The Real Story Behind the Guy Who Tried to Recover His Sunglasses by Texting a Girl for Over a Year

"SunglassStealinAnna" tells her side of the viral story.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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You may recall last week, we pointed out a tragic tale of stolen property—when one man texted a girl for a year in order to recover the shades she mistakenly swiped trying to ditch their terrible date. The man, Alex, had his story go viral when multiple news outlets picked up his odyssey of forgotten eyewear. But there's two sides to every story, and Anna (the alleged sunglasses thief), wants to make sure that her side of the story is heard. 

Anna told Complex via email that, like the sunglasses themselves, she completely forgot about Alex and their date until she was contacted by a major news outlet once the story went viral. She admits she initially thought the whole thing was "funny [and] creative," but then felt "nauseated at his insinuation that there was no way to get ahold of me." 

In order to defend her name, and tell her side of the story, Anna took to Reddit to explain (from her perspective) what really happened.

The condensed version of Anna's account mirrors Alex's in the general details. According to Anna, the pair met up for a date that—from the jump—wasn't working. After she made an "Irish exit," she blocked Alex's number in order to avoid dealing with any post-date texts. Inadvertently, this would be reason why Alex couldn't get in contact with her to recover the sunglasses. After she forgot to unblock his number, she unwittingly set into motion the series of now-notorious sunglasses-related texts.

But for the few similarities between the stories, Anna does have a few points she'd like to contest. As Anna claims, the sunglasses were not "expensive," as Alex pointed out in his side of the tale. Instead, she says they were "truly the shittiest, most scratched up pair of an Urban Outfitters 2003 purchase I've ever seen."

She also doesn't understand why Alex didn't try another method of communication. Yes, she blocked his number, but as Anna points out, "there's about 699 other methods of getting in touch with someone unreachable by phone...he knew where I LIVED. He could have put a letter in my mailbox! He could of hit me up on bloody LinkedIn!"

She admits that when she moved from Philadelphia (the city of the alleged sunglasses swiping) to San Francisco, she threw the shades away during the moving process. By that time, she had completely forgotten Alex, their date, and—you guessed it—his sunglasses. 

If you're still interested in getting Anna's half of the story, you can read it in full below, or head over to Reddit. She insists that there's a Part 2 to her tale of woe, which will include her perspective on the viral nature of this story, what it was like to be contacted by news outlets, and (most interestingly) "plot & attempt to execute my revenge...ie: [get] the true version of events out there."

 



 

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