When your readers flirt with you...

Me in Vegas all the way on the right the first time I went there in 1994 -- let's see...I was 25 years old, the year I met my husband Chris

First off, my gentle reader, can I just tell you how much I love my new MacBook Air and how it makes my work life so much simpler and easier and more productive?

Okay, enough said -- now on to the topic at hand.

How do other writers handle it when their readers flirt with them?

Every once and a good while people will read what I've written somewhere online, and hunt me down on Facebook and send me a friend request.

I -- just like this sister that writes for The Washington Post that friend requested me not too long ago -- accept a lot of my friend requests from readers, so grateful am I that they took the time to Google me and give me kind and encouraging words about writing.

But then...

...the writing compliments are sometimes followed by comments that, yes, feed my baser sides of vanity and insecurity -- but also make me ask myself: Hey, who is this Facebook friend again?

"You are very beautiful," wrote one such guy today via Facebook messenger, which shows up on my phone as well -- and just feels so -- so -- close.

I checked out his page and liked one of his posts or whatever -- but I just didn't respond to the flattery.

Of course it feels good, but anybody can see the big old pic and me and my husband sitting together in my Facebook photo profile, and the fact that I'm married to him.

Okay yeah, I get it -- I'm no Mother Teresa here.

Do you block your readers?

I didn't block him because he seemed normal enough and didn't get out of pocket.

Besides, the whole point of being a writer and expressing one's self online is in the hopes that people will read and relate and be helped by the God-given gift you've been given.

It's just curious to see how this whole online world of writing thing brings up subtle issues that we didn't have to deal with not that long ago.

Hope and pray I deal with them right...