Hi. Shadow here.
For those of you who don’t know me, let me tell you a little bit about myself.
I am 22 years old, 6’1″ tall, weigh 182 pounds, and am single. I have brown hair and blue eyes. I drive a 2012 bright yellow Corvette and love to meet people on the Internet. (For those of you who know I am really a German Shepherd dog, help me keep the secret for a while.)
I love the Internet. It lets me be whoever I want to be. I have my own email, facebook page, and twitter account. I am a registered student at one of the online universities. I would tell you which one, but I lied a little on my application and I don’t want them to find out.
I’ll get back to that.
I like to surf the web. I think that is what it is called. Last week I was looking at majorleaguerumors.com when an advertisement popped up telling me “Destiny wants to meet you.” There was a note saying Destiny lives 2.8 miles from me.
Wow.
I think I have to join a dating service to meet Destiny – and I really want to meet her. Normally, I would be afraid the service I picked would check my background and find I am not a handsome 22 year old man with a Corvette. While I am handsome as German Shepherd dogs go, I am not sure Destiny would approve the deception.
Then, I thought “wait.”
If I can register for email, facebook, and twitter, so can Destiny. I started to wonder if Destiny was the gorgeous blond in the picture, or if instead she was a labra doodle from another county. Another state.
Still, I really wanted to meet Destiny.
That was when I started reading an article on CNN about a man who had met several women through ChristianMingle.com. According to the article, this man would write about his Christian values and his desire to meet a woman who shared those values.
Once he found such a woman – and he found several – he would arrange to meet her. At the first meeting the man would forget his Christian values and instead become a monster. There have been reports of several such encounters – each ending with the man raping the woman.
This made me hesitate.
If a dating site like ChristianMingle.com can’t keep monsters from signing up and meeting other members, what dating site might be safe?
I guess, add to this thought, do I really want to see if Destiny is real if I have to lie on my application and use a real people picture to show her. I wonder how I would feel if she has lied on her application.
I even wonder if she is just someone’s imagination designed to get me and others to sign up for that particular dating site. I guess if I can lie to become a member, the site can lie to entice me to become a member.
I will never know.
I really would like to meet Destiny. But, I never will. Even if she is the real thing, I think she would be disappointed when she saw the real me.
So, I think I will concentrate on my college education.
No one will ever see me while I work on my degree. I really find this interesting. As long as I can get a people person to do my online work for me, I can get credits that will earn me a diploma.
I got this idea when I heard one of Mike’s friends talk about a class he took while in college a thousand years ago. (I don’t really think Mike’s friend is that old – but that is what he said.) This friend said he found an advertisement on the Common’s (whatever that is.) bulletin board that said he could get help with his assignments.
Since he was struggling in school, he checked into it and found that there was a group of students willing to write his papers – even go to class and take his tests – for a price.
After hearing this, I thought – hey – I wonder if I could get someone to write my papers for me and take my tests. After all, if I could fake my way into registering for an online college, why couldn’t I fake my way to a degree.
I really don’t know what a degree is for, but I know Mike and Jade both have degrees so there must be a reason.
So far, I have found college easier than I thought. I have no problem finding a source on the Internet that will write my papers for me. Since my instructor has never seen me and has never seen how I actually write, I find it easy to get an “A” in all of my classes.
At the same time, don’t think I don’t work hard. I have to spend a lot of time finding sources – or people – that are both willing and capable of providing “A” level work for me. Still, most of this is just from surfing the web.
So far, my instructor doesn’t have a clue. He thinks I have a great future.
I don’t know. If having a diploma really has value, I think I would worry about the future – if I was a real people person.
I know I am not the only one who is cheating my way through my online courses. I bet 10 years from now there will be more fake college degrees than real college degrees. But then, maybe being able to play the Internet game is more important than working in the real world.
I do know that it is easy to lie – people call it “embellish” – in order to get what they want on the Internet. Dating sites. Craigslist. Online Universities.
No one really knows what is true and what is not. And, it will get worse.
I know that my degree will be useless if I finish my online degree by having someone else do the work. Just like thousands of my fellow online students.
I have decided there is enough fraud with online classes. I am going to drop all of my classes. I am going to go back to just being me.
I know I am happy that I can go back to just being a dog. I know Mike and Jade will love me for what I am – not what I pretend to be.
At the same time, I wonder if Mike will take me for a ride later today. We would only have to go a few miles from home.
I really would like to meet Destiny.
- Shadow