So, last week a new acquaintance of mine introduced me verbally to a close friend of his. He'd mentioned the person before, but briefly and nothing too serious. As our conversation progressed into the realm of funny and interesting, we got more comfrotable with each other and he gave me their e-mail.
Now, in any other circumstances, this would not be abnormal in any way. A friend networking with another friend, making mutual friends from Facebook extend to the real world. Thinking about it from the perspective of where I'm standing right now, it is not that simple. The "friend" I'm talking about isn't just any other girl or any random guy. The friend I was acquainted with is big-name.
At first, I got an email from the friend and I was extatic, thinking I'd finally made a friend outside of the realm of the normal friends I usually have. I didn't think anything of it, I had the friend's personal e-mail and they had mine, so we were talking. The emails didn't come too often because they were busy over on their corner working hard, as they usually did. It was fine with me, I mean, it made sense an adult person would be too busy to email a college student 24/7 like I do with my favorite manfriend.
But then I realized, the name on the e-mail wasn't the name the person said. Srange. Maybe for privacy purposes? Well, I got over it and didn't think anything of it at that early point in time. Them, I started realizing the spelling and grammar mistakes and the repeated use of a certain word throughout the e-mails. I started getting a little uncomfortable with that and started thinking more abot the incongruent factors. This is starting to get suspicious.
So I'm talking to a person I don't know and am not sure if they are the person they say they are. What if that acquaintance of mine was just playing me and gave me a faulty e-mail that he created in order to get information out of me that he wouldn't normally be able to ask personally? What if this was an entirely different person that I didn't know, and was going to use the information I gave them against me somehow? What if that acquaintance is messing with my mind and taking advantage of the small trust I've given him? What if this is all some sick and twisted plot? But there's one thought that differs from the rest... What if I'm over-reacting and this is actually the person that they claim to be?
This all might seem like I'm a little paranoid here and there, but I think I'm in all my rights to be a little concerned and worried. The internet is a large place, and there's people hidden everywhere pretending to be what they're not. Myself, for instance, on Myspace. I'm 103 and have6 children and 19 siblings. Can you say lie? But this is one of the more obvious lies, and not intended to hurt anyone. There are lies, however, that are hard to distinguish and uncover. The problem is, how do you know when it's a lie and how do you know when it's the truth?
