You know how when you talk with your best friend you have no fear of judgement. You let it all out without thinking: being too selfish, arrogant, stupid, not good enough, silly, unfair, irrational, overreacting, too fat or else… you know the long list of things that would make you feel ashamed for a life time if anyone else knew! You just say it all, knowing you will still be loved or accepted as you are…
Well a few years back , that’s what I did in a very private email addressed to my best friend. Revealing my secrets was easy for I knew how it would be received… but months later, I heard from my parents that one of their friends made a comment about my private life: “Well, I received this email about how this or that.. blablabla… maybe she shouldn’t send me this sort of stuff?” . Whoops… he was right!! I was fairly new to this technology and thought I’d better be more careful with it all. I was lucky, no harm was done. Except for making myself look silly to him, but he knew that already. lol. I deleted him straight away from my address book and promised myself to be more careful next time! He never mentioned anything to me! We’re still friends today. Embarrassing but harmless mess that one! lol
Until…
Another time… As I was emailing and texting at the same time with my best friend and other friends and family, you know like when we email and text at the same time and are actually having 3 conversations at once on top of dinner cooking and the children interrupting every second minute… I accidentally sent the wrong text to the whole of my closest friends and family! It was supposed to reach my best friend! Private joke. Not really appropriate for others to read. That mix-up was embarrassing enough for me to dig my head in the ground for years.
To this day, I am still not sure what they thought of it and rather not know. I don’t want to think about how some of them could have interpreted the isolated comment… You know how you go on with your best friend.. and when one sentence doesn’t mean what you want it to mean out of its context!! Well, it was that sort of thing… No one mentioned anything except for one of my really close cousin, who knows me enough to understand my distracted ways. Straight away he realised this could not possibly have been addressed to him and texted me back with some funny line!!! lol… At least one of them had humour!
Until…
One of my latest major “hitch” was only last week! I was emailing a lady who I would like to call my friend (Ace) and was repeating the words that someone (called “X”) told me about “the daughter” of “Mum”. They had been put in the same team and I thought it was going to be interesting to observe the interactions between the daughter and “X” ( It was a good opportunity for “X” to work her feelings for the daughter.) I need to mention that despite those feeling these 2 persons had been interacting peacefully in the same group for many years now. There has never been anything detectable, and to this we still wouldn’t know about “X” ‘s feeling for the daughter if it had not been for what’s following.
All of these confidences were in pure trust and not thinking that “Mum” could actually take it the wrong way if she knew… Well, you kind of guessed what happened. Along with my email was a document that our group of people could use for their own benefit. I asked “Ace” if the group could find it good enough. She seemed happy with it and decided to forward it, forgetting that all our previous emails were attached to it!!! The whole group was able to read the thoughts that had been going on about “the daughter” !!! Nothing too bad had been said of course, but “Mum” really took it to a first degree and was highly offended. “Ace” was so apologetic for a mistake I do all the time. “Mum” still doesn’t want to be part of our group any more, probably because she told her daughter, and sent me a couple of insulting emails.
I still don’t see what the harm is in saying that someone doesn’t l like someone. But I understand that the group knowing about it could be embarrassing for the mother… maybe…
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Another time, a friend called me after 9pm one night. She doesn’t usually do that. I was quite alarmed. She had a very serious and stern voice and asked me if I had recently emailed her any attachment. The problem was serious because I had not and she knew that it could obviously not have come from me. She explained to me what she had been receiving from my email box for the past few weeks. She explained to me that some hacker must have got into my mailbox and thought it was best to tell me. My mind was spinning with worry. Some children are in my address book what if they also read those? She started to worry too as her daughter is one of those children. We quickly hung up and she checked her daughter’s emails (no trace of the suspicious emails) while I emailed everybody to check their children’s mail-box. I also asked everyone to delete me as the contact they know and to never ever open a mail coming form this address. I created a new email address and all was good again. Apparently not all my contacts had received these very disturbing attachments and no children was harmed on the way. pphewww…. But what a freight! I am so grateful she told me. No one else did!!! That friend and I had a good giggle when all was over, thinking about the face some people must have pulled: my daughters teachers, my ex-boss, my grand-parents or even some long time family friends… Embarrassing and worrying but in the end, quite a good joke. It also helped me clear up my mailbox by starting a new one from scratch!
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These four were my most embarrassing mistakes with technology, there’s been many more like the one on the way to learning how to use technology. Last night for example:
I was sending a mail out talking about my children’s academic successes, you know how mothers can be proudly irrational and irrationally proud when talking about their own children? Well … a really good friend of mine, (the same one as above actually!) , who I had not sent the mail to, replied to me with a really kind and sweet mail, congratulating the girls and me for the success. Even though the whole email I had sent was typed in French (for my family) she was able to gather the main idea. She was genuinely happy for me and for the girls. That hiccup, was a good one! I knew that friend was a good friend and that she wouldn’t think that I am just boasting or showing off my children’s results. She’s in the same boat and understands motherhood how I see it today. So, that mistake wasn’t such a bad one after all, it turned out pretty sweet. I checked quickly in my sent emails to see who else had received it and wasn’t suppose to!She had been the only one. There must be some contacts that are close to each other in my list and occasionally I probably email the wrong person. Which, now that I think about it, would explain the blanc look on some faces when I mention certain things or even the lack of replies… lol
I wonder how many more times it’s happened and people said nothing about it, and how many more times I will send the wrong thing to the wrong person…
Air mail never had this sort of problem. And before mobile phones, we just had to meet the people in person before we could communicate with them, again, no mistake could be done… but today in just one little touch, you can make so much damage…
I am sure there will be plenty more to come! lol Hopefully no one will get hurt on the way.
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If you also have put yourself in a very embarrassing posture, please share it here by dropping a comment, it will make us feel better!
Damoris 