Being a public persona, even on the teeny little level that ilyAIMY’s at, can pretty stressful. It’s not like I get recognized on the street too often, but it happen. And I don’t get CONSTANT emails and facebook messages, phone calls and texts from people that I don’t know, but at least a couple of times a week it happens. We’re not counting the dozens of booking requests, either to play with ilyAIMY or to play at one of my open mics or at Teavolve – that’s a whole other conversation – but the awkward conversations, one-sided and invasive and presumptive – that people engage in when they’ve had some huge conversation with you inside their head before ever bringing it to the keyboard… sometimes simply uncomfortable, sometimes downright frightening. We’ve had our stalkers and obsessed parties…
Before anyone worries too much, this isn’t anything particularly specific at the moment, just ruminating on the topic of messages that follow up tersely answered emails saying something like “if you’re too good to talk to me” or who complain about whether or not we’re giving an individual “a chance” or … or whatever… it’s actually probably a conversation that any moderately self-aware human will acknowledge having been on BOTH sides of at some point or another. Whether trying to think the best of someone who’s edging in on stalking or doing our best to willfully ignore someone who’s politely saying “leave me alone”, being CONSTANTLY available as a self-represented, frequently-performing artist has to be slowly wears down your patience and erodes your ability to think the best of people.