I got followed by somebody on Tumblr the other day - who then private messaged me and struck up conversation. After a few messages back and forth - “love your blog”, “how is your day?” - that kind of thing, they asked if we might switch to an instant messaging application.
I agreed - mostly because the private messaging in Tumblr is pretty useless.
Over the course of perhaps a week, messages went back and forth at a rate of perhaps one or two a day, and I slowly suspected the new friend wasn’t who they appeared to be. I’m not sure what set my spider-sense off - it just didn’t seem right.
While they appeared to initiate conversation - “how is your day?”, “good morning!”, and so on - following a friendly response from me they fell back to no more than one or two word responses. A conversation never went further.
I imagine the fact that I remained civil, interested, and courteous throughout our interactions probably caused some annoyance - leaving no avenues through which they might solicit any sort of favor.
I was about to question their motives today when they messaged me - literally while writing a message gently questioning their motives for reaching out to me in the first place…
“Can I ask a favour?”
“Of course”
“Oh never mind, I don’t want to bother you - you’re probably busy”
“No - go on - what is it?”
“Can you go to the supermarket and purchase some Steam cards?”
I started grinning.
“No”
There was a pause…
“You’re a very selfish man - completely waste my time - you talk too much.”
The final sentence gave a few clues that they were working from a script - the missing conjunctions and article definitions are a common giveaway. Rather than enter into a pointless argument, I blocked them from everywhere, and set off on the detective trail.
After a cup of coffee and five minutes amateur sleuthing, a reverse image search turned up a model in Florida. I visited her Instagram page, and send a private message - pointing her towards the unlikely alter-ego.
Of course then this evening while washing up, it occurred to me - what if the model was the mastermind behind the entire operation? Setting up satellite social media accounts with her own photos, running sweat-shops full of foreign labour, and operating some kind of voucher scam as a side-line?