This story doesn’t have a sensible beginning because none of what happened makes any sense. It went from me waking up from a four-hour nap with this feeling in my gut that told me something was happening, something was wrong.
To me getting a weird text from him as I was about to get on Twitter and actually check up on him. The text was condescending, as it asked me what my username really was, along with a snide comment about my phone being a burner.
It felt condescending like I was being mocked. When I went to check my Twitter account, I saw that I was blocked. So, I checked from an incognito tab and saw something that would change everything.
A screenshot of my phone number,
Posted to his public Twitter profile.
I Joined Twitter in Early June 2022
As I started networking, I naturally started talking to people
One guy, in particular, followed me and started giving all of my material his attention. We started to speak and everything seemed platonic and cool.
Everything was literally fine… until it just wasn’t.
We were in communication for about a week and a half to two weeks. Towards the tail end of us being in communication, I called him and we spoke for a while. Everything went seemingly well. There was no problem —
Or so I thought.
Because the very next day, after our first (and last) time speaking on the phone, I became the victim of a traumatic online attack where my privacy was violated. By someone, I didn’t do anything to.
All because of that one phone call.
It All Started Because of that Phone Call
When I called him my number didn’t show up under my name
Apparently, when my number popped up it displayed the name of the previous owner of the phone number.
I wasn’t surprised because Tracfone wireless is a prepaid plan. I didn’t even consider this for two main reasons.
- every number I have ever had while using Tracfone has never displayed my actual name. Ever.
- for a very long time, no one actually had my number, outside of my mom.
I didn’t have a contract or an account, It was a prepaid flip phone.
In my neighborhood, we consider those burner phones because you could literally avoid being tracked (to some degree) and legitimately just throw out the phone.
I was also getting calls for the woman who had this number, every single day since I’d gotten it. She apparently never picked up her prescription at the pharmacy, so they were calling to remind her to come to get it.
I know this because they left voicemails.
Everyday.
When I tried to call the number back I got an automated machine for the pharmacy. The one time I finally did catch the call, I answered to an automated machine.
In our phone conversation, I mentioned to him how I was going to change my phone number soon and listed these constant phone calls as the reason why. I remember saying it specifically because I got a phone call for her while we were on the phone.
He Posted a Screenshot of My Face (Profile)
Because my usernames on Twitter and Medium didn’t exactly match
He did this to “expose” me for having multiple fake accounts and pretending to be someone else, in order to cyberstalk him.
A few things were wrong with this strategy, the main one being the fact that what he did was illegal.
Posting someone’s personal number and image as a means of attack, and without consent, is illegal. And it was reported to Twitter and my attorney (that’s all I’m going to share about that).
His actions were erratic because the three profiles in his screenshot were of women who looked nothing alike. We were literally three different people.
The reason my Twitter profile is @SincerelyLCS instead of @SincerelyLC is that that username was taken by the time I joined Twitter.
In fact, one of these accounts was made in 2011. The other was made in 2016. Long before I ever thought to join Twitter. So, of course, I couldn’t use the username I use for Medium on Twitter when it was already taken.
Instead, I used @SincerelyLCS.
Because it was close enough to my medium username. The only difference is I added the ‘S’ because that’s the first initial of my last name, which is written on one of my poems on this very platform.
He Was Playing Dumb to Expose Me
When he noticed the different name — he didn’t mention it
Thinking he was “playing dumb” (according to his tweets) as a means to outsmart me, by going along with the conversation. In reality, he was waiting for his opportunity to expose me.
I mentioned earlier he texted me asking me about the difference in my usernames, before making a remark about my phone being a “burner”. He said this because I’d told him on the phone not to text my number.
I literally explained to him that messaging on Twitter was much easier for me because I had a flip phone and would have to press the same button several times just to spell out a word. This too was suspicious to him.
My honesty was suspicious to him.
I was thinking we were having a good conversation. He thought he was catching me in some lie. Some of his Twitter tirades even accused me of being someone he previously dated.
This means the whole time we were interacting, in the back of his mind he believed he might have been talking to a totally different person than who he actually was speaking with. That’s psychotic and very delusional.
