I had one of those experiences years ago where someone direct messaged me asking about coming onto the podcast. This is someone whose work I had been following and enjoyed, but I was extremely surprised that they had reached out (and no, I’m not going to reveal who). My show was (is?) not well-known, let alone for the specific content this person was producing at that time.

So, I had to think about it for a while. I hadn’t done many interviews with people whom I have not already met or known, but after some thought, I decided to throw caution to the wind and take a chance! I responded with, “Sure! I assume you want to talk about the new —?” While I waited for the person’s reply, I started doing my homework: detailing who this person was, what they had been working on, and coming up with questions.

A day or two passed, but no response. I began to wonder: was the request a mistake? After all, there are other podcasts with “Longbox” in their title (let alone “Review”). Maybe this person meant to message that other podcast, or, just as likely, someone in their social media list who was before or after my name and they messaged the wrong person. Given that I never heard back, I assume the latter. I can only imagine that after I messaged them back, they thought, “Oh, shit! I contacted the wrong guy/show! What do I do?! If I say, ‘Sorry, I meant to send this to —‘, I’ll look like an asshole. I know, I’ll just pretend I hadn’t sent the message…”.

I don’t blame them for not responding. Who hasn’t accidentally sent a message you immediately wish you could recall and hoping the recipient hadn’t seen it? Still, it would have been interesting and probably a lot of fun had they responded and we did the interview (after all, more coverage is always a good thing). Oh well, maybe one day….