Manfreakintap

This is the best Facebook-related anecdote since I sort of accidentally registered Ted as a child molester via Facebook.

The other day, Andrew posted a photo on Facebook of a man apparently named Cobra hula hooping while wearing a shirt that said: “GOD made Adam and Eve not ADAM and STEVE!!!” Not keen on the display of intolerance, I commented on the picture with “What’s with the shirt?” A short time later, Andrew responded, “Cobra’s wife bought that for him, and he thinks it’s a little funny. And he’s in Indonesia.”

Ah, okay, evidently Cobra is someone that Andrew met while living in Indonesia. Since Indonesia is an Islamic country, it might not be reasonable to apply my perspectives to someone living in a part of the world with radically different social norms, particularly when we haven’t even eradicated homophobia here in the U.S. yet.

To illustrate this point, Andrew once told me a story about how his Indonesian host dad watched Brokeback Mountain. Because a gay love story largely wouldn’t fly in Indonesia, this version of the film was edited to remove any overt traces of homosexuality, thus making the movie significantly shorter. I’m perplexed as to why it would be worth even repackaging a film of this nature, but apparently it proved successful: Andrew’s host dad loved Brokeback Mountain because it was, as he saw it, a beautiful representation of friendship. “They’re such good friends,” the dad said of the main characters to Andrew after finishing the film.

As for Cobra, he must have seen my comment on his photo, because later I found a Facebook request to be his friend. Not interested in being “friends” (even in the most superficial internet sense) with someone I’ve never met, I rejected the request. The next day I found that he had requested to be my friend again. This time it was accompanied by a message:

What? Then I noticed I had another message from him:

Confused, I did some research. “apa kabar?” translates to “What’s new?” which is an odd thing to ask someone you don’t know. You don’t even know what’s old about me, Cobra – or should I call you by your “cool” name, cobrarebel?

I texted Andrew to alert him that Cobra was now messaging me. Andrew’s reply was amusing, yet frightening: “It can’t be stopped.”

Still curious, I googled “manfreakintap” to see if it meant anything, or was just as sexually suggestive as it seems. Nothing came up whatsoever. My best interpretation of Cobra’s note is that he’d be down to, um, “manfreakintap” if we smoked a joint and drank kahlua first. But surely that can’t be correct. He’s married, he has kids, and he has that bigoted shirt. Ultimately, I rejected his request for friendship again and choose not to respond in any manner.

But as Andrew foretold, it didn’t stop. Within a couple of hours, he again requested to be my friend, this time with a new message:

Again, I’m not entirely sure what he’s trying to communicate, but “please come to my house” is pretty forward. Just because I passively indicated that I don’t approve of an intolerant shirt does not mean I’m down to travel across the world to meet a strange man for “manfreakintap.” (I might accept some Kahlua, however.) I’m sorry, Cobra, but we’ll never be friends, Brokeback Mountain style or otherwise.