Chris Jones is a writer. A good writer. On twitter, he told a story over the course of 10 tweets, as you can only use 140 characters per tweet. If this sounds familiar, that’s because I’ve transcribed his tweets before for this wonderful story. This one is different, but equally wonderful. Here it is:
Okay, forgive the multiple tweets, but I want to tell a story about trust and stupidity and the Internet, oh, for no particular reason. I have a follower on here, @JDGerlach. He was (is) smart and funny in his replies to me. I get a lot of replies. He stuck out. Then I find out he’s up here for work, staying at a roadside motel, in a terrible, lonely, ugly part of the world: Ajax, Ontari. I didn’t know what he did, how old he was, where he was from. Didn’t even know his first name. I asked if I could take him for dinner. My wife didn’t think it was best idea, meeting a stranger from the Internet at a roadside motel. She knows I don’t think things through. But I was committed. I drove to the motel. There was a guy waiting. He didn’t look like a murderer. I hoped that was J, and it was. We went to a Chinese buffet and destroyed it. He was, in person, as he was on Twitter, smart and funny. The best blind date. That whole night, just that little connection with a stranger, made me feel good. Not to overstate things, but it felt like a reward. And yes, it could have been a disaster. But it wasn’t. It was the antidote to disasters. It just took faith that most people are good.
Trust is not a sin.
Glad he wasn’t a murderer. Thanks, Chris.
-bp