How To Fight On Twitter

As my walk through life continues; I've worn many hats and have been labeled many things--some of them awkward and uncomfortable yet a few have been the perfect fit; but recently, two stand out: narcissistic and perverted.

Last week I kept the following schedule:

Monday: I had fake hair put on lashes (lash extensions by Wink).

Tuesday: I had my real hair removed from my back.

Wednesday: I plucked my nose hairs.

Thursday: Ms. Clairol and I disguised the numerous greys on my head.

Do you see how big of a role HAIR plays in my life? With all this work, I couldn't help but wonder, "Am I really a narcissist?"

Being the social media networking guru that I am--I was about to tweet the question out to the twitterverse when I remembered I had promised to twitpic photos of my new eyelash extensions so I loaded them up and tweeted them out. And almost immediate, I got a tweet from a female user that read:

"I'm happily married you pervert and I'm BLOCKING you A$$HOLE!" 

I couldn't figure it out. Surely it was a mistake. How could a "before and after" photo of me have caused such a reaction?

See photo 1 here

See photo 2 here

Was it eyelash envy? Maybe it was a person with deep-rooted trichotillomania issues or maybe--just maybe--she had a cat with a severe case of alopecia? I tweeted her back and explained I wasn't trying to "come on" to her; I was just being friendly and wanted to share my narcissistic lifestyle.

In all the crazy confusion with this twitter fight, I sent out a tweet, not to her, but in general asking, "When did the rules of twitter change?" When was sending a twitpic an evil act? And that's when it happened. A few of my followers traced the tweets back to the original point of origin and caught up with the drama and reacted as any good Christian following a gay man would--they attacked! I saw tweets flying out quicker than the calorie counter at a Weight Watchers meeting. My followers were tweeting this woman and I panicked.

All I could imagine was this poor, clueless woman in Arizona coming back to check her twitter replies and seeing a flock of Nando followers tweeting her. Now, to their defense, my followers didn't really "attack" her but tried to explain my humorous ways. Her response? They got blocked too.

I sent out a thank you to my followers--I felt like I had just won a popularity contest--and tried to diffuse the situation and asked them to leave her alone; the last thing I wanted was for all of us to get our accounts banned. But Twitter followers coming to my rescue filled my heart with a marvelous warm tingly feeling--you know the kind--like when having hot sex with a 21-year-old. Had this been Jr. High School, no one would've come to my rescue--I would've been left out in the cold with nothing but my trumpet and my Paula Abdul Trapper Keeper.

The moral of the story? Twitter hasn't changed. It's still a place where you can freely interact with a variety of community members that might or might not share the same interests as you--but you still have to be respectful and play nice and avoid twitter fights. Had this woman simply sent out a tweet saying, "I don't really want to interact with you and your eyelashes," I would have taken the high road. Yes, I would have cried, called my mom, and put an ancient voodoo curse on her, but I also would've respected her a lot more.

So what are the rules of twitter when someone tweets you and you don't want to tweet them back? Do you send them a message asking them to stop the tweets? Do you just ignore them? Or do you send them an immediate evil tweet that stops the madness but sparks an online feud?

P.S. The next morning, I received an even nastier tweet from her husband, so I sent out one last tweet explaining it was all a misunderstanding, I would no longer tweet her and I blocked them both.And to @pdurham, @solessence, @twanjikalula thanks for coming to my rescue!

Have you ever had a twitter fight? How did you handle it? How do you think it should be handled?