A Really Screwed Internet Story

Heres something weird that I thought about last night. I don’t think I have written about it before, and its pretty interesting, so I am going to go for it.

A long time ago I used to do promotion for bands in Mississippi. One summer I moved to Houston, TX to get away from MS and to hang out with some friends. (I’m trying to make this a short story).

I was doing some band promotion stuff online when I met “Alison”. She was also into doing music related stuff and we became friends. We talked for months on the phone and online. She talked to the people I lived with, my grandparents, and other people I knew.

I moved back to MS when school started in the fall. Alison was going to come visit me in Hattiesburg. (She lived in South Carolina). We decided on a day for her to come down, I took off of school and waited for her.

I waited….and waited….no phone calls. I called her house and her aunt answered. She told me that she had not heard anything from her, but that she would tell her to call me if she did. Still nothing….I waited….I called back….she had heard nothing….finally, I fell asleep. At 3 in the morning my phone rang and it was a man named Ray who told me that Alison had been in a bad accident and was killed.

This, of course, freaked me out tremendously. I freaked bigtime.

I decided that I should go to the funeral or SOMETHING since she died on the way to my house! I called and talked to her aunt and she told me that they did not want me there…that Alison’s mother was pissed as hell at me, blah blah blah. So I asked where I could send flowers….they told me that I couldn’t. They told me that she had been cremated and her ashes had been strown in the ocean and that I’d just have to get over it.

A week or so later I saw Alison’s screen name online. I sent a message and the person said that they were her aunt. So I asked some questions and the person typed and misspelled words just like Alison did. So I got suspicious.

I called the school where Alison supposedly went. There was no student there by her name and they had not had a student die in a car wreck.

I made up another screen name and talked to the person using Alison’s. I talked about music and all the things that she liked. I asked for a picture and she sent one….the same one Alison sent me. OH LORD I WAS PISSED OFF.

I went off completely that someone had fucking faked their death to stop talking to me….it was bad. Finally my phone rang and it was “Ray”…the guy that had called to tell me that Alison had died. He told me that he had been Alison all along. I had been talking to a 57 year old man for months thinking he was an 18 year old girl. He had talked to my friends and family and no one ever picked up that his voice was fictitious. He told me that he wanted a relationship with me and all this shit. I freaked on him, it was bad.

So, how screwed up is that?!?! That’s why I am really weird about who I give my information to online. People think I am psycho for being so careful all of the time…but I was royally screwed over. She/He really messed with my brain.