Thursday, December 22, 2011

(Anti)Social Media Faux Pas...

Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, MySpace, and even Blogger. The world is at our finger tips every second of everyday and the majority of us have gotten used to what once was called our 'private life' being made public. But typically, made public to people that we deem fit? We use abbreviated names on Blogger, make our Facebook's friends only and keep our phone numbers and addresses hidden. So what happens when someone sneaks past? When a stranger with even stranger intent moves past these protective barriers to learn your likes, loves, dislikes, best of times and worst of times?

A few months ago a girl added me on Facebook. We had a mutual friend and she looked mildly familiar so I added her. I then preceded to think nothing of it and move on with my life. She invited me to protests, I went. I saw her on campus, I waved! We were acquaintances and again, I thought nothing of it. Until last night.

Last night I had another volatile conversation with Senior Toxic and he informed me of an ex-girlfriend of his that had moved to Orlando. After a bit of pestering, he revealed her name and I was instantly creeped out.

The girl that had randomly added me, did it to spy on me. Because she was dating my mentally unstable ex-boyfriend. He didn't see much wrong with this but then again, theres that whole mentally unstable thing. I immediately went home and sent her a nice-as-I-could-possibly-say message telling her I knew the situation, and that she needed to stop stalking strangers and blocked her from any and every account I could think of. And just for good measure, did a thorough cleaning of almost every other "acquaintance" on my friends list and blacklisted both his and her phone numbers.

I feel a little better, but still a little weirded out at the same time. I've never been a big fan of burning bridges like that, but I guess in the name of self preservation and privacy it's occasionally warranted.

Have you ever been forced into an awkward situation because of putting your life on the internet?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

That is too creepy. I have had a situation like that when I joined a group for my incoming college class and a guy seemed to have a legit profile (pictures tagged and all) with people writing on his wall. He said he was 20 and started texting me...later I found out he was 50 and preying on incoming Miami freshman so his account got deleted. Scared the daylight out of me that's for sure!

xo Shane
shaneprather.blogspot.com

Gentri said...

Yikes. I'm sorry!! :/ I'm glad you took care of it though!

Sara Hinton said...

Sorry about that creepy situation. Way to take care of it though!

You have a super cute blog. Found you through Gentri Lee. Hope you had a great Christmas!