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Following are 6 of the many things I do and think everyday to make sure I appreciate talking to online people, which results in what I hope are successful interactions with people online. I would like to apologize to Carolyn if I misunderstood this meme in any manner, and if I actually write things or express them in ways that were not wanted by the original meme.

Among many other points, the following 6 points also allow me to figure out how successful I am at interacting with others online honestly and without being selfish:

6 Simply Successful Secrets of interacting with others online

1. I respond to all people.

   I respond to all people who contact me, even if that means responding to things from long time ago that I might have overlooked. I personally feel that if I cannot respond to all the people who write to me, I should not be giving the impression that anyone can contact me. I do not like being asked something and then not being heard; why would I do the same to others? Also, if I have any personal issues going on in life, I try not to bring it to other people or let me affect my behavior towards people online. Even when I come back from the hospital and am not feeling well, I simply say or write “I will get back to you on this within a day, if that is ok with you.” to people who have contacted me and need a response.

   For me, forcing myself to write something simply because of being obligated to respond to things is the same as being selfish, since the other person deserves an honest answer from me. For me, telling others that I will respond in detail later or even not responding for a day or two and then responding with a good answer/reply along with the reason for the late response is an honest answer compared to writing a small thing in the email and sending it off. If you do not hear from me after more than a few days, that means I have misplaced or overlooked your email or message. My apologies; please contact me again.

2. I do not like telling people they are wrong

   I do not like saying “You are wrong.” I always show my opinion on things to show the logic I used to arrive at a disagreement, or I at least say I do not understand something in order to get more information. I prefer disagreeing over issues instead of with people. Even if there is an issue that people are really sensitive about, like same-sex marriages or euthanasia, I always give my logic and tell the other person that I can see why they arrive at their conclusion. Do I do this because I know I am a saint? No. I do such a thing because I want others to disagree with me the same way also.

3. I try to reflect on everything almost constantly

   I got this idea from Carolyn, and the more I think of it, the more I like the idea of reflecting at the end of the day instead of continuously. The reason thinking about verifying things all the time may be bad is that you feel stressed a lot whenever a doubt enters your mind. For me, the good thing is that because of reflecting constantly, I keep rethinking about everything to ensure my interactions with others have a good reason behind them constantly.

4. I realize I am not here to only to help my readers

   I am here to help myself and help my readers also. That is why when I come across a blogger who keeps mentioning that he/she help others by leaving comments on other sites, I try to observe if in reality they leave comments only to get people back to their own sites. I do that to figure out how not to act similarly. I am here to write what I think is right and benefit from your input and my expression, and I am here to express what I think is necessary for you to know. We already have deception and lies wanting money and attention from unsuspecting people in the guise of “I want your input on this” filling up the atmosphere in the offline world; why bring such a mentality to the online world also when we have such a wonderful opportunity to do good things online?

5. I interact with the same people differently from time to time

   Carolyn wrote that “There’s no reason for boredom.” At first I thought I might disagree, but after reading the examples like “A squirrel hiding nuts“, I realized that we really can kill boredom if we try hard, and I agree with Carolyn. Even if it is doing something we usually do not do, we can fight off boredom and feelings of wasting time. If my conversations with a person become boring, I try to spark something new or do things differently. If your conversation with a person becomes boring and you do not do anything, you might end up not talking to that person in the long run, and may actually not be interested in interacting anymore.

6. I try to think about my readers the same way I think about people in the offline world

   For me, saying “How was your day?” to a person online is the same as saying it to an offline person face to face. I say things when I mean them. That is why sometimes you will notice me online asking specific questions like “What are you doing right now?” or “How did this-or-that go?” instead of asking “How was your day?“, as in those situations, I may actually be more interested in other things going on with you instead of what happened earlier in the day.

   If I ask something, it means I really want to know. If I do not have time to talk about something, I will say something like “Sorry, I have to go do this-and-that, but I will be back around this-and-this time and we will talk about this then” and later, I always bring up the topic myself to continue the conversation. I do not like asking something when I am not ready to listen to the response/answer. Asking something without wanting to listen to the answer means I have to fake my responses to pretend I care. I do not do that, as I do not like it when people do that to me.

Those are 6 of the many things I do everyday in order to try to be successful at interacting honestly and sincerely with people online, and I think it works.

What about etiquettes and manners?

You may have noticed that I did not mention etiquettes and manners that much. The reason for that is that you need a basic philosophy over things in order to have an idea of what to do, and things like manners and etiquettes are useless if you do not have a plan or a philosophy. For me, there are many points that make up my philosophy on interacting successfully with people, and the above points are some of those points.

Tag yourself, and thank Carolyn.
For this meme, I would like to tag anyone who wishes to be tagged, as usual. I will link to your site and your post if you list a few things that you do daily or almost everyday that allow you to be successful at something. I request that you please remember to link back to the original “Simply Successful Secrets” post, and the post by Carolyn as she introduced me to this, even if you do not link to my site or this very post. I will still link to you.

Thank you Carolyn for tagging me.

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