Back in 2007, I got two things for the first time: an MSN account and a webcam. I really enjoyed doing video calls with my friends and also talking to them from home because, until that point, they were people who I would only have contact with when I was actually in school. So, as you can imagine, I was very happy about that.
However, this blog post isn’t just an appreciation of internet communication; before long things took an unfortunate turn. Quite often I would be chatting to my friends around the time of day that I would get changed which, on its own, wasn’t an issue. The problem stemmed from the fact that my computer was also very slow, and it froze up for ages every time I started and ended a video call. As such, as I trusted my friends, if I was chatting and needed to get changed, I’d say “I’m just going to get changed now, so, minimise the call until I send another message, please!” This plan worked perfectly fine for a while, until somebody threw a metaphorical spanner into the works.
“If you get changed right now, I’m just going to watch you,” said one of my friends (it was actually two friends of mine, one round the house of the other).
“No you won’t,” I replied, “I am getting completely changed, you know!”
Of course, I had every reason to believe this was just some way of teasing me. Why would she watch? She had absolutely no reason to. So I ignored that remark and continued to get changed.
Now, before I continue, I think I should tell you that I’m often told that I’m a rather naive person. When people say that, I usually think that they don’t fully understand the way in which I look at the world, but I suppose this story in particular does portray me in a rather naive light. My friend did watch the entire time I was getting changed (the other later told me that she looked away the whole time, kindly) and then they also told every person that I knew all about it. That would be bad enough on its own, but there’s still more.
Rumour has it that she screen captured me at a rather exposed moment and showed it to loads of people. I have to say, though, that I never came across this screen capture so, perhaps a little optimistically, I don’t believe that it existed. But still, even that is not the worst part of this story; somehow or another, I was the one who came off negatively when this story was repeated amongst people. It wasn’t that somebody had spied on me getting changed; it was that I had acted indecently on webcam! Which was a shame really, because if you looked at past occurrences (like the time she ripped off half of my clothes in a garden or the time she pulled forward the waistline of my trousers and peeped inside as if I were a doll she wanted to check for anatomical correctness!) it was quite clear how things had happened.
But still, I hope this may act as some kind of cautionary tale for people!
