Hide Behind a Keyboard

Hide Behind a Keyboard

I've been called a lot of things. Idiot, A # # hole, Jerk. Old man who should sit down.

I made a mistake by saying, on a social media platform, that I was embarrassed to be a native Minnesotan because of what people were doing up there. I got roasted. Comments like "you should know better" were met with "I quit drinking the Kool-Aid."

Most recently, the guy next door sent a scathing, certified letter, letting me know that I was overwatering and killing his trees. One line really bugged me because we haven't spoken about this, AT ALL. The line, "I would rather have communicated like normal neighbors, but it appears as though you're not interested in that." Funny, as a text message, that has been blocked, just doesn't seem like "communicating" like normal neighbors. Also, who told this "guy" to plant trees that are susceptible to disease, right on my property line? Not me.

I blocked him as I was advised to because he sent a "text message" saying that I had mowed into this yard and that this was not acceptable. Dude. I just got home from the hospital! To this day, thanks to Wallenberg Syndrome, I still have balance issues and a bad limp.

The letter itself was a rant, like he spoke. One long paragraph with ZERO suggestions as to how to correct it. So, I took the exact opposite approach. I completely turned it off and wrote "It's off!" on the signature receipt that the tool suggested.

The Guy Who'd Never Say It to Your Face

Take that same guy and put him across a table from me. Coffee shop, doesn't matter. Now watch what happens to his courage.

It evaporates. Every time.

Because it was never courage. It was distance. The internet gives cowards an invisible wall, and the wall is a keyboard. Behind it, everybody's a tough guy. Everybody's got the hot take, the gut punch, the thing they'd "never let slide." Strip away the screen name and the avatar and put a real face on the other side of the table, and that same guy will suddenly find a reason to check his phone.

I spent 30-plus years in enterprise IT and telecom, sitting in rooms with executives who'd cut you down over a missed SLA without blinking; to your face, in real time, no hiding. I've had a stroke that took the strength out of my left foot and made we relearn how to walk like a man twice my age. I've sat at a trading desk and watched a position go against me in real time, no delay, no do-over button. None of that prepared me for the particular flavor of gutlessness I get from friends, neighbors, and strangers online. Because at least the guy in the boardroom had to look at me while he said it.

Why I Stopped Hiding, Even When It Would've Been Easier

Here's the part I'll own: I get it. Hiding is easier. I could post my trades without my face attached, keep my mouth shut about the stroke, the drop foot, the fact that I'm bald and 60 and not particularly interested in pretending otherwise. Nobody would know it was me if a trade blew up or a post didn't land. Anonymous failure doesn't sting the same way.

But anonymous anything doesn't mean much either.

I named this blog Old, Bold, and Bald because I got tired of watching people, myself included, plenty of times, trade their spine for a login. You want to say something, say it. Own it. You want to disagree with me, disagree with me where I can see you do it. Let's talk about it. Face to face. I'll take a real argument from a real person over a drive-by insult from a cartoon avatar every single time, because one of those exchanges might actually teach me something.

The Keyboard Isn't the Problem. You Are.

I'm not making some tired "the internet ruined civility" argument. The internet's a tool. A hammer doesn't make you swing it at somebody's head. The keyboard doesn't make you cruel, it just makes cruelty free. No eye contact tax. No tone-of-voice tax. No standing there watching your words land on an actual human being who now has to carry them around for the rest of the day.

Take that tax away and you find out fast who somebody really is underneath the manners.

So here's my ask, and it's not complicated. Before you type something, you wouldn't say standing in front of the person, sitting across the table, in the room, close enough that your voice would shake a little saying it, don't. Not because the internet police are coming for you. Because if it only exists behind a keyboard, it was never real in the first place. It was just noise from someone who may be too afraid to actually talk with you.

I'm old. I'm bald. I've got a foot that doesn't always do what I tell it to and a trading account that occasionally reminds me I'm not as smart as I think I am. I've got nothing left to protect by pretending to be someone else online, and honestly, neither do you. Say it with your name on it, or don't say it at all.

That's the whole post. Come find me and tell me I'm wrong, but be open-minded enough to "Be curious, not judgmental." I'll be here.

Until next time,

Stay Old, Bold, and Bald, and maybe a bit Grumpy too