The Slice: Not sure if all these links are a benefit or a curse

Sometimes it helps to know that you are not alone.

So, in the spirit of comforting outreach, here is a quick summary of my experience with a popular online business networking tool. Perhaps this has happened to you.

1. Invited via e-mail to join by someone whose name I don’t recognize, before I had any idea what this was all about. Decline to do so.

2. Start to receive invitations to be linked to people I do know. Accept.

3. Begin to receive updates on their various activities and accomplishments. Wonder if more e-mail is really something I need.

4. Continue to receive invitations to be linked to others. Attempt to accept. Receive message saying I need to re-register, create a new password or something. Mutter bad words. Decide to ignore future invitations.

5. Consider the unhappy possibility that some people I like and respect might be imagining that I thought they weren’t good enough to be linked to me. Mutter bad words. Send out a few apologetic notes.

6. Continue to receive invitations. Re-register and start clicking “Accept” like a man possessed.

7. Envision a scenario where one of my new networking buddies — one of the people I don’t really know — commits a sensational crime and I find myself on the phone with a reporter who has tracked down that unstable person’s online connections. “So, Mr. Turner, how well do you know the rampage woman, Ms. Fluffy?”

8. Bite lip and continue clicking on “Accept.”

9. Wait patiently for exciting new business opportunities to come my way as a result of being linked to these thoroughly modern folks, some of whom I actually know.

10. Wonder if those with whom I am networking are asking themselves why being connected to me has not paid off in any way that can be detected.

11. Continue clicking on “Accept.”

12. Mutter bad words.

In the matter of touting films (last Sunday’s Slice): “I just figure if I recommend a movie and someone doesn’t like it, they lack good taste,” wrote Tracey Long.

Today’s Slice question: How long do you hold a grudge?