In my last post, I had mentioned a little about Private Messaging (PM) ladies in RLC.  I started to go out on a tangent, and had to reel myself back in, and decided to write a post on just PM etiquette. 

A Private Message in RLC is just what it says, private.  It is like standing next to your friend, and having a conversation at a party.  Or, talking to that little hottie you just walked up to, but on a more personal level.  An unwelcome PM can be quite annoying.  I liked how Pami put it, it is like that mosquito you can't quite swat, or get to.

There are some people who don't mind the PMs.  But there are several people who are so swamped with PMs, that they lose track of them.  I would like to offer a few guidelines on PM Etiquette here.

First of all, if you do not know the person, please do not PM them asking them for sex.  Yes, I know this works on a rare occasion.  The problem is that you have just pissed off about 50+ people before you got lucky.  It is the same as walking up to someone in the bar and doing it.  It is not my style, and a lot of people, do not appreciate that approach at all.  Yes, I said people, yes, I mean mostly women.  But, I am sure there is a guy or two out there who would not like it, I am not one of those guys!  :)  The basic rule is, if you do not know the person, ask if you can PM them, and only PM them if they say you can.

I have been known to PM someone whom I do not know, but I do not do it very often, and I do not just ask to have sex with them.  There are only a few circumstances that I would do that in, and it mostly entails a guy pestering a girl.  I might just PM them real quick to see if she is ok, or needs some help.

Of course, if you are friends with others, you already know if you can just PM them out of the blue.  They are your friends, so you can PM them :).  But what about having too many PMs at one time... AKA: PM HELL!  I have been there!  As most of my friends know, I constantly have 2 or more PMs going on at any given time.

What do you do when you have that many, and don't want to talk to 15 people at one time?  Well, this hits 2 guidelines of etiquette.  The first one is: You need to let some of the people know that you are in PM Hell.  The second one is: If a friend tells you that, you need to realize that their responses may be quite delayed, and to not freak out.  Or, you need to tell them you will talk to them later, when they are not so busy.  I have been on both sides of this, as I am sure many of you have.  If everyone handles this well, no one gets hurt :)

So, what if your friend is NOT in PM Hell, and they do not respond quickly?  Well, they are busy, or they are experiencing lag (a network delay), and are having difficulties.  Whatever you do, don't over-react.

Ok, so you have your friends list, and want to PM someone, and you see they are in "Private".  Unless you KNOW that person really well, and they don't mind a PM, you should leave them alone.  Most people are in Private for a reason, so just be courteous.  On that same note, if you see them in a room, please use that same courtesy.

Here is also one most of us have done at one time or another, typing a message in the wrong tab (or window).  Usually it is a harmless, and quite funny mistake.  This one is easy to handle, just say "oops, wrong tab", and laugh about it.  This seems like common sense, and most people already know how to handle it, but it has to do with PMs :), so I mentioned it.

Now is a sticky subject.  What if you simply do not want to talk to a particular person.  Either you are mad at them, or you just don't want to talk to them at that point.  That is hard to deal with, but you SHOULD be able to tell them that you do not want to talk to them.  On the OTHER side of that, if someone says that they do not want to talk to you, LEAVE THEM ALONE, don't keep PMing them.  If you want to save the friendship / relationship with this person, it is best to give them the space when they need it.  They will come to you when they are ready to talk.

So, I think that is about all I can really say about PM Etiquette.  Please leave your comments and thoughts about this, I love to hear them, even the critical ones.

Happy PMing!
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