Have you ever had your car shipped before? Two strange men you’ve never met pick up your car on a small truck and hand you a pink slip with their company address that they could have made at Kinkos for 17 cents. Then you have no idea when your car is arriving, because the deal is they don’t call you until the day before they’re going to arrive. Your car could be stripped and sold for parts by the time you realize you’ve been scammed.

But that’s not what I’m getting paranoid about. I received an email to my public work address… from a man. This man, claims to have met me 5 years ago at a personal development seminar. He named 3, all of which I have attended and all of which are on my public social media sites. He told me about his travels around the world and how he’d be making his way back to LA via Fiji, and that I should stay in touch. AND… he sent his picture to remind me who he is.

Here’s where the paranoia kicks in. I don’t recognize this guy from a hole in the wall.. and I don’t forget faces. In fact, I freak people out! I get so freaky that, I will see a guy in a bar, ask him if we’d met, he’d think I was hitting him, and I’d swear up and down I’m not, to the point that he gets annoyed and walks away. In the mean time, I’m obsessed. I go through every memory in my brain until it hits me… 1986, Nassau Coliseum, his hair was longer, he was on line in front of me ALL night as we slept out for Bon Jovi tickets. We were in the first 50 on the line, but Ticketmaster was just making its mark and the concert was sold out in minutes, and we didn’t get tickets.  After tapping the cocky guy on the shoulder and reminding him of this incident, he did remember me… he also remembered I wasn’t hitting on him that night either, and while he wanted to continue our conversation over dinner sometime, I was just happy that my brain figured out who this long-haired turned business suit nerd was, so I could enjoy the rest of my evening flirting with a 22-year-old.

Back to my paranoia. So you can see why it would be alarming that I’m staring at an 8X10 of this guy and have no recollection of his face whatsoever!  Could he be a serial killer? He fits the MO… charming (from what I can tell of his writing), well informed about me (like a good stalker would be) and creating familiarity with his victim so that I wouldn’t want to be rude and not write back to him. This is SUPER CREEPY, yo!

Of course, I’ve met literally thousands of people in the past decade at events such as the ones he mentioned. There were 5000 alone, at the one he thinks we met at. (I know that was bad grammar ending with ‘at’… great now I’m being paranoid that I’m being judged on my grammer… I mean grammar.. paranoid about spelling, too WHEN WILL IT END?)

Then again, a serial killer/stalker would know that I would realize that I’ve met so many people that perhaps I would assume I could forget his face, and by sending me a picture I would think that “surely I must have met him or he wouldn’t be dumb enough to send a picture that I wouldn’t recognize.”

Help me! I feel like Vizzini in The Princess Bride! Inconceivable!

What do I do? Do I write back to this guy? I want to go to Fiji and New Zealand with this Ted Bundy handsome-like guy… he’s all ‘out-doorsey’ and rugged looking with a gorgeous waterfall in the background!

Maybe he’s the one who should be paranoid, because if I do go to Fiji with him and he does decide to go serial killer on me.. I’m gonna go Dexter on him! Word!!!

©2011