What does it feel like to be scammed when trying to make a connection for dating?
Bleh. Just bleh. I want to cry. I want to rage and throw things. I want to say fuck a lot. Fuckety fuck fuck fuck. Those bastards. 24 hours ago I was window shopping on Facebook dating. I never expected to find much. Then this too good to be true guy “liked” me and down the road I went. I fell hook line but not quite sinker otherwise I’d be talking to him instead of talking to you. He was a gorgeous guy. That was my first clue. Why would a guy like that be interested in normal dumpy me, but ok it could happen right? Maybe he was disillusioned with the pretty girls. Maybe they were too flighty. Or needy. Or high maintenance. Look at the lies I told myself to allow myself to BELIEVE. I was the ONE. After two weeks on a dating app I had struck gold and landed five hearts. Jackpot! I took precautions in that I signed up for a background verification program. But I didn’t have enough on his profile to check things. Clue number 2: an obvious warning sign I overlooked. His name was two first names. Robert Michael. Can’t easily do a background check on Robert Michael but theoretically I should have gotten a lot more hits. I did get some but none for who he said he was and where he said he lived. Clue number 3. Pay attention to the damned background check! It was right. This guy was made up. He didn’t exist. That’s why there was NO BACKGROUND. Dammit I just kept marching down that oblivious road with multiple blinders over my eyes and roller skates on my feet.
He said good night last night. He texted me this morning to say hi. We had reasonable conversations and he unloaded that he had been cheated on and had trust issues. Totally plausible! Yet another lie. Or maybe not. Maybe the person on the other side of the chat had been cheated on and let that leak out on the page. Felt real. Clue number four he wanted to go to a chat app and get off Facebook. My arrogance now is at play. I had evaluated the Facebook app and found it sadly wanting. Poor usability and not a great algorithm nor user friendly controls. So I could relate. Yeah this IS a sucky app. Let’s go somewhere else. I gave him my email address! My real one! Got dammit what a sucker I am, hook was firmly in cheek by then and on its way down my throat and into my belly. But I noticed. I observed. Things I said that would trigger an expected response from a real human don’t trigger the expected response. I started testing. I’m interested but not going to get too excited until I can look at you across a table. Clue number five!!! He didn’t say let’s meet. He didn’t even say sounds good let’s plan something. He completely skipped over it. Dammit that was a sign right there, you fool. A big one that said “stupid”. Slap it to your forehead cause you earned it.
He disappeared a while for about five hours. Came back and asked how my day was going. How was yours I said. No real answer. Clue number six. I finally listened and started adding them up. Off next to google. How do you check for dating scams? Got a redirect to a page that says do a reverse image search. Oh! That’s something I’m not familiar with and didn’t think of doing so I did! Hello Taylor Joe. You look a lot like Robert Michael enough to be his twin. Search some more of Robert’s photos. Hello Walter Arnold and Levi Carter! All the same guy. Some poor schmuck has had all his photos stolen. Tik-tok accounts all over the place. Public. That was a mistake dumbest Nigerian scammers ever. So I sent him the screen shots. And just like that his profile is gone. He doesn’t exist anymore. At least not Robert Michael. I’m sure he’s popped up somewhere else in the world already as David Lee or something similar and familiar.
I was gutted. I had hoped about something I don’t hope about and haven’t in years and years. I bought clothes to go out on a date. I vacuumed my stairs cause I thought one day I might want to bring this guy over and I’ve really got to quit living in a hovel and get this place clean. Did you hear that world I vacuumed the fucking stairs!!
Fuck you Robert Michael and the scum behind you. What you do cuts so deep. I was lucky not to lose financially as well but the pain in my heart is just as costly. Just won’t bankrupt me. Except emotionally. I was already walled off. This experience put another layer of plaster over that top level of brick. “Shore it up, there were some cracks!”
It hurts to get your hopes up and be disappointed. I don’t hope. Or at least I try not to. Not for things I know don’t exist. Me and love – we’re not pals.
