Encounters with a profile of the fake kind

It all started when I got a friend request from a girl on Facebook. For the sake of the story let us call her XYZ. So I know this girl, she used to work in my office, she is a bit senior to me.  And I knew  she knew me (why else would she sent me a friend’s request you ask?? Ha ha you are sooooo wrong.. Read on)

Since it would be rude to ignore her and since i am about 100 friends away from reaching 1000 friends on FB (it is not a competition?? Are you kidding me??) , I gladly accepted the friend request.. And I assumed that it would be like most of the rest 900, occasional comments, likes, shares etc... How wrong and unsuspecting I was!!!!

A couple of days after I added the aforementioned person (XYZ), she pinged me.... A rough reproduction of the chat from memory

XYZ:  Hi

Me: Hi, How are you?

XYZ: How are you hunky? I am fine.

(Note: Please note the word she used ... HUNKY )

Me: hunky?

XYZ: You are a hunk. You are really strong and handsome

Me: (all of a sudden dryness in the throat and the inability to type)

(At this point I am slightly perplexed, I mean hunk, strong , handsome etc are adjectives that are never used on me.... The most usual ones are “pathetic loser” and its various synonyms. It is not to say that I never got a compliment, but they are more on the intelligence department, not on my looks.. and if you know me in real life, you would understand what I am talking about.. I am as far away from strength, handsomeness and hunkyness as the Pope  is from a strip club)

XYZ:  always had a big crush on you.. ha ha don’t get shocked

Me: ohh :D I know you are making fun of me :P

(Duly note the smiley)

XYZ: No I am serious

Me: Okie.. good to know

XYZ: i have been seeing ur pics ... u look so nice i have been seeing them for so long ....again and again and again ...haha

XYZ: You look so strong now, going to gym?

Me: Not really....

(okie something is wrong!! At this point I show the whole thing to my friend, he , after laughing for 20 minutes, encourages me on!! .. “hey may be some one finds you attractive!!!” . I probably would have thought so if not for the following part of the conversation. It really gets ugly.)

XYZ: Where are you nowadays?

Me:  Mumbai

XYZ: Have any girlfriends in Mumbai ??

Me: No

XYZ: Ohh good I am in Mumbai too..

Me: (perplexed, what am I supposed to say)

XYZ: May be we should catch up sometime

Me: (OMG Where the hell is this going) .. Uh Sure

XYZ: Where do you stay?

Me: Andheri

XYZ: Alone

Me: With my friends

XYZ: Thats too bad...

Me: (What the hell is wrong with the universe)

XYZ: Anyway its okie, I stay alone.. you can come to my place

Me: uh!!!

XYZ: Do you drink?

Me: Yeah a little bit once in a while

XYZ: I drink a lot

(By this time I am convinced that some one is playing a prank on me.. I mean I can even accept that a woman would find me strong and handsome, but would ANY woman try to sound soooo easy? So I started to dig the girl’s profile for information that would give me some clue. Interestingly, she had the half nude pictures of Imran Hashmi and a set of other set of actors on her wall.. And in reply to some one else’s comment, she had mentioned that she likes the hair on Imran Hashmi’s chest. On some instinct I searched her name in FB, and another similar profile came up. The same name, the same profile pic, the same details. But there are no half nude pictures on the wall. Nor is she in my friend’s list. I could see that “add as a friend” button)

Me: (Convinced that the person i am chatting with is a fake) Are you really xyz?

XYZ: Why would you ask me that? :O

Me: Okie give me your number let me call you

XYZ: I will give that later, I am scared now

Me: You are not XYZ, you &^&^%^&%$#$#%$#*&*(&*&*(&)

XYZ: %&*%^%&*$%^$%$&*%$*^%(%(

(In the hind sight using the special character language was not the best idea. I should have been more tactful and tried to get more information out of him (yes it was a “HIM” I am damn sure) and probably try to bring him to law or something, but then this was not a bad Idea either, I am sure his fore fathers up until the monkeys, turned in their graves.. I also threatened him that using IT act he will be arrested for using some one else’s photo etc.. I blocked him so not sure what actually happened to that profile right now)

On a serious note, the whole thing got me thinking, how dangerous these kind of things can be. I mean how much of a pervert one has to be to create a fake profile and to spend time faking a slutty conversation with some dude, you may not even know? May be the girl in question did something that pissed him off. But should you be more of a man about it and deal with it straight forward and not going around doing stupid stuff like this? I am just bewildered by the psychology behind this. I mean if you look at it, it hardly causes any real damage to the actual person. It is just a kind of cheap satisfaction that the faker gets by projecting his enemy as a person of weak character.

In the end all I can say is “ May god help him”