I Got Cheated

One of my friends played a trick on me for a couple of months. She used a new ID that i was not aware of and chatted with me. This was earlier this year. She found it a lot of fun and she discussed this with some close friends. I am pretty sure they had a whale of a time giggling and smirking.

Some time later I found out who this "new" friend really was but I never told her that until recently. She claims she didn't want to reveal it because:

• She didnt want to let me know that she had been playing this game and since the game was well and truly over why bring it up now...
• And I guess she didn't like the idea that she tricked me and I assume she didnt relish making a fool out of me when she told me (but then she DID relish it when she used the other id!!!).

This friend of mine told me that she went out of her way while using the new ID to behave & speak differently and portray a different kind of person from what I know her to be. And then she said she would ask me something for which she knew the right answer and would wait with bated breath to see whether I would give a different answer to her.

I was deceived initially. I had little idea that it was a case of the old person in a new ID. But then despite that fact that she was cautious (and perhaps because of the fact that she intentionally threw some hints trying to make me catch on) I wore my Sicilian hat (as Tom says in "The Godfather") and figured out the person in the new ID. But then I didnt mention it to her until recently. And she told me y'day that she found the whole thing hilarious then.

I was very amused at hearing this confession ... a kind of prank I might play myself..

Then it started me thinking. Chatting is serious business. Most people start off asking you the age... And I always wondered... Isn't the age something to be figured out based on how a person chats rather than figure out what to chat based on the mentioned age... But I guess we don't want to spent time figuring out who or what a person is. We are so hard pressed for time, we might as well give a questionnaire to the other party (preferably multiple choice questions) and then get the answers, hope they are honestly and correctly answered and if possible outsource the collection and analysis of answers to a company in Bangalore that specializes in this area...

I have seen one person using two different ID's and I have recognized both to be the same person. I have seen two different persons logging in to the same ID and chatting with me and I have recognized the different people behind the same ID. Going back to my friend (with her alter ego ID), its very interesting to see how a person uses the same phrases, the same kind of language without realizing it... There is so much info available to be processed.

And yet we ask people damn fool questions like age and rely on those answers. Whatever happened to the good old way of slowly discovering what the other person is like.