I also saw a video online where he proudly said that he visited many hospitals and shook hands with people there (even those suspected to have the virus!!!) and that he would continue shaking hands with everyone, because he was not afraid!
If we follow the advice, it will be under control soon. Then we can keep it under control until the vaccine is invented (12-18 months from now, maybe even sooner).
We are all advised to stay at home and I also stopped working, so I've been online a lot these days. I thought that maybe we could all give each other some sort of support during these days, have some fun, simply BE with other people but it seems that the situation affects people quite the opposite way. It looks like people got terribly irritated, nervous and prone to fighting.
Yesterday evening I went on a local forum (I've been a member of for ages) and people got completely crazy. They fought with each other, even resurrected some old and forgotten fights they were having years ago. It was a complete mess. Whatever one wrote, there was someone replying with an annoying comment. I logged out and decided to avoid them for the time being.
If the virtual communities break down and social media become places filled with the worst-case scenarios and people fighting with each other over nothing - we will probably have to focus on ourselves and give the introspection a chance. Maybe we realize that we don't need people so much or that we need them a lot. Maybe we realize that virtual people cannot be a substitution for real people or that we are quite OK living mostly in virtual worlds.
What do you think? How does this situation affect you?
Today I remembered a funny thing that happened to me online some time ago, so I decided to open this thread where we can share similar experiences. We can write about the things that happened to us on dating sites, in the virtual world, that were funny and disappointing in some way, but not too heart-breaking. Hopefully this thread can be light-hearted and - just for fun.
Here's my story:
A year (or so) ago I met a man on a dating site. He lived in the country I hoped to visit and maybe even live in one day. He was an expat and it was interesting to me to hear what he thinks about the country and its culture and people, as a foreigner. He didn't have a profile photo and stated in his profile that he was several years older than me. We started a friendly chat and he seemed like a very interesting man. We talked a lot about many different things and while our chatting was primarily friendly, I had a feeling that there was something more to it. He travelled a lot in his past, lived in many different countries, was married, had two children, got divorced... His life was fulfilled with all sorts of events and experiences and I was astonished by his energy and the way he organized everything in his life.
And so one day, during one of our long chats he told me that he was very proud - his son (who was a fashion model) was chosen to be on the cover of a magazine. He sent me a link. I took a look at a 27-year-old model and started calculating. How old was he when he got married?! How was it possible that he had a 27-year-old son?! So, I asked him the question and he said: "I didn't marry young. I was over 35". Then I asked: "And how old are you now?". And he said: " I'm 65. Haven't I told you that already?!".
You can imagine my complete shock! In my imagination I was talking to a man around my age, while in reality I was talking to someone older than my dad!
I told him that he somehow "forgot" to tell me that little info and asked him why he lied in his profile and he replied that a person should stay anonymous online and that he would never write anything personal in his profile. I got really disappointed and I told him that we could have had a friendly chat if only he had been honest, but that I felt very awkward and that I couldn't continue talking to him. After hearing that lie - I became suspicious of everything he had told me before (including a model son).
And then he replied: "I got you! You wanted to talk to someone your age, right? But, I managed to trick you! Hahahaha! How silly of you to trust people online!".
And that was it.
And he seemed like such a normal, educated and interesting person...
I was angry then, but now when I remember it - I find the story rather funny.
I was contacted by men who like to travel and have an entertaining romantic weekend or several days with women they meet online, but I'm not interested in that. I suppose that people who are interested in those sorts of thing can really find that here (and everywhere online). There were other men on this site telling similar stories about how they travelled a lot, met some nice ladies, spent a month in one country, two in another, a week somewhere else... That's not hard to find online.
But a relationship, something real and steady, a long-term commitment - that's a different story.
It seems that people enjoy to be scared. Horror films are very popular. All sorts of catastrophic predictions seem to get a lot of interest and publicity. People talk about viruses, global warming, all sorts of disasters imagining the worst possible outcomes. You can see that they enjoy it (although they pretend otherwise, as if they are simply worried)! People simply LOVE to get scared, to fantasize about the end of the world, aliens coming and eating us all, viruses killing 9/10 of the human race...
Bellanna Forum Posts (339)
RE: Share What You Are Listening To -- Part 99