The Invisibles

I have a few friends that set their IM status to Invisible when they are online. Since IM is my primary means of communication with some of my friends it bugs me a little. The reason that they are invisible is because they are hiding from someone (or multiple people). I know what you might be thinking. Maybe they are hiding from me. Well, I don’t think they are. A lot of times they will IM me when invisible, and if I do IM them, they respond right away. So they are obviously hiding from someone that’s not me.

I think if you are going to go as far as to hide from someone, why have them on your buddy list to begin with? These friends that are invisible aren’t invisible just when they don’t feel like talking to a certain individual. They are invisible most of the time. The least they could do is set their status to away so if the person they don’t want to talk to does IM them, they can just pretend they are not there. That I don’t mind as much. One of the reasons I hate when people are invisible so much is because a lot of times my messages won’t go through because they are invisible. They just bounce back saying offline messaging isn’t available or the message was not sent because the user isn’t online. This happens most if they are using MSN. I also can’t send them files a lot of the time. So, if they are asking for a file and are invisible, it won’t let me send. If you feel the need to hide from certain people all the time, then delete them from your list. It’s that easy. Stop causing problems for the rest of us :)

5 replies
  1. trix
    trix says:

    Speaking as a sometimes “invisible” person: It’s not about hiding from ONE person… it’s about getting pounced with messages when I sign in. Sometimes I just don’t have the energy for them… or sometimes I am having a meaningful conversation with someone or working on something important and don’t want to be distracted by others. And there are people who DO get pissy when you don’t answer them… or you don’t answer them fast enough… no matter what your status says. I like my peace and I like to avoid the hassle. :)
    LEAVE… TRIXIE… ALOOOOOOOONE!

  2. shep
    shep says:

    You also have to be considerate of other people though. Especially if you wind up IMing them while you’re set to appear offline. Since I happen to know you use MSN, you are one of the users who other people will have trouble messaging. Is it your fault? No. Ultimately, it’s MSN’s fault, but remember, other people may not use Windows Live messenger. There are a lot of alternatives that will allow you to connect to the MSN protocol, trillian, pidgin, adium, meebo, digsby, etc. to name a few. MSN’s protocol doesn’t behave nicely with other clients. So if you’re going to be invisible and talk to people, then remember how frustrating it can be to the user you’re trying to talk to. And, we can’t leave you alone. We love you (but for less than $1500 worth).

  3. shep
    shep says:

    Well, that’s just uncalled for. I’m going to take the higher road here and not mute you. But I will press your SAP button so everything you say comes out in Spanish.

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