If the life you’re living has you looking over your shoulder, there’s something wrong with you and your choices, and I want nothing to do with it.
So, once I saw my number and picture posted on his Twitter, I sent one text only explaining why the name had shown up differently, before telling him not to ever contact me again.
I Contacted Twitter and My Attorney
My privacy had been violated with malicious intent
And my safety was jeopardized. I had to change my number the following morning and removed my image, initially, from my profiles.
I, then, contacted my attorney because this was an intentional, and hateful, attack on his part. This was obvious for a couple of reasons.
- He blocked me on Twitter just to post my personal information, to make sure I wouldn’t see it. Excuse my language but that was some cowardly fucking shit. I lost all respect when I caught this.
- All he had to do was ask. But he didn’t do that. He wanted to destroy me instead, and he put my safety in danger to do it.
I’m not hard to talk to. I’m approachable, and I was clearly approachable enough for him to initiate any form of contact. So, the fact that I was blocked so he could then —
- trash my character
- post my picture to draw negative attention to me, and then
- post a screenshot of my personal phone number
To his account, while being dead wrong about the facts, left a bad taste in my mouth. I have never been disrespected like that in my entire life.
If I saw something that I found weird or had any questions, I asked him. Like an adult. I’m highlighting this because I’m 28 and he’s 35. He wasn’t grown enough to give me the same respect of asking me a simple question?
Pathetic.
So, this will be handled legally because he actually committed a crime, and I have every intention of treating it as such. No apology will fix this.
Something Important That Needs to Be Mentioned
This took place on June 25th (my father’s birthday)
I wasn’t really active much on social media that day.
Partly because I spent much of the night before and earlier that day crying. But also because I was exhausted from grief. So, I drank myself to sleep around two or three in the afternoon. I didn’t wake up until the sun was gone.
When I woke up I went to go check on my friend and noticed he was unusually quiet and figured he had his own shit going on. Then it showed that his account was gone and I initially figured something might have happened to him and hoped he was okay.
That’s when the texts came in.
I went back to grieving and was actually crying when I realized what was going on over on Twitter. I had told him my father’s birthday was that same day. I even posted a tribute earlier that day, and he saw it.
He knew what day it was. This made every action he took on this day an automatic hit below the belt — by default.
He Started Cyberstalking Me
He made several accounts to reach out to me over and over again
After I told him not to contact me ever again, he began contacting me, several times, the following day on Medium. This went on for the next 24 hours, here on Medium, where I work.
Every time I blocked an account another one was made. I lost count after twelve. Comments started pouring into different stories I’d written. Some of you saw this play out.
Keep in mind, he followed me here from Twitter not too long before all this went down, in the first place. I found this ironic since I was the one being accused of “cyberstalking” him, but I digress.
There was no conversation to have.
On his Twitter, there was proof this is what he does to people. Business and personal. He was an erratic loose cannon.
Someone like him is a breathing liability and is asking for a legal problem, they won’t be able to get themselves out of. He is someone I wouldn’t trust with anything I had to say.
The Motive behind Why He Actually Did This
According to his own confession the next day
One of his comments, which has since been removed, stated his reason for doing it was because he started falling for me and did not know how to handle it. Men like this are dangerous.
He randomly decided to investigate me for no reason, as I was sleeping, because of his romantic “feelings” when nothing between us was even headed in that direction. But that’s when it hit me.
It takes a dangerous person, who chooses to live dangerously, to react the way he did — to even think the things he thought about me.
There was no reason for this. I did nothing to him but be kind to him and genuine. This brings me to the most disturbing part of this whole ordeal.
He caused all this chaos, publicly and legally, because he caught feelings and… felt triggered by that. This confession, and the actions behind it, literally proved there was no reason for this attack.
That’s no excuse for someone I was nothing but kind to going out of his way to look into me to —
- hoping he would find something bad
- using anything that didn’t understand as valid evidence
Because he liked me?
Because of this, I was finally able to accept that when someone chooses to believe the worst about you, based on circumstantial evidence, they were waiting for a reason to turn on you. And he was. All of this was proof of how dangerous men like him really are.
Stay woke.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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