Rude Emails Hurt

You try to help someone and you end up getting hurt. It happens to me time and time again. Makes me wonder if it's worth it to help anybody anymore. Why? Because people are mean.

I know everyone tells you to leave your "contact me" link turned on, but I am just getting so sick and tired of it. It seems to me that people only send you an email when they are angry and only ever have mean, nasty, cruel, and hurtful things to say, and it just happened yet again. This time it was about one of my posts on the SquidU forums.

Somewhere in the past week or so, I had left a comment on one of the threads on SquidU in answer to a question asked by a new Squidoo Lensmaster. They were asking why they had not gotten any traffic to their lens and wanted to know how other people were getting people to come to their lenses.

I clicked on their profile and had a look at their lenses. They had 2 lenses, both pretty well made. I did notice however that they had just joined only 3 days prior to leaving their question. After looking at their lenses I went back to the forum to answer their question.

I explained to them that traffic did not appear overnight, that it takes time and personal promotion to get traffic coming in. Google can take up to 3 months before it finds a page and adds it to it's search results. It's up to the lensmaster to promote the page themselves. I explain that I promoted my lenses via links in my forum signatures and that I was an active member on more than 300 forums, and most of my traffic was coming from other forum members clicking on links in my signatures from the forums.

I than proceeded to explain that I was getting an average of 2,000 visits to my lenses each week, and that I had been since day one here on Squidoo, because I ha already built up my traffic prior to my joining Squidoo. I explained that I had been on the internet since 1997 and posting of forums and chat rooms that entire time, and in those 11 years I have built up quite a following: people who refer to themselves as "EK's Fanboys" or "EK's Fangirls". These people follow me around the internet chatting on the same forums I do, and when I joined Squidoo, they just sort of followed me here to read my "posts" on my lenses.

I concluded by explaining that yes, my traffic on Squidoo happened literaly overnight, but that was because it was traffic I already had, and that it took me 11 years of promoting myself to get that traffic. Getting the traffic did not happen over night.

Well, that was what I said. It was me trying to help a newbie out and teach them how to get traffic to their lenses, by telling them how I got traffic to come to my lenses.

I actively seek out questions on forums, in hopes that I can help others, and if I know the answer or something that may in someway help the person I leave a comment in an attempt to help them. I have done this for 11 years now. It's how I help people.

I answered that persons question and moved on, never giving it another thought. Than came the emails: 2 of them, and a new light on my answer that I would never in a million years have ever even considered!

The message came out and accused me of "gloating over traffic" and "lying about the numbers". It called me conceited and than demanded... not requested, but DEMANDED that I provide proof of my "outrageous claims" about getting 2,000 hits on my lenses in a single week. They said that I was "all talk" and could "not provide the numbers to back up" my claims! They went on about how it was not possible for a single lensmaster to get 2,000 visits to their lenses in a single week, that it was not physically possible and that no one had ever done such and outrageous thing before. They than said I should stop lying and tell the truth, that they didn't believe a word I said.

I was shocked, stunned, and utterly confused about why this person was saying such rude and obviously hateful things to me. I was even more shocked and confused when I got a second email of the same nature from some one else.

Well, I don't understand why I have to prove myself to anyone. Nor do I understand how it could be possible that I am the only lensmaster getting 2,000 hits per week. I mean there has to be others out there with more traffic than me, because really I don't think 2,000 hits per week is that much at all.

But anyways, since the question of proof of what I say is being asked, I can in fact provide proof of how much traffic I get in one week. Since that answer I wrote on the SquidU forums was written a couple of weeks ago, my traffic has of course changed, and it seems my accuser was right: I don't get 2,000 hits per week anymore, I'm now getting 3,000 hits per week:




Shot at 2008-10-05







Shot at 2008-10-05

I remain stunned and confused about this email and wonder why it is that someone felt so enraged that they felt they had to send it. I can see if they had simply asked "Can you should me those numbers, I have a hard time believing that." But that is not what they did. There was no kindness, no curiosity, no desire to seek an understanding. It was simple bitter meanness and accusation.

I look at this email and I wonder, how do these people speak in real life. Do they jump right in your face all screaming and angry, like they do online? Would they be so full of accusations and hatred if they were talking to me face to face?

Are they really mad at me, or are they mad at someone at work or school and taking it out on the first person they met online and I just happened to be that person?

I am lost and puzzled as to how something so simple as saying I got 2,000 hits on my lenses could inspire such a fit of rage.

I do not understand it and I don't think I will try. All I will do here is point out to you that, I am a real person with feelings just like you. And you know what? When you send me (or anyone else) emails accusing me of lying and demanding proof, you are only stressing yourself out needlessly and hurting my feelings without any logical reason at all. Yes, that email hurt.

My hope in writing this lens is that everyone who reads it will think twice before they send that next email. Think about how you would feel if someone sent it to you. Would you want to open your inbox and find that email waiting for you? There is enough pain in the world as it is, do you really need to add to it?