the strange pitfalls of social networking

As a writer I do a lot, well ok, a fair bit, of social networking. I try to join different groups, interact with people online and generally create a presence for myself in the shadowy world of the internet. Mostly I enjoy it, I'll admit to be pretty lousy at the aggressive pitch for my books but I like meeting new people and love the time I can spend with my online communities.

Also, when you're a writer you often get invitations to join different social networks that, you hope, might firstly, get some new friends, and secondly, sell a few books. So I recently got an invitation to join a site that looked - on the surface - like a similar type of site to Goodreads but focused more on Latino countries.

Great, I thinks to myself, here's a whole new potential market and, as I said, a whole new group of hopefully fun people to chat with. Then I started getting the friend requests and that was cool. I soon had quite a group of online friends.

Then the emails started coming. Granted a couple were from people who'd read my work and enjoyed it and wanted to let me know but some of them were.... well, not quite like that. Some wanted to get to know me in ways that were, shall I say a little on the intimate side.

I wrote the first couple off - I mean I recognize I'm not a troll and that men will find me attractive and in this internet world of instant communication have the ability to let me know they find me attractive. Then it started to become a little more.... graphic, shall we say.

Finally the penny drops - I really can be incredibly slow sometimes - and I finally realise I've accidentally joined an internet dating site and Latino men are not at all backwards in coming forwards if you know what I mean. I quickly discontinued my membership and have hopefully learned a valuable lesson - not everything on the internet is exactly as it seems lol.

Cheers all,
Trace