Perhaps some higher power thought i could make better use of my time as well, because i was just landed with an interesting situation. what happened is that i received a letter from a guy i'd only ever spoken to online. to make things even more interesting, the last time we spoke was in...2017? i'm pretty sure it was after i'd moved to sengkang. yup, checking some old chat logs confirms it. 2017. i remember that our conversation ended on a less-than-pleasant note, hence its discontinuation. i occasionally thought about him, but never really thought about reconciliation, or even contacting him again. that is, until this letter came in.
you may know that i pride myself on being quite resourceful when it comes to getting information and solving problems, but i have not for the life of me been able to figure out how this guy got my address. the simplest explanation would be that my address is available online somewhere, and he just searched for it...except it's not. i googled myself, and only found things that link me to my lab in NUS, and my linkedin profile, of which i believe outsiders can't really see much. the next thought is that i may have given it to him and forgot, though i generally don't make a habit of giving my address to people who don't need to know.
if we were to rule these possibilities out, the only other explanation would be that he obtained it through underhand means. like, maybe calling NUS, or somewhere i've worked before, and asking someone for it. or perhaps there's a government service that auto-fills a person's address after entering their name? i'm sure that if such a thing exists, the citizens' convenience was the main concern, although more...creative people could use it for things like this. while it may be possible that he got my address through sheer luck/coincidence (like, him working somewhere and just seeing my name and address), i'm disinclined to believe that it was pure chance. i'd think that he had to put in at least some measure of effort.
analyzing this situation a bit more thoroughly tells me a couple of things: the letter was probably hand-delivered, as it doesn't bear a stamp or any postmarking. unless he used the old "put only one address on and hope for the best" trick. even then, there'd be some stamp or something from the post office right? the other thing is that he got the postal code wrong. while it was not for my block, it was for a building very close by. again, i think that it might be possible that the post office has some hardworking employees and/or tracking system, but i don't know. am i giving them too much credit?
for the record, i'm not angry, upset, or scared. nothing like that. i'm more curious as to how he obtained my address! i could learn a couple of tricks. so i guess the question now is what do i do? contact him, or not? i must acknowledge that he placed a not-small amount of faith in me by giving me his phone number in the letter. i don't know. will probably sleep on this and decide soon.
you may know that i pride myself on being quite resourceful when it comes to getting information and solving problems, but i have not for the life of me been able to figure out how this guy got my address. the simplest explanation would be that my address is available online somewhere, and he just searched for it...except it's not. i googled myself, and only found things that link me to my lab in NUS, and my linkedin profile, of which i believe outsiders can't really see much. the next thought is that i may have given it to him and forgot, though i generally don't make a habit of giving my address to people who don't need to know.
if we were to rule these possibilities out, the only other explanation would be that he obtained it through underhand means. like, maybe calling NUS, or somewhere i've worked before, and asking someone for it. or perhaps there's a government service that auto-fills a person's address after entering their name? i'm sure that if such a thing exists, the citizens' convenience was the main concern, although more...creative people could use it for things like this. while it may be possible that he got my address through sheer luck/coincidence (like, him working somewhere and just seeing my name and address), i'm disinclined to believe that it was pure chance. i'd think that he had to put in at least some measure of effort.
analyzing this situation a bit more thoroughly tells me a couple of things: the letter was probably hand-delivered, as it doesn't bear a stamp or any postmarking. unless he used the old "put only one address on and hope for the best" trick. even then, there'd be some stamp or something from the post office right? the other thing is that he got the postal code wrong. while it was not for my block, it was for a building very close by. again, i think that it might be possible that the post office has some hardworking employees and/or tracking system, but i don't know. am i giving them too much credit?
for the record, i'm not angry, upset, or scared. nothing like that. i'm more curious as to how he obtained my address! i could learn a couple of tricks. so i guess the question now is what do i do? contact him, or not? i must acknowledge that he placed a not-small amount of faith in me by giving me his phone number in the letter. i don't know. will probably sleep on this and decide soon.
-random thought of the day: Still can't figure it out.-
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