What Would Netiquette Nelly Say?

A few mornings ago, I found an e. e. cummings style message on my professional Facebook page. Below is the complete and unabridged text of this message. Only the email and IM addresses have been redacted.

“It's has been a great deal for me to see such a cutie like you here on this site i liked your profile very much..you sounded sweet and it was nice reading it.when i joined this place i never expected to meet a woman of your type, because you so adorable and cute.i really would love to meet u in person. i really don't mean to force u into things dear but i will be happy if i meet such a wonderful woman like you are . i don't like to play head games....i'm a kind hearted man who wants to please everyone ..make you laugh till it hurts..lol.i would want us to get going so if u are such a person then lets chat cutei.i'm one of the nice man and want to meet a lady like you would like and want to meet... and hope is the same with you...well... who knows if it's the will of God that we could succed or something better can come out of this letter that i am sending you then Baby..i will be the happiest man in this world....if not then the saddest man . i hope u will take your time and think about it and let as get to know each other some more. i would love YOU to tell me more about you.. and would like us to trade yahoo id's so we can chat via messenger ID or better still you also can ask and i surely will let you have mine. Till then take care and bye [redacted]   or [redacted]    im [redacted] i will be removing my profile very soon be cos i don't get anyone since i have been here.....thanks and hope to hear from u soon..”

The man who sent this message, let’s call him Freddie to protect the potentially innocent, has placed me in an awkward social networking position.

There is no rule that says con artists must be Rhodes scholars, so despite the lack of Nigerian dictators or Spanish prisoners, I thought it reasonable to assume Freddie’s intentions were fraudulent. To me it seemed obvious that the clumsy, artless prose and the sprinkling of unwelcome (and occasionally misspelled) endearments from a complete stranger were intended to winnow out all but the truly stupid and/or desperate respondent. I particularly enjoyed Freddie’s assertion he did not like head games and his naïvely mistaken conviction that I’m a wonderful woman.  I also thought his disappointment at not getting anyone nice with his profile added an amusing touch of bathos to his plea.

Being extremely hard-hearted and neither desperate nor stupid, I decided to delete the message. But before doing so, I checked out the disappointing Facebook profile, which Freddie foolishly left set to public, hoping for more grammar giggles at his expense. Instead I found confusion, because Freddie only has one friend, and her name is the same as mine.

So you see my netiquette dilemma here.

Did Freddie really intend to message his Facebook friend Brenda and somehow messaged me instead? I checked out her profile. Admittedly she and I are both overweight and we both wear glasses, but other than those two points of similarity, I didn’t see much resemblance between us. Of course Freddie could be extremely near-sighted, or even blind and working with text-to-speech software. To test this theory, I logged into Facebook with a fake email address created specifically for the purpose and performed a search for Brenda Baker. The results were inconclusive. My professional page came up sixth on the list of possible Brenda Bakers, but my picture was the first one showing a chubby female wearing glasses. As for Freddie’s friend Brenda, after scanning about thirty screens of Brenda Bakers, I gave up looking for her.

Another puzzle was the striking difference between the grammar in Freddie’s message and the grammar in his profile on Facebook.

“I am distinguished looking, blue eyes, black hair, 5'10" or 178cms and my weight is 185lbs or 84kg.. I am intelligent, passionate, and optimistic about life in general. I have a good education and a good job. I have a wonderful passion for writing. I'm kinda good in poetry, and am very ambitious. My friends will tell you that I am honest, have a sense of humor and care deeply for family. I believe in fate, real love and God Almighty because I was born and raised to love God and share this love with others in divers ways, in any case I respect other people's world view. I am not into smoking or drugs, but will drink a little on rare occasions. In my leisure time I enjoy movies, music, festivals, concerts, the beach, visiting parks, working out, barbecues, boating, and any experience that creates great memories.”

Did he have a stroke and lose the ability to punctuate between setting up his profile and writing the message? If he really understood proper punctuation, why would he send such a sloppy message—especially from one writer to another? Of course, if he thought I was his friend Brenda, he wouldn’t know he was writing to a writer, but even so, the motive for this grammatical disparity remained unfathomable. I could give no credit to his assertion that he has a good job, since he listed his profession as self-employed; his profile picture showed his hair to be grey, assuming it really was his picture; and finally, the only item Freddie had listed under “Interests” was “women”.

So what should I do?

Should I write to Freddie and tell him he contacted the wrong Brenda? I don’t want to do this because, while it’s possible Freddie is a simple-minded social media noob who has mistaken Facebook for PlentyOfFish, it seems much more likely he really is a con artist trolling for marks, in which case he couldn’t possibly have contacted the wrong Brenda because there is no right Brenda. Any Brenda will do and I have no intention of encouraging Freddie to believe I’m the any Brenda of his dreams.

Should I write to the other Brenda and tell her my theory of mistaken identity? The con artist caveat would still be in effect, with the added difficulty that she is unlikely to be pleased with Freddie when she learns he can’t tell the difference between her and someone at least twenty years older with one tenth the amount of hair.

Should I just ignore the message? But what if Freddie and Brenda really are destined for one another? I can’t be responsible for destroying their future happiness. I can barely take responsibility for destroying my own.

What the internet really needs is an e-version of Emily Post , an e-xpert to guide us through these awkward social media situations. Netiquette Nelly, where are you? I need you desperately.