I saw the trailer - almost on a level with Dirty John. It's a pretty scary world out there.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
I watched it. Follows the old adage… “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.” In his victim’s defence, though, he was unbelievably good at what he does. And he had accomplices who either believed him as well or were part of the con. Crazy though…for someone to live such a completely made-up life. He was living in a house of cards that could have tumbled down at any second. The stress of that must have been immense. For most human beings, not worth it, but for him, the thrill of it must have far outweighed the consequences if he were caught. Crazy story. Even crazier is that he went to prison, was released and still appears to be living the lifestyle that he was living before.
I think you would have to be a true sociopath who gets some enjoyment out of defrauding people. And I do think the one woman was spot on when she talked about the damage Prince Charming fantasies do. My best friend had a neighbor who was being catfished and absolutely would not listen to anybody who tried to tell her about it. Her husband died in an accident a few years ago and she is due a good settlement but has no money now. We all suspect he's going to get his hands on some of her settlement money. Her ability to suspend disbelief and think this successful good looking guy she met online was interested in her middle-aged overweight arthritic not particularly interesting self without even meeting in person was amazing. She even went shopping for a wedding dress even though his pending visits kept getting postponed and postponed.
(Btw - not to put down anyone middle aged overweight and arthritic - just that there was nothing so interesting about this woman that the fake guy she thought she was talking to would want to marry her without even meeting her in person! )
Ugh. Definitely sounds like your friend’s neighbour is being Catfished. Your friend should email Neve from the show Catfish. Kind of blew me away after watching that show just how many catfishes are out there. Most are just sad, lonely people who got tired of being rejected IRL so created fake profiles in order to find some acceptance. I also went out on a date with a guy a couple years again who was head injured and got cheated out of $10,000 by a woman he met online and not IRL. That was pretty sad.
Sadly these types of stories are EVERYWHERE. They are not like say serial killers or some dumb thing where you’d at least hope they are far and few between. Far too many people grow lonely and then seemingly create an R in their mind with the scammer. Of course money quickly starts to flow from the scammed to the scammer who they convince themselves they are in love with even though they have never met. Family and friends are helpless to stop it as the person in love just will not listen too reason. Hmmmmm sorta sounds like some stories we’ve all followed here - just not with catfish. It’s amazing that it happens at all but then even more amazing is it’s happening thousands of times right now across the world. Sad stuff.
DonH Midwest Me 56 WAW-EXW 55 Met 11/95 / Married 5/00 Bomb 6/20/05 / She Filed on 6/2/06 / Divorced on 10/9/06 4 who'd qualify as GF since D & dated about 25 women since D
