How the internet can ruin your day

It just occurred to me that there’s a flip side to having practically unlimited high-speed internet access both at home and in the workplace.
And today, it just ruined my day.

It started out quite normal – a regular day doing what I normally do, and since it wasn’t very hectic this Thursday morning, I logged on to an online forum where I sometimes participate.
There were a few discussion threads and one of them seemed interesting enough to get into, and a few points exchanged back and forth. Good, constructive criticism. And then all of a sudden, a guy jumps in, accuses me of lying and everything, and before I know it, its a full-fledged war out there.

I had a few heated exchanges with him and finally decided to call it quits…when I realized how badly this really shook me up.
I didn’t enjoy my lunch today, and I really couldn’t concentrate on my work either.  He completely ruined my day, and pretty much most of my evening as well.

I came back from work still thinking about this, and it took me a couple of cake rusks and a load of funny pictures from Oddee to calm me down.
And as I still thought of new ways to get back at him, I realized:
Why am I even doing this?

For some faceless guy on the internet I don’t even know (he goes by the name of Dovey_Descends by the way) and of whom the only image I have is his profile pic?
Why should I care what he thinks?
Why did I let him ruin an otherwise perfect day?

I guess the answer lies in how much we love our online personas. And I for once learnt my lesson: nothing online is important enough to ruin your real life.
Dovey, if you’re reading this, you’re just a pathetic loser who gains from online wackamola. Go get a life!

And now if you’ll excuse me, soup’s on!
:)

8 comments:

Intern said...

I really dont know why, but I was Rofl'ing throughout as i read this post :D hehehe

You live alone i guess, and thats why u wer unable to get the incident out of ur head, i may be wrong.

btw, jus curious, wer u on Orkut forums? :D

Darshan Chande said...

It's pretty funny reading this, but the feeling is perfectly understood. I myself am passing through somewhat same thing, except that it is not "forums" and what is being ruined is more than just one day... Anyway... What I found insightful here is "nothing online is important enough to ruin your real life. " Surely worth giving a thought.

Thanks.

Dhanya said...

Hey you're so right! Don't let some unknown face ruin your day! I guess he must have been an extremely frustrated individual who was just trying to vent out his anger on someone he doesn't know :)

So relax...

I am going to check out that oddee site by the way. I hope it isn't anything TOO techy or incomprehensible :)

-=A.R.N.=- said...

@Shimmer
You were ROFL at my misery?
:(
...actually now that I re-read it again, does sound kinda lame yeah.
:)

@Darshan
I think the problem with both of us is we spend far too much time online

@Dhanya
Thx, yeah I'm better now.
And no, Oddee is nowhere near techy.
Mostly just wacky pics that we normally get as forwarded Emails all the time.
I use the site at work on slow days
:D

A New Beginning said...

The internet has become n active part of our life, a world coming alive in a way, with people we dont know but would like to share an opinion with, a few friends who we otherwise dont really know,but with whom we share our thoughts...and like every other discovery it doesnt come without side effects...but the best thing about it is unlike real life..we can choose to ignore the part we dislike.. thaz one advantage for sure:)

-=A.R.N.=- said...

@A new beginning
Yeah, but when your work revolves around Email and you're online all the time, kinda gets hard to ignore stuff from the virtual world.

AMIT said...

I think you should not go to such forums to which u r unknown.

Domain registration india

-=A.R.N.=- said...

@AMIT
I've quit that forum now.