Faces of Strangers

Hi there, as per usual it has been a while since I posted. What was supposed to be my anonymous diary turned out to be a half a year blog. . . weeeell at least it's not annually. Today has been a beautiful and eventful sunny day. The UK spring has begun and I spent my time on the patio studying and reading a book I got from my aunt for christmas. At some point during this spring day I read an article on a quite popular blog, it is not one I am particularly fond of or that is spectacular or very interesting. But this silly article innocently popped up on my Facebook news feed and one thing led to another... It told the story about a young man not taking no for an answer from a woman. The grown woman was referred to as a girl and at some point they were was remark which sounded like the achievements of women in history (particularly the moon landing) where little more than non existent. SOOO long story short, I commented that Margret Hamilton wrote the code to get us to the moon. If she wouldn't have maybe a man or another woman would have but I personally found it is worth mentioning as she had contributed in a big manner.... I usually don't comment on things like this and I immediately regretted the decision. Because as I found out, people reeaally don't hold back, let's just say it like that. They were swearing at me, telling me go f*&% myself, calling me a b!%$^&, talking about "my burning v@&!^@" and telling me to go back to taking pictures in bikinis for likes and go shopping where a strong woman belongs. I couldn't believe it!!! *Insert picture of my face in shock* I was shocked! What really struck me the most was not only how rude these men were to me just for mentioning the accomplishment of one women who was quote "helped by hundreds of men". It was that they usually were using profiles what looked like real names and faces. So I got nosy. Who were these men? I decided to have a little snoop, who were these men who insulted me from the safety of their smart phones and tablets with their grinning profile picture. One man was particularly rude, his profile picture was of him, a handsome young man in his twenties in a suit with a tie, holding the hand of his son, who was also wearing a suit with an adorable bowtie. "Daniel" as I shall refer to him, seemed very nice in his picture but he couldn't have been more rude and on top of this, without reason! He didn't know me, the comment I made had nothing to do with him or any of these other people. They just wanted to provoke and be hateful. Yet one look through his public pictures provided me with his name, his location, pictures of his grey Audi (with license plate - he even posted a picture of a parking fine, just incase we weren't 100% sure that, this was actually his car!), there was a picture of him in his work uniform clearly stating that he works for a technological department which seems to be part of a University in Glasgow. It took me ONE google search to find out this is where he actually worked and the website provided me with his work address, phone number and name. ONE SEARCH. Finding these things out took me a few clicks through his Facebook profile and ONE Google search. Imagine if I had tried harder! Doesn't that scare you?! I know I sound like a stalker right now. Don't worry, I won't do anything with this information, although I did feel tempted to make him aware of how much he is telling the world about himself. In fact from here on I will forget that you ever existed Daniel and I have deleted the FB thread because it was not very nice to be constantly insulted by several people. What remains is the crazy truth that people feel protected and anonymous on the internet while cursing at people in the rudest way possible using their real names and faces. Quite shameless really and very dangerous if you upset the wrong person. Here is what I learned from the horrifying experience of being cornered on a public facebook thread: 1.) Be kind and don't curse at strangers, whether it is in real life or on the net. 2.) RIGHT NOW go to your FB or whatever Profiles you have and make sure that they are set on private! 3.) Do not get upset about people like Daniel. Daniel is a very very sad man. XOXO