The Troll Kicks It Up a Notch

When I had thought that things were pretty much settled - I had proven that I was more read up on the subject that this mother fucker, hmph! I was contacted by a close friend about Mr. John Nelson. In his message he asked if I was a friend of John's via Facebook. I naturally answered that I wasn't associated in any way with such a douchebag. The reason why he asked was because John had sent him a "friend request".

I found that odd. I just thought that John was friending members of the group. But, my RLF (real-life friend) mentioned that another mutual friend contacted him, too. Soon, it would become clearer s as to what was happening...

The Troll Rears His Ugly Head

Later that day, I found that John had liked a few of my comments and posts on my Facebook wall. They were parenthesized with "friends with XYZ", a "mutual" friend.

I had peeked at John's profile, but I gave it no special treatment. It was a simple profile with an ancient oracle bone in the background. It seemed like he knew something about Chinese, or made it appear that he did... poser! Yet, when I visited it later I was alarmed to find that we "shared" several, over 15, friends. That explained why he was able to comment and like several of my personal posts, even the one ranting about how arrogant he was in the group.
Paranoia dawned on me: was the using my friends list to monitor me or waiting to fire of a comment to harass me?

Regardless, my suspicions would be verified... quite sadly.

There Are Reasons Why People Are Unfriended

I contacted all those we had in common in a blanket message via Facebook. In it I warned them of what he might be scheming to do, namely harass me via one or more of them. I found that the URL to the profile did not match the display name. There were no pictures or photos one would expect on a personal profile - it was a façade, it was fishy and reeked of deceit. Several dropped him like a bad habit. A few just left the conversation. Others were silent. To protect my security on-line and my sanity, I immediately "unfriended" those who were “friends” with him several hours later. It was necessary and very telling.

For one, they weren’t careful about who they approved. One said that he accepted because a few people he knew were already friends with him. Others who responded to my status update about what was going one were more skeptical, to the point that they sent him a message asking how they knew each other. Most received nothing. One received "We'll get to know each other". What in the fucking hell was that about?! They rejected the request. Now, these are people I've interacted with off-line and in real life. They showed a lot of integrity in light of the shenanigans of this asshole.

Thank you for true friends!