Fairytale

Quite early on in my online career, it became apparent that other people expected significantly different things from relationships than I did. Inevitably, it is impossible to reasonably control who decides to follow you, or indeed how they operate when interacting with you. Being kind, generous and understanding should be the default settings for everybody but inevitably this becomes unrealistic in reality.

I’ve spoken at length in other places over the issues that inevitably rise from being female and high profile in any kind of gaming capacity. Earlier this year, when asked if I’d want to talk about that in public, there was really no desire to do so. Pulling up past events as a signpost to the future might be useful in certain situations, but in this case…? it’s probably best that these sections of my history are consigned to obscurity.

Except, it is apparent, these issues never really go away.

There’s been a bit of drama around my sphere of late over the business of online stalking. Knowing that it doesn’t matter what you do and that sometimes, people will latch onto you as some kind of personal saviour, is the lesson I wish more would take seriously but inevitably never do. Inevitably, enlightenment has to come from learning the lesson: you don’t even have to be generous to a stranger in reality to become a victim.

In fact, many people are learning that just existing and refusing to think or act as others expect they should is often enough to receive abuse. So many women in high-profile positions run the risk of becoming the fixation, crux of increasingly demented obsession, because other people’s perception of their personality is as far away from reality as it is normally possible to get.

So, what can you do if you’re caught in a situation that makes you uncomfortable? Even as an obscure writer, there are ways and means to assert control. The most important thing of all, undoubtedly, is to not generate personal capital off the back of it or to allow the individual any indicator that their actions are affecting your existence. In that regard, at least, it is very easy to take back ownership of personal domain.

That last lesson is still one I’m working on, it has to be said.