I have this debate a lot with myself, about whether or not I should include my contact information on this website. As a woman, I have always found the relative anonymity of the Internet comforting, and in order to protect this relative anonymity (as well as my offline privacy), I rarely give out my telephone number or email address, and certainly would never think of publishing my home address on a website, regardless of its privacy claims. (I’m looking at you, Facebook.)
Call me anytime; I'm not busy! ("Scenic Telephone Box" photo by Flickr user fakelvis)
Still, some people I know don’t hesitate to publish their home address online, because it’s also their business address, and they apparently figure that this type of professional appearance trumps any privacy concerns. They look forward to talking to strangers on the phone or receiving unsolicited manuscripts in the mail. I might go ahead and post a mailing address if I had a P.O. box that I could check for unsolicited mail, but having had one in the past, I mostly found it was a waste of money. The small amounts of mail I received in my postal box weren’t really worth the money I paid for it (nor the time I spent going out of my way to check it), even though I did feel slightly more professional by allowing people to mail me there or putting it on my company letterhead.
Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but I still can’t think of any reason why I would ever want to give out my personal address. After all, wouldn’t stalkers and weirdos immediately start show up on my doorstep? I mean, I once had someone call me on my home phone after looking up my site’s WHOIS info, and that was creepy enough, as I immediately began worrying that the perpetrator of this prank call was calling from outside my apartment, Hollywood thriller-style. Nothing happened to me, thankfully, but I immediately changed my WHOIS info settings to prevent it from happening again.
I try to tell myself that business websites are different than personal websites, and that anyone who contacts me via this site ought to be business-oriented, but knowing that some of my business in the past has come from writing a sex column, as well as some vaguely erotic copy for lingerie companies, certainly doesn’t help matters. I definitely don’t think there is anything wrong with the copy I have written for these companies, nor the columns I’ve penned, but I do know that people who see “sex” or “lingerie” in your résumé often jump to the strangest of conclusions. Trust me: I’ve had more unsolicited requests for illicit encounters than I care to recall, all because of my subject matter. (I wonder if this is why James Chartrand called his her Copyblogger article “Why James Chartrand Wears Women’s Underpants” and not “Why James Chartrand Wears Panties”?)
In any case, my question is this: why do I still feel vaguely in the wrong for not including my phone number, direct email or work address on this website? It’s almost as though I feel guilty about it, like I am somehow letting people down by not giving them enough choices or ways to reach me, which is ridiculous. This should be about my choice to maintain a professional distance.
Operators are NOT standing by! ("Telephones at Hua Lamphong Station" photo by Flickr user Sam Ruaat)
As a professional freelance writer, I know that I don’t want people to be able to interrupt my train of thought with phone calls throughout the day, and I certainly don’t want them appearing on my doorstep because they were “just in the neighborhood”! So I only allow potential clients to reach me via my contact form, at least initially. As we get to know one another and trust is formed (or a specific need arises), I may choose to give them more direct ways of reaching me (phone number, email address). When the time comes for invoicing, they will even get my business address, but at that point I will not feel at all worried that they might use this information for evil, the way random strangers might.
In the end, it’s really all about relationships. Since I don’t personally know everyone in the world who might appear on my virtual doorstep, here at Buttontapper.com, I’m sticking to the contact form for now. Sorry, world, but you don’t get to have the kind of personal access that my clients do. Once we get to know each other a bit better, though, you never know; maybe one day I’ll even let you ring some of my bells.
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