kind of person they are.

That is sad and disappointing.

I am a go with my gut kind of person and that is often how I measure you. It is generally a big part of how I determine whether I trust you and how much.

It is much easier to do so when you have face-to-face interaction with someone and far more challenging when you don't.

And though I am confident I am a good judge of people I'll be the first to say I have been fooled by people in the past and probably will have it happen again in the future.

But it is very different to fool me than to fool my kids or should I say you get a different reaction if I think you are messing with my kids than with me.

Conversations

There is a world of differences between how men and women communicate and if I didn't know it from personal experience I would know just from watching my children.

The conversations they have with me, with their mother and with other people always make that clear.

It is interesting sometimes to watch how my daughter approaches stories with me and how she tells the same thing to her mother or girlfriends.

There is a level of detail to many of them I never ask for.

Don't mistake that to mean I don't want to listen or am disinterested because that is not it at all. It is more about what we consider to be important and what is most salient.

She'll pay much more attention to facial expressions and to interpreting them than I do…most of the time.

Anyway, I am not here to say one style is better or worse, they are just different.

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What I notice more is how much more willing she is to talk out differences, disagreements and disturbances than I am.

I can't say whether it is a gender or even an age thing and I am not sure it is worth thinking about after midnight.

What I know is I have advised her more than once to not just analyze expressions and words but to ask questions.

I probably need to follow my own advice and reach out to a couple of people and ask a few questions myself.

The general rule of thumb is simple. Is it hard for me to stay angry with you?

If you are part of an inner circle there is a good chance my anger doesn't last.

If you are outside of that circle and I am irritated it is because you have worked hard to get my attention and once you have it I want to reward you for your behavior.

You know by hitting you with a bus and then driving it over you multiple times. 🙂

Just kidding.

I'd rather make you a brownies and include a secret ingredient.

And with that my friends I bid you a good night unless you are among the attention seekers in which case I wish you a bad order of chicken vindaloo, rough toilet paper and a toilet that has no seat.

Oh and a headache, strep throat and a cat in heat, cuz cats are awful creatures and the source of evil. 🙂