Too big for the "Dear, _____" thread.

Dear "Wolf",

How nice. So, I became your friend quite a while ago, in a site with a lovely, close nit chat room/forum. You were funny. You were nice. You were good to me during a rather dark point in my life and made me think not all people were scum. I liked you a lot. Why do you think I added you to IM, so I could still talk to you even when I, mostly, left that other site?

To hear from someone that you'd gotten in an accident trail riding really effected me. I was honestly sad to hear your friend IM me and say that you were in some real trouble and may not make it through the night. I went back to the old site to give my thoughts in the thread about the incident. I read the updates your friend, also a member of that site, gave. When I read you made it through the night, I was overjoyed and hopeful. When I heard you had a seizure and died, I was very sad.

But then it all fell apart. The admin of the site dug into the story. She looked for obituaries, she checked IP addresses. She confirmed an old suspicion of mine in the process. I remember talking in chat, and thinking your friend was really just you having a little fun on a fake name, as a harmless joke. I was fine with it, because it wasn't malicious at the time. But you kept the 'joke' up for months after I left there, apparently, leading people to believe there were really two people. I was fairly sure there was only one (since you were both never on at the same time in chat), but I had never been completely sure. When the other person IMed me saying you were hurt, being the nice person I am, I gave the benifit of the doubt that they were two separate people the whole time.

But no. You fabricated this whole thing. You hurt a lot of people in the process. Do you know how many people on that site considered you a wonderful person and friend? Not only me, but so many others. You hurt a lot of people.

I feel sorry for you. To hurt so many for yourself? To watch the drama, to soak in the sympathy? How pathetic. I thought you were a good person. You made me think not everyone was a slimeball. I guess I was wrong about that. Some people really are just plan scum, aren't they?

I'm sorry, Mal

Ugh. I've had some unpleasant experiences with liars online and generally, I really don't like being lied to. Screwing around, BSing, I can take, but genuinely trying to convince someone of something in the long term, just no.

There was one guy who convinced a friend of his that he was suicidal when he wasn't.

There was a woman who lied about kinda everything, including having a serious disease, but your guy easily takes the cake and you have my sympathies.

Agh! That's the really **** part of online friends. I mean, real-life friends can lie to you, and often do, but obviously not to that extent.

I tend not to trust people online until I friend them on facebook.

Then I trust them a BIT... but facebook isn't a catchall, either...

I think, also, we sometimes project our own sanity onto people we meet online, and assume the best. I mean--why not, right?

Maybe we ought to project our insanity.

I've been lucky enough not to go through something like that, but I've heard so many stories that I've become quite wary. Cultivate your crazydar, people. Useful life skill.

/and out.

Having had my head stepped on by a horse and what not, I'd probably have been nosy about the friend as to her injuries and how she acquired them. That probably sounds disrespectful, but I don't know many people(friends of mine) who would go onto websites after I or another friend died or was dying so all their chat buddies knew. I'm a bit skeptical. Okay, maybe more than a bit.

Someone did a similar thing like that to my friend on a site, so we spread the word of her 'death'. The entire thing fell through, but the girl ended up apologizing to my friend, saying that she should have never done a thing like that and didn't mean to hurt her. I kind of scoffed at it, but it's not my place to get involved. Well, not anymore than I had.

On another site we have this girl who goes through another life-shattering experience on the weekly. To be quite honest, I'm not exactly polite to her. She often has near death experiences, amnesia, partial amnesia, or has loved ones die. Every day.

Really though? Sometimes I wish it wasn't online so I could punch them in the face. Other times I'm thankful, because then they could press charges and I'd be their new misfortune- true this time.

Pathological lying can't be confined to real life, unfortunately, and is bound to spread online. Obviously yours wasn't quite so pathological as she was doing it more out of amusement, but I've come across some relatively 'off' people. (not in the good way) I know quite a few of those in real life, but I won't get into those details. All in all, I think they need psychiatric help. They're not just hurting other people either; they hurt themselves too.

I can definitely relate.

I had a friend online that I was really close to (and he was only close to me because we connected better than he did with the others). Around December he disappeared. Then came back and said he had gotten into a car accident and had to go through physical therapy. Sure, fine. But it doesn't take 9 months to go through physical therapy. Around May of that same year, I got an email from someone stating they were his sister (he never mentioned one to me) and that he had been killed by his step mom (again never mentioned to me). She apparently swerved and him with her car when he and his "sister" were walking home from school one day.

Right.

His "sister" wanted to take his characters and play them all for him.

No.

I sent her an email, asking for proof; even emailed his local police station, looked up for news on this (because you KNOW there would be a story about it). Found nothing.

Conclusion.

He/she/it lied.

I hate when people do that just so they can leave a site. If you wanna leave, then go. But don't lie about dying!

That's sadly the beauty of the internet. You're going to find people who lie. It's the same as in real life. I have trust issues, so it takes a bit for you to earn it from me. Once you destroy that though, you'll never ever get my friendship back.

Had a friend do that to me. She said she lived in Italy. She said that she was this beautiful, petite thing. I had a crush on her. I would have loved to meet her.
*sigh*
Sad to say, she lived in Florida, she looked nothing like she said she did. It was past photos of herself she would show because she got into a bad car accident and lied about it. And then me and a bunch of others have and still to this day debate every single word she said.

Why lie even online? It ruins any friendships you have as well as destroys trust. It makes you less credible. I will never lie about myself. I will always be truthful. I would expect the same from everyone else. Sadly, again, this is the internet. People are going to lie.

They will disappoint you.

I know someone who actually died. :/ He was "just another member" who came and went, but awhile later a more dedicated member had me search him up and delete his account because the "random" member died of cancer. I couldn't help but be sad even though I didn't know this person.

But to lie about it is just downright cruel. Just because you can't see the person on the "other side" of the internet doesn't mean that whoever you're lying to is just a bunch of words. Lies hurt.

And don't do drugs.

/end lecture