Well as I wrote here, there’s this Thomas Reed guy who friended me on facebook. His info said that he went to my college and graduated from my class. I thought he looked familiar and friended him. Someone wrote me and said they couldn’t remember him and checked the four yearbooks and couldn’t find him. As I thought about it, I couldn’t definitely remember him at all –not one single memory.
I wrote some other friends and they didn’t remember him either.
Well I finally wrote a blog entry about it and then put a status update on facebook that said this.
Who is Thomas Reed? Does anybody from Hendrix College circa 1995 remember him? I don’t and it’s bugging me. If you graduated Central High School around 1991 and remember him, let me know.
Well I got several comments from people who didn’t remember him. Another person made a joke that he was the “Hendrix stalker” because that person had also went around asking and no one could remember him either.
I did email him and the conversation went like this.
Me: Dude How do I know you. It’s bugging me.
Thomas Reed: How would we know each other…. Read More
About 30 seconds later, without me responding.
Thomas Reed: I was just online and looking at friends of friends
ME: I graduated from Hendrix College in 1995.
Thomas Reed: I didn’t finish until 98
ME: Then why did you list yourself as graduating in 1995. (look at your own info). And if it’s friends of friend, who is the original friend?
Thomas REED: Well.. I’m sorry. I had a friend of mine set up my account. I am not sure how I ended up with you in my friends list. Im sorry I bothered you.
And apparently after that message, he defriended me.
So even though his info says he graduated in 1995. He’s now claiming he finished in 1998 but it doesn’t appear that he’s friending anyone from the year 1998.
One of my friends commented that he was being sensitive but that my questions were very pointed. Well, I don’t know about that. The whole thing is weird. Hendrix was a fairly friendly place and most classmates would have no problem saying “I lived in such and such dorm and hung out with so and so most of the time. That’s how you would know me.” This isn’t New York where random questions like that are greeted with suspicion.
But he has proven himself on some point to be partially dishonest. Why did the friend who set up the account put 95 if he finished in 1998? Did he mislead that friend? Did that friend just have a brainfart and assume since he was 36?
Someone sent me a message privately asking if it was possible that this guy was just that gosh darn forgettable. That somehow he did indeed manage to slide under the radar for most students.
I don’t know.
The other weird thing is that his friends are mostly people from undergrad and hardly anyone else. For someone who is 36, that seems weird.
I do know that working as an investigator in criminal law for a while has warped my outlook or made me extremely cynical, depending on whom you ask. Based on my investigative background, I am aware of the information that can be gleened from someone’s facebook account.
Maybe I’m being cynical. I don’t know.
I am a woman who likes answers and I am coming to the conclusion that I am not going to get the ones I want from Thomas Reed.
So that’s all.
I still have no idea who he is,l He doesn’t seem that forthcoming and seems to resent questions.
Even if he didn’t finish till ’98, he should have still been listed in the ’95 yearbook. Do you know anyone from a class or two behind you who still has their facefinder, assuming those were still being published in the late ’90s?
Not in the ’95 or ’96 yearbooks. Profile says he was born in June of 1974, but he graduated from HS in 1991, which meant he skipped a year somewhere along the way. But then not graduating from Hendrix until 1998? And having almost all Hendrix people as friends? Notice how completely generic his status updates are? And how none of his pics are tagged? Dude is a complete imposter, but not sure whether it’s some sort of social psych experiment, as you suggest, or if something more sinister is going on…..
I don’t know if they had them in the late 90s, rebl1969. They probably did at some point.
I was thinking social psychology because with the semester system, Hendrix College has already started and I could definitely see Dr. McKenna being fascinated with social networking. He does have that Advanced Social Psychology class and I could definitely see them doing something based on that.
The potential for being sinister is there but then that opens the bag of worms of why teeny tiny Hendrix college and why our particular age range?
Hmmm. Doesn’t look like McKenna has an Advanced Social Psych class this semester. The FB account was opened around August 24, which would’ve been before class registration. Could this be a doctoral student? Dr. McKenna himself? Or, if something nefarious is afoot, perhaps this person has targeted Hendrix alums because s/he is also an alum and knows the community? Have to admit, this whole thing is very interesting.
It is fascinating and weird. The weird is what has my attention.