Hello Pervert

Lisa sat down at her desk and opened her laptop. She’d been awaiting word on the job she’d applied for and didn’t want to hassle the contact officer anymore. Her enjoyment of her current role had vanished a while ago. She found it easier to count the moments she didn’t feel like crying at work instead of the times that she did.

Scrolling through her inbox, she saw no emails of note from the department she had hoped to work for. There were the obligatory emails promoting the sale of clothes she couldn’t justify buying at this point, but she read them nonetheless. She then noticed there were six emails in her spam folder.

“Maybe the email was flagged as spam”, Lisa thought as she clicked on the Spam folder icon. She then experienced further disappointment, as there were no emails offering her a new job.

But one email did catch her attention. It was sent from Lisa’s email to Lisa’s email. She immediately recognised that this was likely a scam email with a spoofed email header, which was probably why it had ended up in this folder. The subject read, “You’ve been caught out.” Lisa was intrigued; despite all the contemporary advice not to open emails like this, her curiosity took hold, and she clicked on the mysterious email.

“HELLO PERVERT!” was the opening line of the email. Starting any correspondence this way was confronting, giving Lisa a little jolt. As she read on, it was, as suspected, a scam email. Going through how they claimed to have hacked Lisa’s phone and recorded her pleasuring herself whilst watching porn.

Even if it were not for the fact that Lisa didn’t watch porn at any point, to further show how they lacked credibility, the email made reference to the fact that they had footage of Lisa stroking her penis. For as long as Lisa had lived, she had not had a penis.

Although she knew that to prevent confirming her email as legitimate, she should just ignore internet scammers, Lisa was not in the mood for their scams today. She clicked on Reply and penned her response.

Dear Me,

Nice of you to launch into an attack on someone you don’t know. Nice of you to try to get your little bit of money out of someone who has just enough to get by on. Nice of you to add one extra bit of cruelty and meanness into the world.

Normally, I cry because I’m so unhappy with my life. But I guess I’ve found someone who’s living a much worse existence than me.

May you find nothing but misery.

Sincerely.

PERVERT

Lisa pressed send on the email with a sense of empowerment. She deleted all emails in her spam folder and closed her laptop. She proceeded to go about her day, occasionally smiling at the email and her biting response.

The next day, Lisa logged into her email again. There was still no word from the job she was chasing, but a “1” was highlighted next to her spam folder again. Lisa clicked, and there it was—another email from Lisa to Lisa. This time, the subject line read, “I’m sorry.”

Lisa opened the email and read it.

Hello, Pervert (I know that’s not your name),

I’m sorry that my email made you feel that way. But you’re right; I do have a terrible existence. This is not what I wanted to be when I grew up, but there aren’t opportunities for people like me.

I get to send these emails, and hopefully, some people will think it’s real, and they’ll send money. The money doesn’t go to me, it doesn’t go to my family, it goes to making my boss richer.

I get enough money to live, and one day, maybe my family will find a better life.

I am sorry that you had to receive this email. I wish you peace and happiness.

Thinley.

Lisa was taken aback by the contents of the email and the quality of Thinley’s English. This was someone who’d been given a quality education. She reflected on her own life and how her mother always encouraged education over everything else. Although Lisa had resented this strict approach, particularly after her father’s death, she now found her peers respected her intellect and writing ability, even though she hadn’t gone on to university.

She started to picture Thinley’s working and living conditions. Lisa thought about how someone with an obvious sense of morals would constantly struggle to do the right thing and provide for their family.

Before long, Lisa found herself writing a response back.

Dear Thinley,

Thank you for your apology.

It seems like we both need new jobs. But hearing your story certainly makes me feel a little bit better about my job.

You caught me on a particularly bad day yesterday, so I might have overreacted a little bit.

Peace and happiness to you too.

Lisa (I don’t have a penis and I’m not a pervert).

Lisa smiled at her sign-off, hoping that Thinley would, too.

Over the next few days, Lisa got excited when she saw a new email in her spam folder, but it wasn’t a response from Thinley. She never received any more replies from him, and she wondered if he had gotten in trouble for sending that email to Lisa.

Over the next week, Lisa received an email notifying her that she’d missed out on the job she was hoping for. A glitch in the system meant they sent her the rejection notification three times. She wondered whether it was a glitch or if they wanted to emphasise she was not the right person for that job.

In a strange way, her scam email made her appreciate her current job and its associated conditions a bit more. She still wanted to move on, but it helped her realise that some people were in worse positions than her.

When she finally got her dream job, Lisa remembered her HELLO PERVERT email and hoped that Thinley had also found a new job.

Lisa penned a final email to Thinley.

Dear Thinley,

I just found out that I got a much better job. I hope that things are going well for you. It's been so long since we chatted, but I hope you also found a way out.

Peace and Happiness.

Lisa.

The next day, Lisa got a reply to her email. I was a spam email advertising erectile dysfunction medication.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for reading. This story was inspired by true events involving my dear friend Lisa (who assures me she is NOT a pervert).

If you enjoyed reading, please like, or comment or even press on the tip button.

Please also check out some of my other stories: