One day, one of the biggest Twitter accounts at that time sent a friend request. I wasn’t one of those “bigwigs” or even an active Twitter user so I was surprised how he even found my account. However, I wasn’t going to fumble the opportunity to grow my account so I followed him back. When I told my friend, who was somehow influential on Twitter, about the guy, she simply laughed and decided to paint an ugly picture of the guy.
“What’s so funny? Has he slid in your DMs too?” I asked her.
“I know him.” She replied. “Just don’t get your hopes up. That guy is stingy AF!”
There was also another rumour I heard that the guy was aesthetically challenged ie he was ugly. Back then, most Twitter users didn’t use their real pictures or even names so it was hard to tell whether a guy was cute or ugly. However, I wasn’t planning on dating the guy so I didn’t care whether he was ugly or stingy. I just wanted him to post about me so I could get followers.
Despite the many rumours I had heard about him, he seemed really cool. I found myself spending hours every day talking to him. He had a way with words and made me blush every time I talked to him. After months of texting me on Twitter, he finally asked to meet me in person. I was hesitant at first since I didn’t want to kill the magic that we had online but I thought this was a sure way for him to post me on his account.
“Where do you want to go?” I asked.
“We can go see a movie.”
The idea seemed pretty simple so I agreed. I got to the movie theatre around 4 pm and waited nearly 30 minutes for him to come. Then, I spotted a flamboyantly dressed guy in oversized basketball shorts, worn-out sneakers and a black sweater. I literally prayed that it wasn’t him but when he removed his phone and called me, my heart just dropped.
It wasn’t a lie. The guy was ugly but it was his dress code that made everything worse. I waved at him and he approached me with his arms out. When he got close to me, he grabbed me so tightly I could barely breathe but I definitely smelt his sweaty armpits. He finally let me go and introduced himself.
“I’m Drew.” He said and I nodded. I don’t think I said anything to him that day. “Damn, you look good.”
There was a long silence and I kept looking at the ticket booth as if to alert him that he should buy the tickets. However, he faked a phone call and then walked off only to return a few seconds later looking distraught.
“Listen, girl. I have to run but here’s something for your troubles. I’ll talk to you later.” He said handing me a Ksh 50 note and dashing off.
By the time I looked at what he had handed me and looked up, he was gone. I just stood at the theatre laughing at the whole situation. Since I was in town with nothing to do, I called my friend and we met up for ice cream.
“Guess what? I met that guy and it’s so true. He’s stingy and ugly. Imagine he gave me 50 bob after inviting me for a movie date which we didn’t even see.”
Once again, she simply laughed.
“I warned you. That guy has a reputation. He did the same thing to me.”
“He better post me on his account after embarrassing me like that. Can’t he see how hot I am?”
Sure enough, when I got home and connected my phone to WiFi, I instantly got a ton of notifications from Twitter. I thought that something I posted had caught some attention which happened once in a while. However, I wasn’t prepared for what I found.
Trolls!! I was being trolled endlessly and the tweet that started it all came from none other but the ugly guy I had met earlier. It read:
“I thought Mandy was boujee but the girl is as broke as they get. She can’t even afford her own movie ticket.”
Since he had a significant number of followers, the tweet went viral and my fate was sealed on Twitter. I was now the fake girl. I tried to defend myself and even asked my friend to back me up but nothing worked. For the next three days, all I got were skews of insults and mockery.
My DMs with the guy were also gone so I had no way to prove that he had been flirting with me for months. Either way, the damage had already been done and my reputation was destroyed. I had to deactivate my Twitter account for almost a month so that the trolling would stop.
I decided to reactivate it so that I would tell the guy to apologize and take back what he said about me. However, he had already blocked me. I still got what I really wanted from him. Despite the trolling that I still continued to get for almost a year, I gained a lot of followers.
The guy unblocked me a year later and tried to sweet talk his way back into my life but I would be a fool to let an ugly guy play with me twice. I learnt my lesson the first time. Never give the ugly guy a chance.
However, this time I was quick and grabbed a screenshot as soon as I saw his message. I asked him to apologize once again or I would expose him as the low life that he was. This time, armed with a screenshot, I was able to convince him and he wrote a long paragraph about how he lied and that I was the same person.
Though I was finally able to end the trolling, my Twitter experience has never been the same. I’m weary of people who slide into my DMs since I don’t know their agenda. I also hardly post anything or participate in any trending topics as I’m afraid one mistake could land me in problems. The guy is also not active anymore and people hardly even speak about him.
Check out
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The Singlehood Series: He Saw A Perfect Sponsor In Her
The Singlehood Series: The Date Was Going Well So She Didnt Expect That Kind Of Disrespect
The Singlehood Series: The Man Of My Dreams Turned Out To Be A Scammer
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