I Received a Connection Request On Linkedin
And my mind ran into a fantasy
I signed up for a Linkedin account in my early twenties because I had a few friends joining and it was “the new Facebook”.
I had a few very out-of-date details on there and a handful of connections.
It wasn’t until I was looking for a new job in a different field around ten years later that I decided to update my profile and try to build up my number of connections.
Despite the fact that I am currently in a happy, long-term relationship (albeit temporarily long-distance), when I received a connection request from a very handsome-looking man, my mind ran off into a fantasy.
The request was a little out of the blue as it was from a person that I’d never met before, heard of, or had any connections with.
I accepted the request purely because I was building up my numbers— and because I was intrigued.
He had sent me a message along the lines of “Thanks for accepting my request. I saw your profile and thought that we have similar ideas. Linkedin is a great place to share ideas.”
He was a stockbroker and I work in education, so I’m not quite sure what similarities he saw.
The message was enough to set my mind racing though.
Perhaps because I haven’t seen my boyfriend in the flesh for four months now, or perhaps because I have been brought up with fairytales of Prince Charming, within the space of 15 seconds, this one message from this guy had turned into a whirlwind romance in my head, the finale of which being him taking care of me from the profits of his stockbroking life.
I never responded to the message.
I told my boyfriend about it, and we laughed together at the idea.
Then it turned into a proper conversation, the result of which was me realising that it wasn’t the prospect of a more romantic love that I was fantasising about, but financial security. It was the prospect of being with someone with a massive, lucrative salary that I found appealing.
As my boyfriend and I are both living separately and paying two sets of living costs at this moment in time, and with the rise in inflation, food prices, oil prices — the rise in everything except wages, things are a little tighter than before.
This isn’t to say that we’re on the breadline. We’re lucky to both have decent jobs, but have reduced our expenditure on luxuries like travel and eating out to keep within our means.
The sheer fact that we were able to travel/eat out before is a huge privilege — we’re both aware of that — although we live very simply (no car, no kids, smallish living spaces) to be able to achieve it.
So, I’m not beating myself up about the fact that my mind ran away with me in a fantasy of a rich, handsome stranger.
I don’t think we should penalise ourselves for resorting to imagination to soothe our real-life worries.
But it does make me determined to find some ways of making some extra money.
Medium so far hasn’t been one of them, but I live in hope!
