I was looking through job advertisements on Gumtree when I came across an odd post. For the sake of anonymity, let’s call him ‘John’. Anyhow, John’s advert went something like this: “Hi there, my name is John and I’m looking for a girl on the side. I am a married man but I hope that won’t be a problem. If you are interested, please send me your ASL and pics.” After reading this, I despised John with every fibre of my being. I wanted Zeus himself to descend from the heavens and throw lightning bolts at his gentlemen’s area. Between cussing at my monitor and hitting things, a plan began to formulate in my head. If hanging out in weird corners of the internet such as 4chan and /b/ in particular has taught me anything, it has taught me how to troll. (The term ‘trolling’ has become an internet meme and could be loosely translated as a person who attempts to disrupt a community or garner attention and controversy through provocative messages). My plan was to expose this mother-trucker. I would create a fake person that was interested and bait him until I got enough personal information to tell his wife, or threaten to do so if he doesn’t change his ways, or at the very least just mess with him. I know it’s kind of Idealist but hey, you have to aim high.
I constructed my fake-lady-slut complete with university courses, hobbies, and a series of cliché close-up-pouting mug shots of some poor girl with low self-esteem from the internet. I named my creation Shelly Baker (no offence to anyone called Shelly, unless your name really is Shelly and you sleep with other peoples’ husbands). Shelly even drove a white city golf. I mean, flip, everyone drives one of those. I used an old email address to reply to John’s Gumtree advert letting him know I’m keen, but no details just yet because I wanted to find out just how serious this oke is.
After a few hours John had sent Shelly no less than 4 emails stating his keenness to meet up. He asked many questions about Shelly and seemed excited that someone other than his wife was interested in him, but most of his ‘feelings’ appeared to hinge on the photo Shelly hadn’t sent him yet. Shallow, but true. I sent John a picture the next day and this seriously girdled his loins. John became really amped and replied with a smorgasbord of questions including: Are you single, coz I don’t care if you aren’t and Are you in it for the money? John also attached a racy mobile-phone photo of himself getting out the shower. Shelly replied with another sexy photo (thank you random internet girl) and John was super stoked and mentioned hooking up on the weekend.
So I thought to myself that I’d done the hard part. John definitely wasn’t going anywhere, he gave the impression he was hanging on Shelly’s every word. All that was left to do was set-up a series of meetings that Shelly kept not showing up to and then apologising with promises of sexy-times and an attached semi-naked photo herself aka random internet girl. Surely I would find out his home number or surname by then. Sorted.
Then my life (my real, actual life) got in the way for a few days, but I didn’t think it would matter much because, you know, absence makes the heart grow fonder. That said, I guess absence doesn’t make the penis any more loyal as it starts looking for other things. But that mattered not to John, he was still keen as mustard and had filled up my inbox with a variety of intentions.
I was going to commence part 2 of Operation Moral Police just after some Facebook admin (as we all have) when it happened. There, hovering in my personal Facebook inbox like a mozzie waiting to strike, was a message from John-the-philander himself. It simply said Do you know Shelly Baker? I was utterly flabbergasted. How could this happen? How did he find me? Then it hit me: he had used Facebook and searched the email address I was using. I tried it, and I was the only person that came up. Fail. The email address I was using was an old one that forwards mail to my new address that is my Facebook login and I had no idea that those clever peeps at Facebook would somehow link the two, but I should I have guessed.
So that was it for me. I could have ignored the message and made up a story as Shelly of how she uses someone else’s email address, but as soon as I got to really screwing John over, he would have had a very good idea where to start to seek revenge.
In reflection, I started the whole debacle on a moral impulse to try and get some justice for this guy’s actions, but in the end I had only succeeded in making him believe that there are girls out there that want him, which probably swelled his ego even more. A spectacular fail indeed.
