Entitled: dangers of the net
It started as a friend request and an innocent hello in the spring of 2007. Just a salutation from a stranger online, how wrong could it all go? Oh the foolishness of a 16 year old. My name is Ann, and this is my story.
Like all teenagers of this day and age, I was on Facebook 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Every free minute was spent on it, checking my friend’s status and pictures and generally socializing. I mean, this is what we live for. Then, like every other normal day, an innocent friend request came. It had no picture and his name was anonymous from the same country as I was. Something seemed off but I couldn’t put my finger on it so I just clicked accept. “What’s wrong with having one more friend? Even though I didn’t know him personally right this moment, I’m pretty sure we’ll hit it off once we start talking”, or so I thought. Little did I know the dangers that lurked behind that rectangular blue button.
3 months on and anonymous remained as an acquaintance. It seems funny how the meaning of acquaintance has changed since the invention of social networking sites. Before they came along, the word “acquaintance” referred to a person that you knew a little about. If you knew their surname they could already be counted as an acquaintance but now, as long as he or she was a friend on Facebook, they can be counted as one already. Anonymous was just another one of the people that I didn’t even know in real life, another dust in the wind.
It was the summer of 2008 that we started talking. He added me on msn and introduced himself as Tom. As I didn’t know what he looked like, the most pressing in my mind was what he looked like but no matter how hard I pushed, he wouldn’t show me his face, hiding behind a façade of lies such as him not being photogenic and not having many pictures of himself. He kept changing the subject back to me and I soon found out that we are pretty similar. He was the same as me; same age, middle child and from a broken family. The only difference seemed to be that he’s living with his dad but I’m with my mother.
After a many months, we knew each other pretty well and started telling him more intimate things about myself, all this time not knowing what he’s like. I didn’t know if he was tall or skinny, fat or bald. Out of the blue, he suddenly suggested that we meet. Piqued by my curiosity, I replied yes thinking “I know him pretty well already, why not just meet him to fill the only hole in the jigsaw puzzle?”
Then spring came and I met him under the big oak tree in the middle of town. Birds flew in the clear blue sky, tumbling and turning, carefree and unrestricted by anything. The smell of sweet lavender was in the air as the cool breeze caressed my skin fleetingly. Standing alone under the tree was a tall man with a charismatic aura holding a white rose in his hand. He had a strong jaw, broad shoulders and a large hand. On his face hung a silly looking grin but first thing that I noticed were his eyes. They were the most sorrowful looking eyes, as if someone close to him had died.
Slowly, I walked up to him, all the while wondering how I would introduce myself. Countless scenarios ran through my head and by the time I realized I was in front of him I still hadn’t decided what to say. Thankfully, he was the one that started the conversation, albeit a bit eagerly. The rest of the day we found out more about each other than we ever could online. He was a lefty and had a weird habit of scratching his hands regularly to “keep himself calm”. The rest of the day sped on without much incident and it eventually ended.
The very next day we met online again and he suggested that we go out again and this continued quite frequently. After every single meeting, he would meet me online and ask that we go out. Time passed and through friends, I found out he wasn’t who he claimed to be. He was not the popular guy at school. In fact, he was the total opposite. In his school, he was a social outcast, one who was not accepted by his peers. His whole identity was a lie as he had no siblings and was in a happy, completed family. Disgusted by this massive lie that he had constructed, I started to tear down our friendship. Ignoring him didn’t work as he then started to constantly send text messages throughout the day. He even started showing up at the door looking for me, forcing my mum to be my shield and sword, lying that I was away at a school camp. Sometimes I just couldn’t avoid it and had to meet him. Being with him seemed to bring me to another world where time slowed to crawl. His charismatic aura turned to one of desperation to see me. He just refused to get my hint and even started to wait outside my school for me just to walk me home. No matter what I did, I couldn’t shake him off me. Telling him straight didn’t work as well as he just kept mumbling to himself “she’s lying. She’s just fooling around as usual. Doesn’t mean a thing at all.”
After all this, because of a person I met on Facebook, my sunny days have turned into dark night. Birds don’t fly in the air anymore and no matter how clear and blue the skies are, I keep thinking they are dark and cloudy, as if it was going to rain. Oh if only it would rain. The flowers do not smell as nice anymore because of the monster I created. A monster of desperation, deceit and loneliness. A monster named Tom.
juz some rushed story 4 school written like.. at 10pm due the nxt day wif another assignment waiting in the wings to b completed. so not up to scratch. haha
