Poor Manti Te’o…

For anyone not in the “know,”  Manti Te’o is a stand-out linebacker for Notre Dame who is now in the news for falling in love with a girl over the internet that didn’t actually exist – either the victim of a cruel prank or a willing participant in a hoax – depending on who you ask.  From what I’ve seen, it’s mostly the older people that believe it’s bullshit that this is legit, as they probably don’t believe in love over the internet with someone you’ve never met.  Obviously, I have a differing opinion on that, but that’s neither here nor there.  The point of me breaking my long-ass blog post drought has to do with a similar hoax I pulled on my poor, unsuspecting roommate back in the day.  The story is as follows:

Back in the mid-90’s, I attended a PSU sattelite campus in Erie, PA.  I lived in an off-campus apartment.  Well, the word apartment is pretty generous.  I actually resided in the basement of an elderly couple’s house.  Sure, it had 2 bedrooms…kind of.  My roommate (and hoax target) Buck had a room walled off with a folding screen, while my bed was shoved in the corner behind a half-wall.  The couple were nosier than any landlord has a right to be, and were a source of friction during my stay.  Still, we made do and I found other ways to amuse myself, as this living arrangement pretty much killed my romantic life.  Buck decided to pursue a romantic life via online dating, which provided me with amusement…much to Buck’s dismay.

You see, this was in the early days of household internet usage.  We didn’t know much about what it would turn into.  Back then, we thought email was pretty cool.  Decades later, we’re checking out kitty pics and instagramming food pics.  Online dating was a weird fad at the time, and there were several sites out there, most of which are probably long since defunct.  Buck found one, and decided to put an ad on it.  That wasn’t so much of a mistake as his decision to show me the ad. 

He put the usual bullshit into it – how he was into hiking, working out, long romantic walks on the beach…blah blah blah.  With this site, anyone could put an ad up on it, and to reply, users would click on the ad, type their reply, and the message could be viewed through the site itself – this is important, because this means you could reply anonymously and not need to provide any contact info unless you chose to do so.  you didn’t even need to make your own profile.  I waited till Buck left the house, and decided to log on and look for his ad.  I found it and typed something along the lines of:

“Hi Buck!  My name is Jessica Smith and I’m a sophmore at Penn State – New Kensington.  I saw your ad and thought you seemed interesting so, uh…here goes!  I’m 5’8″ 115 lbs with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes.  I’m a swimmer so I have to keep in shape!  I like hanging out with friends, seeing movies, playing pool and enjoying life.  Let me know if you’re interested in getting to know me!  You can email me at jes182@psu.edu”

Now, I carefully constructed this response.  I knew her stats and the fact that she swam would appeal to him.  I mentioned New Ken because I knew his hometown was nearby, piquing his interest.  Buck was somewhat of a pool player, so this provided a common interest, and I said she went to New Ken because it was an easy way to both provide common interest (PSU campuses) and an excuse to give him a fake email address that looked real.  You see, every PSU email back then had your 3 initials, followed by 3 numbers, and the “@psu.edu” after it.  Mine was jjm199, for example.

Later on, Buck came home and I casually asked him if he heard back from his dating ad.  His eyes lit up, and he decided to find out.  I decided to tag along and see what happened.  Sure enough, he had 1 reply in his inbox on that dating site.  He opened it up, and I got to read the message I had previously written from over his shoulder.  At this point, Buck turned to me and asked for advice as to what he should say back.  I guess since I was a year older, I was the experienced guide or something.  With my help, he crafted a response that both showed interest, yet attempted to remain composed and slightly detached, as to not scare this imaginary girl off, you know?  The thing was, since I was over his shoulder reading it, I knew exactly what his words said as he sent his message along to her fake email address. 

At this point, I really didn’t expect much from this situation.  I didn’t really plan for this to last long, but I figured since he sent the message, I might as well reply again just to let him think she got it.  “Jessica” found some computer time while Buck was off to class, and replied back.  I answered some of his questions, like where I went to high school (I might have said Freeport or something), types of movies she liked (which wasn’t hard because eerily enough, Buck had the same taste in movies as a girl in her late teens), and even started amping up the flirtation a bit.  I’m not proud of the fact that I seemed legit in that regard, but whatev.  I, again, asked Buck to write me back and threw down her email address as “jes283@psu.edu”  If you’re carefully reading along, yes I know what I just did there, and I’ll cover that soon.

