Posted By:
T206Collector"Why don't you want to meet with another collector(s) for a bite to eat at a restaurant ? What harm would that do ? I can't figure out WHY that would be a such a "giving up a privacy issue" ?"
My post was trying to describe two forms of privacy -- (1) privacy from mass-mailing, search-aholic, Google-ispired lunatics; and (2) privacy in my personal life and, more specifically, within my own hobby. The latter one is a bit tougher to explain.
Friendship is a lot more to me than a shared interest, especially a shared interest in baseball cards. I do not think that someone who has a great baseball card collection is more or less likely to be a good friend. I think it ranks you at about even on the karma scale of future potential friend. Maybe even a little worse, since I happen to think most of us are missing a few rungs on the "cool guy" ladder -- take a survey at the next baseball card show you go to: count the upper middle class, middle aged, overweight, scruffy, unshowered, stained t-shirt, messy eating, foul-mouthed, smelly, white bread, men in the room -- an aside, how many times do I have to put up with a lack of deoderant when I just want to peruse a pile of T206 cards at a show? Now count the college kids/twenty-somethings in nice jeans, clean sneakers (or even shoes), and a nice t-shirt or button down, with cute girlfriends in tow. There is a reason that the Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons is so funny -- it's because we all resemble that stereotype. There is no impetus for me to seek out a bite to eat with Comic Book Guy. Any incentive I have to talk about baseball cards with complete strangers is satisfied by this forum -- plus, this way, I don't have to pay attention to you, I don't have to watch you put food in your mouth, I don't have to see what you look or smell like; I have to make no effort at all, other than a few keystrokes.
When a thread is posted that has photos of people on this forum, I am embarassed for them. It may all be a good chuckle amongst those of you that know each other on a level beyond this forum. But to those of us that prefer a less personal forum to discuss baseball cards, those photos are like still images from hell -- very very unflattering: "Hey guys, look how unattractive I am -- come take a closer look!"
Thanks, but I'll pass.