Disclaimer!

Lots of social networks are looking for new members.  That's okay.  The internet is a big hunting ground.  Today, I received an invitation from my brother to join yet another a social network.  We speak every day, we don't need social networks.  But I don't reject invitations from anyone who means something to me, so I answered in the affirmative.  In order to join that network and 'connect' with my already 'connected', I had to supply my email id, whereupon that social network automatically sent invitations to everyone in my mailbox informing them that I wanted them to join me on this network.  I've already started receiving enquiries about this by email from some of my contacts and I've told them to feel free to reject the invitation.

Email networks are also starting their own social networks.  A few months ago a similar situation occurred.   A network on which I have an email account invited me to connect with various  people on my contact list, all I had to do was click.  I did so, more out of curiousity than anything else.  Everyone who automatically got generated invitations from "me" answered in a nice, positive way, or ignored the "invitation."  A fellow blogger, with whom I had enjoyed a friendly relationship in the past, left an angry and abusive message in my comment box accusing me of  "dumping shit in her mailbox".   She ordered me to "LEARN" that she was not open for spam like this.  Well, like, who is?  I mailed her back and told her that I felt that her issue was with Yahoo! rather than me.  The vehemence with which she attacked me,  in the public forum of my blog, left me horrified, and that too when I'd been recently bereaved of a close relative.    I hope to God that she didn't get one of these spam invitations from me today, because if she did, I will have to go underground.  I tried to delete her name from the contact lists of the two email accounts in which I received her messages - but you know how you can never be too sure? 

This blogger was furious because a few months earlier I had accidentally forwarded her one of those seasonal silliness Christmas emails in which you are instructed to forward to ten more people.   Her name was on the top of my contacts list and she accidentally got one.  This led to an exchange of emails in which I - who was really guilty of nothing more than a tiny misjudgment - ended up apologising profusely.  Like Queen Victoria, she was not amused.  And this blogger, incidentally, is something of a queen in the blogging world - blogging royalty, you could say.  She is spoken of in many blogs with deep reverence and respect - the sort of respect that's usually reserved for people who have taken religious vows.

I guess the best thing I can do is go into that email account, and send a circular email to everyone   in my contact list and tell them that it wasn't me.  But I'll do it in the morning - it's late in the night and I'm very tired now.  And if this "bloggerani" comes after me - I shall tell my big brother to sort her out!