I had a couple of new followers in bluesky. A new follower DMed me. He asked how I was, I said I was good. Then he asked where I was from and when I said I prefer not to say, he said he understands and that he wanted to know more about me. I told him my interests and such and didn’t give any important information about myself. He too told me about his hobbies. Then he asked about my location once again. When I declined once again he said that he understands “not being cool enough to say where you are from”. That was an odd thing to say. I got creeped out and blocked him. Is this normal? Why would anyone want to know about each other’s location?
“Not being cool enough to say where you are from” is a weird way for them to phrase it. If they’re British, they might be saying it ironically (I use the phrase “well, if you’re not cool enough…” as a reference to the old peer-pressure educational videos myself). Otherwise, they might be young, and clumsily trying to peer-pressure you, or old and out-of-touch enough to think that’s an effective way to get a young person to give up information.
So, three options. They’re either being ironic, clumsy, or creepy. No harm in playing safe and blocking them.
What if they’re not cool enough to block them?
I mean, it is fine to ask for more details if it can help solve a specific issue, say that you ask a question about tax law, but neglect to add what country you are from, then asking for your location is fine, but just out of the blue, nah.
I sometimes like to know the general area someone’s from (country or state), so I understand the context of their experience or point of view. It’s not anything I would push if the person felt uncomfortable sharing. That sounds like a red flag.
Yeah, there are good reasons to want to know where someone’s from, but pushing the issue for no reason with a near stranger is kind of weird.
Like Country or you street address?
Why would anyone want to know about each other’s location?
What an odd thing to ask. Where are you from?
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Lol
Blocking out of the blue seems over the top to me. I’d rather just confront him about his behavior and see how he reacts. Maybe he just phrased it weird and didn’t mean to come off as creepy.
If not, well, then you know
Meh. The internet is a large place. Block indiscriminately. There’s no reason to have an uncomfortable interaction. OP doesn’t owe a random stranger anything let alone an explanation.
Well maybe but if op enjoyed the conversation somewhat, blocking ‘indiscriminately’ would certainly be out of place
If you are polite to a potential scammer on the phone or on the internet, you are giving them a chance to persuade you into being scammed. Block at will.
Not blocking does not mean giving away personal information or being scammed. Yes, if people find this a hard thing to do, by all means, block them. But if you’re not incompetent and just set your boundaries, there may not be reason for an outright block, that’s what I’m saying. Again, it may very well be a slight misunderstanding
Since the early days of Facebook, most people have been in roughly two camps: those who share just about anything, and those who share barely anything. Ok, there are also privacy minded people who share nothing at all, but that’s a different story.
People in the first category just love to tell you where they live, how many pets they have, send photos of everything etc. You know, social people. They also expect you the be like them, because that’s how tribalism works. It’s the default setting in the human brain, and disabling or even just limiting that urge takes some some skill and effort.
People in the second category share only a few opinions, but never their location or photos. I think most people on Lemmy are like this.
To me there is nothing wrong with asking or stating what country you are from. Unless you are from a really tiny country it doesn’t really matter if you state your country. For example I’m from the US which doesn’t tell you anything really about my exact location.
The US is about 3,000 miles across. That doesn’t included Hawaii or Alaska. It’s about 1,582 miles from top to bottom of the US again not including Hawaii or Alaska.
So my saying I’m from the US doesn’t give up much really but it gives people an idea about something about me and my heritage.
So are you from the east coast, or the west? Statistically you aren’t in the middle, and you are more likely from the east as that is the most densely populated. So you are likely in one of ~10 states on the east.
Still not great for pinpointing, but a toooooooon of the US is a whole lotta nothing. Similar to Aus.
North central part of the US
I normally expect a country if I ask, but if they are American they usually give me a state straight away.
Yes.
I ask where people are, so I have a general sense of time zone and I know when to expect to be able to message them when they’re awake
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A/S/L?
14/F/Cali 😂
Your comments are tagged as being from a bot, was that intentional for this joke lol
Hmm, can real users be tagged as bots? Surely they’d complain and have it fixed quite quickly?
I saw this bot reply and just instinctively downvoted and blocked it, can’t stand Reddit/Lemmy bots that don’t serve a useful purpose (like unit conversion or haiku’s) haha.
Anyone can label themself as a bot in the Lemmy user settings, sometimes users do so mistakenly
Aaaaand that’s apparently what I did. My excuse is I’m old and an idiot.
No problem, I’ve seen it happen a few times so I thought I’d ask 😄
The two main bots in my IRC bot network were named Man14 and Girl41
No, but that’s hilarious! I wonder if it’s because of the stereotypical answer to the A/S/L question?
That’s cause of your account settings. Uncheck robot/bot option.
What does that mean?
Yeah - back in the day A/S/L was asked so you had a rough idea of the type of person you were talking (typing) with…
37/M/India v 15/F/US would give you a very rough idea of the demographic the other person belonged to - and might shape your conversation differently.
Having lived in the days of IRC and BBS you did not tell people your ASL and knew anyone that asked was probably a pervert.
and as internet lore of old says: that 15/F/US was either a 30 y/o living in their mum’s basement or an FBI agent
Which was weird, because I remember being 14 in the late 90s, and EVERYONE was 14-16/F/Cali.
And I’d always say “Oh, sorry. I’m 14, but I’m from Ohio”.
I wonder how many FBI agents I pissed off.
Age/Sex/Location
Oh sweet summer child
Son? Is that you?
Are ya winning son?
awww
That make me feel old lol and bring back some mIRC memory
American/Sign/Language.
Personally I only ask after interacting for months, and I only offer mine the same way. By that I mean in positive interactions.
I agree with others that say it might be an awkward way to get to know you
In general though I just don’t like to be DM’d unsolicited without me
stalkingfollowing the account and get to know the vibeThis is why I just don’t do microblogs. I’m just an uninteresting and uninterested specimen of humanity
So idk why someone would want to randomly know about me through DM
This sounds like a weird person at best or the prelude to a scam, stalking, or social engineering at worst. You stick with your standards and don’t doxx yourself to passive aggressive douchebags, however insistent they may be.
I got creeped out and blocked him. Is this normal?
Yes, it is normal that you blocked him.
