Inference-Observation Confusion

Some of you may have seen the conversation on Twitter in which I accidentally found myself embroiled. By 'conversation' I mean 'barrage of boring Tweets' which at one time were coming in more frequently than articles in the Daily Mail of immigrants headed to the UK.

A casual mention on this blog that I had enjoyed one post by Hejik regarding the Sultan, was somehow misinterpreted by, (I shall call him JG here as the best way to treat trolls is by denying them the attention they crave), JG as a whole-hearted endorsement of every word that Hejik has ever written, is currently writing, or will ever write in the future. We are forever bonded together in JG’s eyes and somehow an endorsement of one post is interpreted as my encouraging Hejik to “rip up people” (whatever that means in the world of tweenies), and of having a “relationship” with said Hejik.

To any rational mind, that's quite a leap, but clearly logical thinking is not JG's strong suit.

Yes, technically I have a “Twitter-following” relationship with Hejik certainly, but we’re really not that close. Not yet anyway. It is very much in the early days and it may or may not last, and I have to say his failure to recognise Valentine’s Day has certainly not gone unnoticed. Seriously, the extent of a 'relationship' is that I linked to one of his posts in my blog and recommended it. I do it all the time with other posts and articles. It by no means is a carte blanche endorsement of everything the person linked to writes or believes!

For the record, I had a Twitter relationship with JG at one time too, but very brief (more of a one-night stand really) because I had to let that one go. It’s tough to talk about (I'm choking up as I write these words) but I should have checked before pressing “Follow”. 

Red flag warning: When someone has a Tweet count of 90,600 or more, it’s highly likely that 99.99% of that content is a complete waste of time, and so it transpired. It wasn’t a healthy relationship for me. After counselling, I realised I had to cut the ties and move on. It’s a hackneyed expression, but some people really do need to get a life.

Paraphrasing Humphrey Bogart, JG naively whines about Hejik, Tweeting “Why did he have to come on my timeline ?”

Perhaps JG is unaware that Twitter is a public forum, and regular Tweets can be seen and responded to by anyone? It’s kind of the idea really, so if you shout out to the world 90 thousand plus times, and then say “I wasn’t talking to you” when someone replies, you come across as looking a little bit silly.

90 thousand! Think about that number for a moment. That’s about 60 Tweets per day if he’s been on for four years. Even if he’s been on from day one, that’s still 30 a day, and I’m sorry, but not many people have that much interesting stuff to say, and certainly not JG. If he’d spent the time trading and locking in just 10p per Tweet, he’d now be £9,000 better off. 

Or if you look at it in terms of time spent, if each Tweet takes two minutes to send, that’s over 3,000 hours of his life wasted. 188 days – six months basically - if we assume he spends 8 hours a day either sleeping or eating. I think we can assume he doesn’t have a love interest. Trading takes time, but at least there's a financial reward at the end of the day.

Even if Hejik were doing commercials for Dos Equis beer, at least 39 Tweets in three hours on one person is a little obsessive. I’m just amazed that there are close to 2,500 people who are interested in reading his, I was going to say ‘thoughts’, but that would not be an appropriate word to use in this instance. Unfortunately JG will never set eyes on these words, as he says “I shall not be reading your Site any more. Good day”.

Following the “Good day”, which I mistakenly thought for a moment meant that I could get on with my life, came another 11 tweets, with the final one a rather lame “I am implicating you by association”. Implicating me in what? I’m not sure JG knows the meaning of some of the words he writes.

What an odd character to judge a person they have never met, by one of many accounts they happen to be following on Twitter, and one followed for less than one week at that. I must choose the people I follow on Twitter more carefully in future. Presumably my following of @almightygod is acceptable?

Just noticed there was one more Tweet on the subject to the Sultan - and personally I am implicating him for all this nonsense! Logic dictates this is all his fault. See how silly that sounds JG?

JG likes his eggs, although he wasn't familiar with the curate's. (I'll assume he is young rather than uneducated, but he may well be both). 

There is no plot. Just one post I thought was well constructed and raised some good points. Like any good conspiracy theorist, JG appears to have far too much time on his hands, and a rather impressionable and delicate personality.

Promises, promises. I will believe that when I see it. 

I have to say it was all quite entertaining in a strange way, but sad in another. In one of my few replies, (it was hard to get a word in as you can imagine) I advised him that:

When you make baseless assumptions, anything that follows is a distortion.

but the diatribe continued, unabated. Guess my words were too big:

Differences of opinion are healthy. Let people make up their own minds. Your tweet overload suggests an unhealthy obsession

It takes all sorts I guess, but hopefully some of you had a laugh as the tirade went on.