Getting to know people is one of the great things about blogging. With the magic of the Intertubes, you can meet bloggers from all over the world, exchange ideas, and tips about drinking, and revel in the greater human comedy in which we all play a part. Reading someone’s thoughts and feelings day after day brings you closer to them on a special level, allowing you to build a bond of trust and friendship with people you’ve know only a short period of time, or perhaps never even met at all.

But how well do you know these people? I mean, really know them. Despite the friendly, outgoing appearance, how can you be sure that the dude writing about cats and whisky is the person he purports to be, and not the motherloving pigeon of all psychopaths? The easiest way, of course, is to let the Internets do the work for you!

Step One, get a sample of their handwriting. This won’t always be easy, but some people slip up and let a copy of it get out where potential victims can find them.

Now, you can’t really get much done with this, owing to the skewed angle, which is also coincidentally a tactic associated with drunkards and weed freaks. Luckily, with a little work, you can get rid of the skew, so’s you have a clean sample to work with.

Ok, now we have a full-page sample of this (possible) psychopath’s handwriting. It’s on to step 2!

Second, run it through our trusted ally, the Handwriting Analysis Wizard. This trusty little doodad will tell you where, how, and why this (potentially) murderous ne’er-do-well will strip your flesh from the bones with a rusty awl and dump your carcass by the side of the road in an old yellow Hefty bag. Let’s have a look!

Document Spacing

The first test is how the text is fitted on the page. We’ve found a pretty good match here, so let’s see what the Wizard has to say about it:

The right side of the page represents the future and S------- W---- G-- (name obscured to protect identity. -ed) seems unwilling to face the fear of getting started living now and planning for the future. S------- W---- G-- seems to be clinging to past events and spending lots of time thinking about what happened. It would be best to leave the past behind and move on. Stop crowding that left margin.

Hmm...I believe you’ll find that Ted Bundy also had a problem with the right margin. Anyhoo, the next step is the letter ‘y’. Believe it or not, you can tell an awful lot about a person just by how they write this letter.

The Letter Y

The Wizard tells us:

S------- W---- G-- exaggerates about everything that has a physical nature. Although he may not intend to deceive or mislead, he blows things way out of proportion because that is the way he views them. He will be a good story teller. This exaggeration relates to all areas of his material world. S------- W---- G-- allows many people into his life because he is accepting and trusting. He is sometimes called gullible by his friends. That only really means that he trusts too many people. S------- W---- G-- has a vivid imagination.

There’s the rub. Good story tellers usually have good alibis, no? On to the next point, the slant of the letter t.

The Letter T

S------- W---- G-- has a need to be in control of his own life. He is a strong individual that can control situations to his advantage. This person can take control of a situation. He likes control and has the ability to control people without getting them offended.

The second aspect of the letter t, is whether it has a knife point or is rounded off on the ends. Anybody who knows S------- W---- G-- knows what’s coming next:

The Letter T Crossbar

A knife point there is no surprise. Survey says:

S------- W---- G-- is sarcastic. This is a defense mechanism designed to protect his ego when he feels hurt. He pokes people harder than he gets poked. These sarcastic remarks can be very funny.

That’s putting it mildly. Up next on the agenda are the ‘humps’ on the letters m and n.

The Letters M and N

Here’s a perfect match. And what grisly details does the Wizard give us?

Diplomacy is one of S------- W---- G--‘s best attributes. He has the ability to say what others want to hear. He can have tact with others. He has the ability to state things in such a way as to not offend someone else. S------- W---- G-- can disagree without being disagreeable.

Oh, well, jeez, let’s just elect him as the first serial murder president, why don’t we?! Well, this thing’s obviously broken, so I guess we’ll have to err on the side of abandon and make a genuine effort to actually show up at a blog meet again sometime soon. Let’s just leaves the bullwhips and pigstickers at home this time, shall we?