Buck got home from class, logged on, and happily discovered he had yet another reply from Jessica.  The fact that she was flirtatious excited him, and he composed yet another email to her.  At this point, you may ask yourself why Buck never questioned the fact that Jessica never replied from her school email account, and always just wrote through the dating site.  I ask myself that same question.  He never seemed to ask, and this is part of the reason why this went on longer than I ever thought it would.  He sent his reply to the email address she provided and soon saw an error message…it seems that there was no such email address.  Oops…At this point I realized 2 things.  1:  I screwed up and gave a different email address from Jessica’s first email and 2:  These emails of his were actually going somewhere.  Hmm…well, first things first – I had to put this fire out.  Buck sat there wondering wtf was going on, so I said, “Um…well, it worked the last time…is that the same email address?”  Upon finding out the 2 addresses were different, Buck pondered this, as well.  My reply?  “Well, sometimes I confuse my pin # with the last 4 digits of my social security number, so uh, maybe she did something similar?”  Buck stared at the screen, mulling this over, then said, “Yeah that must be it” and sent the email to jes182, along with an additional message asking why she gave the wrong info.  Whew.

 

Well, at this point, Jessica did some damage control and gave a similar, half-assed explanation for the mix-up, and that suited Buck just fine.  The 2 of them (us) swapped emails back and forth, although I found it increasingly difficult to find the time to reply.  He made things difficult by not always showing me his email, which made it tough for me to respond.  At one point, Buck was a bit frustrated by the lack of response and questioned Jessica about it.  I replied with a subtle innuendo about how he should be patient and I like it when a man takes his time, if he knows what I mean.  He didn’t know what I meant.  He took that to mean that he was coming off too strong.  I tried to explain how she was probably meaning that more in a sexual innuendo but he said, “no I’m right.  I know her pretty well and know what she meant.”  I found it weird that Buck was disagreeing with ME over the meaning of my creation’s words, but I let him have his moment.

This went on for weeks, and I had absolutely no idea how this was going to end.  I honestly never planned for this, and I had no idea how to end it.  At one point, I asked Buck, “So…you really like this girl, huh?”

“…yeah.”

“Do you loooove her?”

At this point, Buck got really quiet.  Oh shit.  I realized at this point that I inadvertently made my male roommate fall in love with me over the internet.  Awkward…As Buck and I were both in a fraternity, I asked a few of the brothers for their input.  Mostly, they just found it hilarious and wanted me to keep them updated.  I expected as much – I was on my own, here.

Spring Break was coming up and Buck decided to go for broke – he emailed her with his home address, phone number, and any other relevant info.  He wanted to meet Jess in person, and put himself out there to accomplish it.  I had no idea what to do at this point, but I had to leave for home before I could reply to him anyhow. 

Spring break came and went, and after I got back to Erie, I asked Buck if he ever heard from Jessica.  He disgustedly replied, “No…” and I honestly felt bad.  Later on, Jessica found the time to reply and apologized profusely for not responding, but she had to leave for home and never got a chance to see his email.  He soon forgave her, and they talked a few more times online.  I now had no idea how to actually end this but I soon found that matter took care of itself. 

I was home one day and Buck walked in.  He set his stuff down, entered his room, and checked his email.  I soon heard a very loud, “What the fuck?!?” from inside, so I went to investigate.  I found Buck in his chair, staring at the screen, with a dumbfounded expression on his face.  He was staring at an email, not a dating site reply.  The email was from “jes182@psu.edu” and read simply: 

“Buck, 

 

Stop writing me.  Thanks.

 

– John”

 

At this point, I bust out laughing.  Through tears, I choked out, “Buck, i got something to tell you…”  I came clean, and through it all, Buck stared, shell-shocked, at the screen.  After I was done, he muttered a “You son of a bitch…that was you?  All that time?  You son of a…I can’t believe…son of a bitch.”

To me, the funniest thing about all of this wasn’t really just the hoax, but the fact that some poor guy named John had a ton of emails flooding his inbox from some dude named “Buck” saying he wanted to meet him, he sounded cute, he was just his type, let’s get together…etc.  I did feel bad, although that didn’t stop me from replaying the events at the next fraternity meeting while Buck sat there and laughingly threatened my life.  Eventually Buck did get a reply on his ad for real, but sadly it never went anywhere because no matter how much I told the truth, he could never totally be sure that it wasn’t me that sent it.