Tyrel was taken aback when he saw that Joana had sent him a friend request again. Why would a stranger send him another request? The girl must have been adamant to get in touch with him, which made him think that perhaps there was something he was missing.
Questions began forming in Tyrel’s mind, as he tried to figure out why an unknown girl from the Philippines would be contacting him on Facebook. The two clearly had nothing in common and lived on completely different continents. He couldn’t help but wonder if he should try contacting her to find out…
Joana Marchan
The request came from a Philippine woman named Joana Marchan, who had never actually met Tyrel in real life. In fact, Tyrel had never even visited Asia before, which is why he quickly removed her friend request. After his quick dismissal of her request, Tyrel decided to do a quick inspection.
He decided to review Joana’s profile and see if it had any veracity behind it. He was surprised to see that she wasn’t even from the United States. While people receive random friend requests on Facebook all the time, something about her just stuck in the young boy’s curious mind.
Moving On
Tyrel spent his entire life in a small town in Idaho and spent most of his time studying, surfing, and enjoying time with his friends. Whenever he deleted random friend requests on Facebook, he would normally just move on with his life. But this time he felt that something was different.
For some strange reason, Tyrel couldn’t get Joana’s face and profile out of his head. Finally, it seemed like his imagination was ready to let him let go of the girl. That is, until a few days later he received another peculiar request on Facebook which piqued his curiosity.
Feeling Drawn
Despite not having anything in common or any sort of actual connection, Tyrel could not help but feel drawn to this mysterious stranger online. He was sure that there was no way they had ever met in person and could not figure out why she would not stop sending him friend requests.
Tyrel decided to get to the bottom of this and told his family and friends that he wanted to contact the Filipino woman. Everyone warned him against it, and about the dangers of online strangers, but Tyrel couldn’t help himself. So he decided to send her a message...
Replying to the Mystery Woman
It was clear to Tyrel that there was a certain risk in responding to a stranger online. It could be a man hiding behind a fake Facebook account, or a hacker trying to get a hold of his personal information. Still, curiosity got the best of him and he simply had to know who Joana was.
Tyrel didn’t mince words and got straight to the point. In his message to Joana, he typed: “How do you know me?” and hit send. Tyrel refreshed his feed every few minutes before finally receiving a reply. But nothing could prepare him for what the Filipina girl told him.