My name is Pete Cashmore and I am the most influential man on Twitter. Except I'm not. I'm not even on Twitter. You see, I, Pete Cashmore, am the most influential man on Twitter. As a result, I, Pete Cashmore, can't be on Twitter.

Before this gets any more irritating, I should explain that there are two of me. There is me, Pete Cashmore (Wolverhampton), occasional Guardian contributor and jobbing hack, 37 years old, frumpy, just about getting by, but until about 2006, pretty much the journalistic Pete Cashmore. Then, along came Pete Cashmore (Scotland), 24 years old, matinee idol good-looking, a social media specialist and already a millionaire. Other Pete Cashmore was recently declared the most influential man on Twitter – I know this because my colleagues decorated the office with the clippings – with more than two million followers. Facebook groups have been set up devoted to his chisel-jawed cuteness and millpond-at-midnight eyes. He is the Adonis of social media. He is also the bane of my existence.

Other Pete Cashmore casts a long shadow over my life – it's tricky when you're not only not the most successful writer in the world, you're not even the most successful writer in the world with your own name. When Forbes magazine declared him the third most influential person on the internet, I had CNN and Sky News ringing me at 9am on a Saturday morning for interviews. I don't even know how they got my number, I just know that it is a thoroughly dispiriting experience to explain to a US news reporter that there's another Pete Cashmore out there who is better than you.

I resisted Twitter partly because I am a luddite, but mainly because I associate it with Other Pete Cashmore (who, naturally, I hate). Eventually, my girlfriend yelled at me so much about missed networking possibilities that I signed up (as "notpetecashmore") and within an hour, the first three followers I got were all, curiously, nubile young American women. They all, of course, thought I was him. So I threw a hissy-fit and left, which, given that I have a girlfriend who yells at me and an "in" with nubile young Americans, even now seems a rash decision.

Anyway, I'd like to take this opportunity to announce that I, Pete Cashmore, am not Pete Cashmore. Pete Cashmore is better than me. Pete Cashmore is better than I'll ever be, and I'll bet Pete Cashmore's tweets are better than mine would have been, too.