I've had to work on this from my end and try to sort out what's going on. I'm really not good at relating to the public and that's a personal shortcoming that I have had to wrestle with and still wrestle with at times.
If you are a woman (or Native or person from a small town) on the internet, let me suggest you may also need to work on figuring out how to be less personable and where to draw certain boundaries. Like me, you may need to work on figuring out how to relate to the public and that it's different from personal, private relationships, like your SO, your family, etc.
Probably every artist alive or in recent history has had to deal with some nutters that latched onto them and felt like they -- the nutcase fan -- had some special, personal relationship to the artist because the art spoke to them or whatever. I'm far from the only person putting out creative work to experience that sort of thing.
I think the internet makes that more challenging to manage from both ends. In the past, you could attend a concert or watch a star on TV or in the movies and maybe write to them via snail mail, but you couldn't reach out and touch them on social media or what not in real time.
I think that real time element and that ability to contact people so readily via the same media you may be using to also keep in touch with actual friends and family muddies the waters and makes it more confusing. It makes it easier to imagine you have a personal relationship to someone you are a fan of.
It takes 18 to 20 hours per week of interaction to establish and maintain an intimate relationship. The very definition of fame is that many other people can spend a lot of time consuming your work and knowing a lot about you without you getting to know anything about them.
So while you may feel like you know me well and this may feel like some kind of intimate relationship to me from your end because you read everything I write, I probably know little or nothing about you. As such, it is not an intimate personal relationship.
If you are a fan who values my work, has kicked a few bucks my way, "likes" my tweets, etc:
Coolios and THANK YOU!
If you are someone cyberstalking me because we've met in person and I fascinate the hell out of you while we don't actually hang out at all in person or you imagine I'm your dream girl and one true love and we have a beautiful future together because you read my writing, let me suggest that for your own mental health you STOP reading my writing and get therapy.
If I was your girl, you would not ONLY know me via my blog writing. If we do not have some kind of PRIVATE communication on an ongoing basis that is a voluntary two-way street that we both want but you are feeling like you have a "special" relationship anyway based on stalking me and similar negative behaviors, you have issues. That's just not real.
If someone has told you repeatedly that you -- yes YOU in specific -- are an asshole and an abuser and not welcome in their life and you keep reading what they post publicly anyway and justifying it with "Well, she KNOWS I read it. IF she didn't want me to know, she wouldn't publish it! I therefore insist on feeling like I am all special and we are all intimate and she is agreeing to that!" let me recommend both therapy and serious hard core psych meds in addition to no longer reading their writing.
If you are going further than that and actively breaking into their accounts or similar while telling yourself this is some kind of reasonable thing to do, welp, you are probably too crazy to help at all by any means.
If you are a woman (or Native or person from a small town) on the internet, let me suggest you may also need to work on figuring out how to be less personable and where to draw certain boundaries. Like me, you may need to work on figuring out how to relate to the public and that it's different from personal, private relationships, like your SO, your family, etc.
Probably every artist alive or in recent history has had to deal with some nutters that latched onto them and felt like they -- the nutcase fan -- had some special, personal relationship to the artist because the art spoke to them or whatever. I'm far from the only person putting out creative work to experience that sort of thing.
I think the internet makes that more challenging to manage from both ends. In the past, you could attend a concert or watch a star on TV or in the movies and maybe write to them via snail mail, but you couldn't reach out and touch them on social media or what not in real time.
I think that real time element and that ability to contact people so readily via the same media you may be using to also keep in touch with actual friends and family muddies the waters and makes it more confusing. It makes it easier to imagine you have a personal relationship to someone you are a fan of.
It takes 18 to 20 hours per week of interaction to establish and maintain an intimate relationship. The very definition of fame is that many other people can spend a lot of time consuming your work and knowing a lot about you without you getting to know anything about them.
So while you may feel like you know me well and this may feel like some kind of intimate relationship to me from your end because you read everything I write, I probably know little or nothing about you. As such, it is not an intimate personal relationship.
If you are a fan who values my work, has kicked a few bucks my way, "likes" my tweets, etc:
Coolios and THANK YOU!
If you are someone cyberstalking me because we've met in person and I fascinate the hell out of you while we don't actually hang out at all in person or you imagine I'm your dream girl and one true love and we have a beautiful future together because you read my writing, let me suggest that for your own mental health you STOP reading my writing and get therapy.
If I was your girl, you would not ONLY know me via my blog writing. If we do not have some kind of PRIVATE communication on an ongoing basis that is a voluntary two-way street that we both want but you are feeling like you have a "special" relationship anyway based on stalking me and similar negative behaviors, you have issues. That's just not real.
If someone has told you repeatedly that you -- yes YOU in specific -- are an asshole and an abuser and not welcome in their life and you keep reading what they post publicly anyway and justifying it with "Well, she KNOWS I read it. IF she didn't want me to know, she wouldn't publish it! I therefore insist on feeling like I am all special and we are all intimate and she is agreeing to that!" let me recommend both therapy and serious hard core psych meds in addition to no longer reading their writing.
If you are going further than that and actively breaking into their accounts or similar while telling yourself this is some kind of reasonable thing to do, welp, you are probably too crazy to help at all by any means.