Twitter tales: A love story in 140

The first in a series

It started about a year ago and ended 8 months later.

She got to know him online via Twitter. They connected over war and conflict, a topic of mutual interest.

It later seemed somewhat like a premonition.  

She said she’d like to meet him and he started DMing her in an overtly seductive manner.   

She responded, thinking he was genuinely interested in her.

He told her he had an online girlfriend he’d never met in person. He said he wasn’t interested in having a girlfriend in real life.  

 A contradiction, it’s true.

Sometime later he told her he had split up with his online girlfriend. Things seemed to be swinging in her favour. 

Eventually, they met in person and they had an intimate sexual encounter.

Afterwards, he said he would call her, but he never did.

She hadn’t thought to ask if he was interested in having a regular friendship because she thought they were friends. 

Wrong. 

She was very sad. She felt exploited. 

Alone.  

 She caught up with him on Twitter a few days later and he said he’d been sleeping, that he’d enjoyed the experience they’d had together. 

He had changed.

Things got complicated in the Twitter world. He refused to speak to her on the telephone. She didn’t have his number so she was powerless. 

She then discovered that he was treating other women the same way on Twitter. 

Sadness turned to fear and anger. She felt isolated, vulnerable. 

Trapped by 140, by the world wide web.

She had no one to talk to. 

She looked for help online. 

She needed help. She called a bullying hotline for parents and children. 

They told her to call the police. She did. 

The police officer was kind. Helpful. She felt better.

The officer said all she could do was to warn others.   

She did. He found out. 

Afterwards, he told her he would never speak to her again. 

He hasn’t. 

Heroes.

autumnal Green Park

Being a Road Scholar by @DougDowen

I invited Doug Dowen to write a guest post for TellingTales after he asked me to do the same for his Common Voice blog. I've never met Doug in person -- we know each other via Twitter. I'm fascinated that he manages to blog each day. Here, he explains how he got started and shares his views.

What does it take to be a "Road Scholar"? There are no real qualifications, actually.

Late last year I was contemplating making some sort of entrance into the blogosphere. I tossed an idea out via Twitter... just to see what kind of feedback I could garner.

I actually didn't know what to expect, but, surprisingly, a couple of my mutual follows on Twitter called me to the challenge to blog every day for a year. That may seem like nothing exciting, or even remotely interesting, but since I drive a truck throughout the U.S. I thought there may be some good stories on occasion.

 The term "Road Scholar" - as is obvious to see - is a play on the term "Rhodes Scholar." I've never gone to college, but there is a lot one can learn driving a truck (I've learned more about geography as a driver than as a high school student).

 However, "The Road Scholar" series is more than just a blog of a truck driver... at least I hope it is. Hearing about bad experiences at a grocery warehouse generates little, if any, interest.

 But to get a basic understanding of the different cultures, from small towns to metropolitan cities (not to mention the different attitudes as well), and the periodic snapshot of picturesque scenery than many may not have the opportunity to see otherwise... now THAT would make for good reading material.

I do go on a rant from time to time, whether it's to point out the erratic behavior (and complete disregard for others - and that includes OTHER truck drivers), or venting my frustration of self-serving protests (the "Occupy" movement) or irresponsible leadership (our own government)... well, that can also make for good reading.

 I've always tried to present a neutral point of view when opining on social/political subjects. Basically, "The Road Scholar" is about one man's perspective of the country that he drives through on a daily basis, and presenting it to others - with photographs, whenever possible - whom either would not see it any other way, or take such panoramic views for granted.

There's a long road ahead - I hope you'll come along.

Doug spent eight years in the U.S. Marine Corps. Now he drives a truck. He's been happily married for 18 years and has four sons.

Blogging about food on #BAD11

This year, Blog Action Day -- when all participating bloggers write on the same topic -- coincides with World Food Day.

I volunteered at the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto for a couple of years in the 1990s. My job was to track the weight of food contributions and to write letters of thanks to people who donated food.

I also helped ensure that people who wanted to organize a food drive in their office had the bins and pin-up posters they needed. Most people who used the food bank were employed -- they just didn't earn enough money to be able to cover the cost of the quantity of food they needed each month.

The first stage play I ever saw was a production of Oliver! in London's West End when I was a child.  The musical adaptation of Oliver Twist, the novel by Charles Dickens, was a transformational experience for me.  In my household we always had enough to eat and I had never considered that some people might not until I saw the play.

Battling borders

I wrote this post for The Common Voice blog. Twitterfriend @DougDowen asked me to write for his blog as a stand-in while he was observing Yom Kippur, a Jewish holiday.


I’ve often thought about how much more difficult setting up a new life in London would have been without social media.

Through Twitter, since moving to London from Toronto in 2008, I’ve been able to make new friends in England and keep in touch with old friends in Canada.

When I was a child, my mother -- who is English and emigrated to Canada with my Canadian father in the 1960s -- relied on snail-mail letters from family and friends to stay in touch.

I’m lucky because I have a Canadian and a British passport, which means I can travel freely to Canada, Britain, the United States and the 27 countries of the European Union without needing a visa.

Last weekend I went to Berlin, where invisible and visible borders destroyed so many lives in the 20^th century.

Nazi rule in Germany after 1933 destroyed Berlin’s roughly 200,000-strong Jewish community by enforcing exile to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp or to death camps. 

After the Second World War, Berlin was divided first into four sectors among Russia, France, Britain and the U.S. and later, in 1961, split into communist East Berlin and capitalist West Berlin.

The Berlin Wall, constructed to prevent an exodus from east to west during the Cold War, separated families and friends again until it was smashed in 1989.

Now the city commemorates the Holocaust with the dramatic Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, designed by Patrick Eisenman, and engineer Buro Happold, made up of concrete slabs, and via tributes in the decade-old Jewish Museum, designed partly by architect Daniel Libeskind.

The divisive wall is also commemorated throughout the city with markings on the ground, pieces of wall and a museum at Checkpoint Charlie, which marks the  border crossing between the old East and West Berlin.

Estimates vary, but between 100 and 200 people were killed trying to escape from east to west.

To a tourist, reconstruction, reconciliation and remembrance characterise modern-day Berlin.

Old scars remain.

Garden of Exile

Immeasurable sadness

Jewish Museum, Berlin
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