Plurk is a place of many phenomena. I tend to find many of them fascinating. It is, after all, a place of people and people are as frangible as it gets. So the occurrences on Plurk tend to be incredibly diverse. The Phenomena of the Day today is Conversations You Probably Should Not Be In. Sometimes you click on a thread and immediately begin to back away. Sometimes you don’t notice right away, and type in a response before thinking “Oops” and backing out of the thread. Sometimes you’re actually involved in the thread, then it turns left and you just wander quietly away.

We have all been there. There are too many of them (and too many kinds) to make it a rare occurrence. There is the TMI Plurk, usually containing two people talking about something that should probably be private, but isn’t. Often, the original Plurk is something safe and /or innocuous (or you probably wouldn’t click on it) but since that original Plurk, the subject matter has radically changed and after you see that, you don’t say a word. You just leave. Or, if you’re a dyed-in-the-wool voyeur, you can stay and quietly listen.

There are those Plurks that are really there just for the benefit of a few friends. It’s fine if you type something there, but it won’t do any good; none of them are going to answer you anyway. They are just there to talk among themselves. Until you think about it, it seems sort of rude. But if you walk up to a group of people at a party that are obviously in deep conversation amongst themselves and say, “Hi, I’m Glosso the Clown!” the same sort of thing is going to happen. You have probably been one of a group of people like that yourself. Again, just back away quietly.

Then there is the thread that starts out to be about, say, the quality of the coffee at work. You have something to say about that, so you respond, and the conversation continues. Maybe two or three times. Not riveting, but worthwhile. After one response, you cruise back through the timeline, come back to the coffee Plurk, and find that while you were gone is has somehow turned into a discussion about advanced platelet therapy in newts. It’s not likely to revert back to the original subject. Yep. Just back right on out of there.

I’m KDFrawg on Plurk, and I have probably been on all sides of all of the above.