A little background: I have never met or interacted with Colleen Clayton. I know who she is - the author of the well-received debut YA novel "What Happens Next" - but she, most assuredly, does not know who I am, let alone possess a photograph of me that I have never seen. But does this stop me from believing that she is DM'ing me? Hell no. My mind leaps to the invention of possible scenarios. Colleen and I were both at the same conference once and a group photo was taken, shortly after which I developed amnesia? Colleen has recently befriended someone I knew in elementary school who was showing her some class photos and naming names, upon which Colleen said, "Susan Brody? Hmm... Isn't that someone whose name I once saw on a Twitter account? I need to check this out!" Unbeknownst to me, Colleen has been stalking and secretly photographing me during my weekly forays to Shoprite? Why couldn't any of these scenarios be true? It is, as they say, a small world.
I rush home after work and turn on my laptop to try to get to the bottom of this intriguing mystery. But alas, when I click on said alleged photo of me, my antivirus scanner informs me that danger has been detected. Oh, Colleen, say it ain't so! Tell me your Twitter account has not been hacked and that you really, truly wanted to share a photo with me!
Moral of the story: people are delusional. They believe what they want to believe, no matter how nonsensical. And a new one of us is born every minute.
Susan, I think we've all been in that boat, to one degree or another. Sadly, I've actually been there in a couple of BIG ways myself!
ReplyDeleteIt's partially due to naivete, so when we aren't aware of the "negative" possibilities, we naturally go to the "positive, hopeful" scenarios :( We also like to believe "dreams come true" :) Of course, we learn that the fairy-tale thinking we've grown up with can lead us to think this way! Damn that Cinderella! lol
Donna! How are you? I haven't heard from you in a while and was getting a little worried. Yeah, I'm not too happy with Cinderella either, but I think our brains would work in delusional ways even without her! Hope you're doing well out in the big old real world.
DeleteWhat a bummer! I liked your happy scenarios a LOT better. Why can't every story have a happy ending?
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, Genevieve. Let's see... happy ending... It turned out that the DM was really from Colleen Clayton after all, and that she not only had mysteriously come into possession of the best photo of me ever taken by anyone, but that she's been following me on my blog and on Twitter and wants to be my new BFF and do sleepovers and spa weekends, and to send all my unpublished manuscripts to her agent!!! Is that better? I aim to please!
Delete