But on occasion, you get a friend request so unbelievably random and potentially frightening that you start questioning the benefit of these sites altogether.
Enter Steve.
Since deleting Myspace from my life, I've had fewer of these random people knocking on life's door to decide upon. However, last Thursday morning I heard some strange fingers rap-a-tap-tapping at my virtual ingress. I clicked on the request, and found this:
I have whited out the eyes of Steve because they seriously creep me the shit out. Why is this guy sending me a friend request? Where's the missing link?
Idea #1: We have common acquaintances
Noting that he and I have the same hometown in common, I thought maybe we had common acquaintances, and for some reason Steve had heard so much raving and ranting about how incredibly awesome I am that he finally folded to the pressure and tried adding me as his friend so he could regale his own friends with tales of my awesomeness and thus improve his social standing amongst his community of admirers.
I look through Steve's list of friends. Nothing. Of his 59 friends, we have zero in common. I don't even remotely know one person on his list. I think this was the moment the icy-cold sensation of terror began slowly permeating my being.
Idea #2: Common interests brought us together
I came to the natural conclusion that Steve and I, being from the same hometown and all, must have common interests and he found me by searching something like "Pennsylvania, self-loathing people named Mike, crappy 70's movies about vans."
No.
Steve is apparently interested in astrology and...well, pretty much astrology. He has a pretty blank page. The interesting thing of note is that he has listed himself as "in a relationship," yet has pictures of no significant others. In fact, he has the most random collection of pictures I've ever seen. A picture of Alfred E. Neuman, a picture of a smiling monkey, a picture that I assume is of himself in high school, a picture of a serious-looking detective monkey with hat and trenchcoat, and a Dallas Cowboys star.
Fear...escalating....
Idea #3: Similar employment situations maybe? I hope...?
In a Steven King-esque twist of terror, Steve has the one job I couldn't be interested in less. The one vocation that instantly brings a sense of anxiety and discomfort to me.
Steve is an "on-air personality."
As in for a radio station.
I start imagining Steve having a voice like one of those "wacky" morning dj people who interrupt my morning commute to work between taking one cd out of the changer and anxiously jamming another one in to save myself the pain of hearing some sort of "hilarious" diatribe about the current state of peanut butter and jelly or whatever the hell it is these people ramble on about while the obligatory straight-man or female counterpart laugh uncontrollably to feed their weak ego.
Conclusion: Yikes.
At this point I have neither accepted nor denied the friend request. I also have noted that Steve still doesn't have any friends in common with me, Steve is 48 years of age, Steve has nothing in common with me, Steve may or may not be a parent per his friends list, and there may or may not be dead bodies in Steve's freezer (this is purely speculation, though...just in case he reads this).
Further detective work has revealed that the radio station Steve states he works for has no information on him on their website.
Somebody call Chris Hansen. I may have caught a predator.
No comments:
Post a Comment