How to identify an anonymous admirer?

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Sooo...my college has an anonymous forum, and I have been seeing my name pop up in various "complimentary (?)" ways, such as a topic titled "What is 'Viola's' sexual orientation," signed by a "curious guy." (I'm a straight girl). And I've made it onto a couple of Hottest fill-in-the-blank lists (including the hot goth chick list) So I think I have an admirer, unless this is just a very immature joke. How do I find out who he/she/they (eek!) are? Suggestions please?

And just because it is funny, one of the responses to the question was vampire. I feel very loved here

The obvious "rational" answer would be to ask him who he is. However, I have learned recently that NT's prefer indirect communication. Thus my natural tendency towards directness works against me. I only learned this about a month ago. It really sucks learning how wrong you are when you are 27 or 28...

Thus what you need to do is to manipulate him into telling you who he is, without you directly asking him. I could suggest many planned ways and scenarios, but ultimately social interaction does not work that way. Ultimately you will need to improvise on the spot and "make it up as you go along". Unfortunately, of course, this is the major ability we lack.

However, if you are an experienced online user who has "internet friends", then you most likely have some "internet friends" whose real name you know. Do what you did there. Thus it will take time "getting to know him" and gaining his trust so that he spontaneously reveals himself. If you have learned how to flirt, then do so, but not at first (because that is just too damn direct for these stupid NT's).




Blah, I really hate myself. no wonder I want to die. This is the majority of the understanding I have gained over the past year, but only through extraordinary effort. Even if I was given this advice a year ago, I could not implement it because:
1.) I would not know even know how direct I was.
2.) I did not have any internet friends.
3.) I had absolutely no ability to flirt. (I still don't have much, but now I am like at 3% instead of 0%).
4.) I still suck at improvising.... Though now I know how badly.


The real problem is that I am able to see how much I don't know, relative to what I do know... and it is alot.... I would need extraordinary social skills to compensate for my ugliness and homosexual desires, and compared to what I have, and the rate at which I am learning, I will be dead before then. And why? Because the world just can't accept me the way I am. I must adapt to the world, and no one will ever adapt to me. So screw the world. I shall curse it with my last breath.

Blah, yeah, well, I guess that rant was the cost of admission.

Awwww... Life can really suck. However, Texas doesn't strike me as the best place to be aspie and/or homosexual. Where I am right now, at least half of the student population is somewhere on the autism spectrum (diagnosed or not) and the other half is so wierd that they don't really seem to care. Not in my "department," however...

Anyways, the problem is that it is all anonymous. I can't tell one commenter apart from another. It could be fifteen different people, it could be one, and there isn't a very good way for me to know. I can sort of guess based on writing styles and use or lack thereof of capitalization, but I'm having a hard time with it, and it is starting to get annoying. Plus, if this person isn't playing a practical joke, I want to know who it/they are. I could really use some real life positive attention.

So, if you ID this admirer, then what? Ask him out? Hope he asks you out? Or do you even want that? Or maybe the admirer is just a guy who matter-of-factly just thinks you're hot, and leaves it at that. there're plenty of chicks out there I'd award the "hot" label to, but I don't want to date them, since I have a GF. You've been complimented, and it may be just as simple as that. If you want more, then you'll have to stick your neck out and ask on the forum. Which is risky, but most good things are.

The fact it's anonymous is a clear indicator that it's immature. Maybe you should just ignore it, instead of playing into it by giving them your attention. They'll eventually lose interest and stop.

Or maybe the anonymous admirer is someone that is merely afraid to say it in front of you... god knows I've had that problem many times...

If I cave in to optimism and assume that Toad is right and Cyberman is not, how do I make this anonymous person less shy?

Can users pick a different user name for each post, or is the user name consistent? If you can find other posts by the same person, read, try to judge character as well as you can, decide whether you still are interested in getting to know this person. If you are, reply to a post you find interesting, try to get a conversation going. If shyness is the problem, it's probably best not to reply to a post where you got a compliment.

I haven't tried this, but I think it would work on me if I had complimented someone indirectly because I was too shy to do it directly.

There are no user names. Eugh. This is sooo sticky!

I wouldn't necessarily agree with Cyberman, but don't assume anything about the writer's intentions or motivations. If you do investigate, try to keep yourself ready for the possibility that it was all an attention-seeking set-up made in order to get you to respond to it.

Are you really hot? I am asking this seriously, do other guys and girls say that you are beautiful? do people tell you that often?

If not, if you are not even close to hot then that would be a set-up prank ..otherwise, it's real.

Not so sure I agree with this part. There are other reasons people can come up with for picking on you besides your looks.

^ maybe .....but based on my personal observation , students in schools rarely pick on 'hotties' especially hottie girls but most usually pick on fatties/shorties/uglies/odd-looking people.
Usually bullies do such pranks against unattractive people because they assume that they might be desperate for admiration and hence more vulnerable to fall for it, never underestimate the bully's mind , they usually can guess the emotional weaknesses in their victims and hit on it.


If Viola is unattractive and self-aware of if then she can know that there's a big probability that what's going on this board is a collective or individual prank but if she's really that 'hot' then this probability falls dramatically.

Oberlin Ohio does not strike me as the bastion of open-mindedness. But yeah, there is a Texan affect here. But that should translate into everyone being single and alone, right? Nope, just me apparently.... I am originally from Massachusetts. It does not matter where I go because I will always be an ugly social ret*d.
As an undergrad I went to a nerd school with a population ratio of 70/30 guys to girls. Even less happened there because I understood even less. So yeah, I am hopeless. The only thing left to hope for is a quick death. But it turns out that guns are so expensive, like hundreds of dollars. What a pain (pun intended, heh). I did see some cheap dinky ones for like $130, but I will have to wait a little bit before I have enough money for that.
I wish I could take everyone out with me, but that is no where as easy as it sounds. I should have been a biomed major with a specialty in infectious diseases. Then I could engineer a super virus or something, heh. It might not be too hard to mutate existing flu strains to something more deadly than the spanish influenza.


Ah, so it is always anonymous. Not even any PM's or something. Well, that's a little different, but you can still draw upon your preexisting skills. In addition to treating this like any other online thing, also treat it like a masquerade ball with a theme of, lets say, vampires, heh. Someone dressed up as dracula just flirted with you and dissapeared into a crowd of other unimaginative dracula costume wearers. What do you do?

I am not sure, but how about trying to be a whore, and have fun with all the draculas, hah. Some will not be fun, others will be, while others you still won't know about. Several hours from now, at midnight, everyone will unmask and kiss the person next to them. Which dracula will you stand near, and how will you do it?

I'm gonna say it's "she"
Otherwise, the sexual orientation question would not have been asked, I believe straight guys always assume women are straight. Unless, for some reason, you throw out a lesbian "vibe" or many of your good friends are gay.

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That may narrow the search, hopefully.

Whether or not I am attractive... That is always a nice question...

Eugh...

I don't know. I think I'm pretty, but I'm not really very conventional in how I look. I'm skinny, I have pale skin and dark hair, and I wear strange clothes because I feel like it. If you really need to judge my attractiveness, I can post a pic, but that would be awkward, even for me. People say that I am pretty. I've had random strangers call me beautiful. So, no, I don't think that I am attractive probably to most people, but to a select audience of those who don't mind oddness or even like it, perhaps.

Mystc, where did I post that I am at Oberlin? I don't really remember this...