I just had the experience of someone contacting me on social networking, when I haven't seen them in over 30 years. It's an old college friend from my earliest days in college! I was delighted, wondered how he's doing. I reconnected on the (professional) social networking.

But then I thought more deeply about the email he sent me. It now seems preposterous to me that he would want to reconnect for the art-related purpose he mentions, and preposterous that he would believe the flattering things he said. If he really thought that, why didn't he stay in touch? Okay, maybe I shouldn't second-guess. It's not like what he said was over the top. What he said was basically true (flattery), but since he's in an art-related field, I'm surprised he wouldn't have lots of other people he's rather collaborate with. In short, I feel suspicious. I'm certainly not going to meet him except in a very public place where I can make a safe getaway. I'm very curious to find out how he's done, though I suspect it's not the greatest to say the least.

No one has ever contacted me this way before. That's how much of an H3rmit I am. In fact, our friendship at the time was due to me pursuing it. He just went along with it, I felt. I was very intense, and he was very mellowed out for the reasons you would expect, though I didn't realize it as he didn't actually do drugs in front of me. He did that with his other friends. So, it's a very odd situation for me, but I am always curious to revisit and find out about people. After thinking about that email, I googled "old friend" + "social networking scam."

Any thoughts/experiences about such old friends or social networking scams?? The obvious thing is "Don't fall for a fake crisis." I'm not going to do anything I'm not comfortable with, such as lending money and clearing cheques, or meeting up in dark alleys.