Essential Snobbery 101: Lazy profiles and social mis-engagement

A profile absent of you

A message arrives on my phone from an unidentified number without an introduction, but a greeting with familiarity suggesting we met somewhere some time ago and the expectation that I will immediately respond as if by some divination or telepathy I have fully acknowledged who that person is.

I will call it social mis-engagement, the mistake of seeing yourself through the profile or attributes of another and by that believing the other can see the same of you when you have provided no identifiable or distinguishable information to make you recognisable.

This presents in many places, in emails, text messages, profiles, and other forms of social and communication forums. This is the scenario: you have a profile, an apparently blank one, let’s say, for purposes of discretion and nothing wrong with that. You view another profile that has all the fields diligently filled in, personally identifiable information, maybe pictures and descriptive text highlighting particularities and more. This is enough to pique your interest, and so you decide to engage.

Know yourself from others

Whatever might have inspired the engagement in the profile viewed is not present in your profile, but something suggests to you unawares that this person is as interested in you and you are in them, even as your profile remains completely nondescript. You fall into presumption, thinking the person you engaged with, without you sharing anything of yourself, is enthralled by you.

Through that engagement, you test patience, courtesy, respectfulness, and niceness, totally unaware that you’re losing, making good conversation, their interest and failing to sustain their engagement. Then the sheer effrontery of asking for more personal information without having volunteered anything of yourself is quite a lack of goodwill and is done in bad faith. You must first attempt to balance out the deficit of information in your profile before asking for more.

Unwittingly, you are also being profiled; your parsimony with personal information belies an absence of generosity, awareness, or empathy when meeting strangers. A selfish streak of finding only satisfaction for self without some mutuality comes across as an involuntary character trait for which you might be judged, and can well prejudice that engagement. It may not be seen as rude, but the absence of social graces is too obvious to ignore.

Be quick to volunteer

When anyone is engaged with an imbalance of essential profile elements, they should not have to wait to be asked to present those pieces of information and avoid frustrating the engagement. People maintain interest through stimuli; a blank profile, be it contact information, on social media, or on LinkedIn, is hardly such; it is a put-off at best.

A one-sided kind of engagement breeds unnecessary resentment and reeks of self-importance. The apparent secretiveness, if that is the reason, is the harbinger of social mis-engagement that once the patience of the other, who had put the work into their profile, is exhausted, all means of continuing communication will be lost rather than being met with silence. You will be blocked and depending on the forum as unprofessional, unserious, or a time-waster.

Do the graft work

There are no hard and fast rules, but as a matter of courtesy, if you intend to engage others in a forum that provides means to populate a profile, do the work. Do not invite people into a conversation when you sport a lazy and empty profile or readily provide the information without prompting to bring the other person up to speed about who you are and why you are interested in them. By the same token, you also give them the opportunity to have reference points that will grow their interest in you.

Then also, if the information is already in their profile, read it and understand it, only ask questions to confirm or clarify content, or to elicit more information about elements not already in their profile. Do not assume because you think no one will read your profile, and that having informed your decision not to populate it means others have been thinking the same way as you.

Don’t be a parasite

Engagement should tend towards the symbiotic and mutually beneficial; it should not be parasitic and demanding, caring little for the other. The enthusiasm with which you engage others would be reciprocated with the willingness to volunteer as much about yourself or else it is just the unfair exploitation of others. Invariably, do unto others as you expect to be done unto.

If you will not do your profile, stick with birds of the same feather without profiles; at least you have a level playing field and will know that your interest was out of mere curiosity rather than a genuine interest in the person and what they are about. Selah!

Thought Picnic: Of friendships circumstance will not break

Roles we do not choose

There are roles that come by reason of progeny, others by reason of status, some by reason of quest and there some that fall not by election or commission but just by fate, roles you never chose that others immediately confer on you.

I was thrust into such a role today and I was honoured and blessed to stand in that role. A few weeks ago, I wrote of Dealing with sexuality and HIV stigma, an encounter at work that involved both the sharing of my sexuality and status.

The open-mindedness of my colleague blew me away that the encounter became the episode around which to give context to a statement I saw online a couple of weeks earlier - “In a perfect world, the positive would be open and the negative would be open-minded.”

Openness is a frame of reference

My colleague was presented with a dilemma, a close friend of his after a long regular matrimonial relationship with issue had decided on a different course in life, one the presented literally insurmountable challenges in the area of sexuality and sexual choices. Whilst not radical from a health perspective, it was life-changing for all concerned.

My advice was sought on how to deal with such a situation, on behalf of the friend and my colleague who confessed he had no frame of reference with which to offer counsel and support.

Unbeknownst to my colleague, he probably had the broadest frame of reference in that he was open to understanding and inquiry, accepting of a different situation in which he had no contemplative context and he was determined to continue the long-term friendship that he had with his friend, regardless of the choices the friend had made. He cherished the person over the circumstance.

Presence is humanity

In the broader scheme of things, the friend was facing isolation, ostracism, and rejection, in my view, to have someone like my colleague available to continue to offer support and friendship without judgement or accusation was an exhibition of unparalleled brotherly love and humanity.

In my colleague, I saw an openness that gave me renewed faith in our common humanity and here he was as a person exhibiting it again and having the freedom to ask for insight and advice for both himself and his friend. I suggested the use of support groups, but first and essentially tapping on professional help to review the situation for his friend better.

However, most importantly, I said to my colleague the role he had to play was of the greatest significance to his friend, having an open mind, offering an open door, being a considerate listener and keeping the friendship going strong.

Picking up the broken pieces

And though my colleague said of that the honesty of his friend and the decision to face up to his challenging circumstances by informing his spouse and offspring was one of the most courageous things he had ever seen a man do, offered the choice to maintain the status quo and live a secret double life, the consequences of such a decision are at the very least earth-shattering.

No spouse in a heretofore heterosexual relationship can compete with the situation where their partner opts for a homosexual expression of physical and emotional fulfilment. The spouse will be gravely hurt, resentful, full of questions, guilt, angry, in denial and befuddlement apart from being scandalised in the community amongst other things that could presage depression or worse. The offspring will be left confused and possibly unable to deal with the change in their parent.

It goes without saying that healing for every side of this challenging situation is not around the corner, it would take a long time to come to terms with it and the hope is that professional counsel will help ameliorate the fallout. If every person affected by this had a friend like my colleague, there would be a lot to salvage of the life that went on before and that I think is necessary, though now things are still very raw.

My colleague can also challenge other friends in that circle to see a bigger, tolerant and embracing aspect to our humanity to accommodate difference wherever it might show itself. I commend my colleague for his openness and I was honoured to be called upon to chat about it.