Last October I entered a link building contest for Pink Internet Marketing, where the winning prize was a cute, fluffy bear. Amazingly enough I won the contest, and after Danielle emailed me to let me know I won, I sent her my address, though I left my name out for the sake of privacy.

After that, I never heard from her again. After receiving no bear for about a month, I sent her a friendly email, then sent another one to a different address of hers a week later just to see what was up. She hadn’t been updating her blog regularly, so I figured she must have been really busy, and let it go at that.

Then she updated her blog yesterday, so I left a comment in a Ashton Kutcher fashion, “DUDE! Where’s my bear??” I honestly thought she may have just forgotten and needed a reminder.

She deleted the comment. WTF???

For someone trying to create a successful internet marketing business, it doesn’t really help your credibility to run a link building contest, only to scam the contest winner out of his prize and ignore his repeated inquiries, ya know? Unless this is just a blackhat SEO technique I happened to be an unwitting victim of.

I wish I knew what went wrong. Maybe she changed her mind and simply couldn’t part with her beloved teddy. Maybe I wrote something on my blog that somehow offended her. Maybe the bear got lost in the mail. Really, I would have accepted virtually any explanation and been ok with it. It is just a bear after all.

But this silent treatment really pisses me off, and damn if it isn’t typical of how women usually treat me. One day you’re humming along, all is fine in the world, the birds singing, the flowers blooming, and then without warning, phone calls suddenly go unanswered, emails get ignored, and you’re left in the rain to wonder what had horribly gone so wrong.

Ah well. I guess I’ll just have to grin and “bear” it.