Profiles
Erik (WasherTalk) said:
A blank profile seriously cuts into ones image. It seems insincere.
Erik, first off, congratulations on your coming out. It's good to have that behind you and best of luck to you!
I suppose I can explain a few things about the profiles. Each group has their own feel and customs. For example, one of my friend's teenage girl, who has an account on myspace, was told by her friends that her friends' "friends" on myspace were freaked out and telling them not to talk to this girl because she did not have a picture on myspace so "she might be a predator" -- now, if you stop to think about it, anyone can grab a random pix of a teenage girl from the internet and stick it to myspace whether or not they are predators. I suppose you could also say that the only teenagers on myspace might be the people who do not have a picture posted, who knows. Lord knows that you can bet good money that the only women on phone directories are the ones that have initials and last name, most of the men have first name and last name.
Be that as it may, that's the point I'm trying to drive across. This group, since it was first established on Yahoo!, has been victim of people who come and go, and post tomes about appliances they have and, when we ask for pictures of the person with the appliances, we get millions of excuses. They are just pretending to be huge collectors to get "respect" from the group. And you don't even have to go that far, it has happened at least a couple of times in the last year or so. One of the guys apologized and seems to be doing just fine, the other one did a nasty thing to our own webmaster and seems to have disappeared. My point is that one shouldn't take the state of a profile to be anything, sincere or insincere, as an empty or full profile means nothing or at least it shouldn't mean anything. You need to know the people involved.
My own experience has been mixed. Most of the people (most as in 99%+) here are very nice decent people who just want to make friends and interact with everyone. But there are (or maybe I should say there were) a few people that only bothered to interact with collectors, and I should be glad they didn't talk to me much, because they were just poking fun at everyone, saying that this machine or that brand were garbage etc. One of them, who seem to have been gone for a few years, used to call anyone that had a stainless steel appliance a snobby yuppie and worse, just because they dared to have something they like -- mind you, that person never bothered to ask if you got it as a gift, if you got it at the scratch and dent etc and, to be honest, it shouldn't matter if you paid a million bucks or got it for free, it's your home, if you like it get it.
So, in short, my empty profile means that I am not a collector, I try not to poke fun at other people's choices and would like them to interact with me as a person with ideas (good or bad) and not by which appliance(s) I happen to have, and that I am tired of getting spam so I only list my yahoo email. And yes, once I start interacting with people, they do get my real email address. I have met a lot of people from this group at conventions, wash-ins and random gatherings and I like most people who post here (and even some that don't post regularly but I've met in person). I would have loved to have attended some more gatherings, like the ones by Rich and Chuck, but unfortunately I've been busy when they happened and chances are I won't be able to attend the next one on the 9th either. :-( Other than that, we live in the same state, so there's no reason we can't meet for coffee someday and you'll know (like other people here) that I'm very real and very sincere, empty profile or not.
And I'd like to add that I'd be happier if I could spend more time in this group and that I consider myself very lucky to be here, it's a wonderful group of people.
Cheers,
-- Paulo.
