ext_1433 ([identity profile] damned-colonial.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] thefourthvine 2006-02-15 02:41 pm (UTC)

Further examples: I have a repeating problem with guys who offer technical advice.

It used to be that most of the men I met online, I knew from technical fora. They knew and respected my professional knowledge, and my ability to learn things if I didn't happen to know them already.

Then on LJ, I started getting friended by people who know me from other places. "Real life", such as it is, or friends-of-friends, or people with slight fandom intersections (such as one guy who found me while googling for Paarfi of Roundwood, IIRC).

So now sometimes I post something rambling and technical, like "blah blah need to install the new hard disk but I think I need to tweak the BIOS blah blah blah". No response is requested or expected. And yet I *frequently* get boys posting with "helpful" information such as links to introductory websites on the topic at hand. On one particular occasion that I recall, I said I "needed to figure out file sharing between my Linux box and my Mac," by which I meant that I needed to read the manual and configure it appropriately to my needs. But some technical wonder-boy popped up with an OH-SO-USEFUL link to the tool I needed to use, which, actually, I'd known about for OOH AT LEAST FIVE YEARS and had worked with in a professional capacity in the past.

Now, if I'd asked for help, sure, that's fine. But when I just mention some computer twiddling in the context of a longer life update post, such "suggestions" come across as "you have used a word which reminds me of an opinion of mine" (or rather, an opportunity to show off my superior knowledge).

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