The Perils of Online Dating
Joe
Bonadonna
Glenn
Close, from “Fatal Attraction”
Today I’m going to depart from my usual blogs about movies,
books, writing and publishing, and write about something a little more
personal.
First, I’m 67 and single, and at my age it’s hard to meet single
women with whom I share common interests, goals and lifestyles. I don’t attend
church socials, singles’ groups or singles’ dances. Frankly, I don’t care for
the music that’s played at such events. While I grew up on the rock and roll
and pop music (Top 40) of the 1950s and early 1960s, I prefer the music that
came in 1964, ushered in by The Beatles. I still listen to them, The Rolling
Stones, Hendrix, Pink Floyd, for example, and the music that followed over the
course of the next 5 decades. I try to keep up with what’s happening in music
today, partly because of my being an ex-guitarist in rock and roll bands. I
like and have seen such bands as Florence and The Machine, Muse, Mumford and
Sons, and The Lumineers, to name four, and I’m usually the oldest person in the
room (or concert hall) when I go see such bands and even hard-rocking local
bands. I’m not really into heavy metal, but I still crank up the AC/DC, Uriah
Heep, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and other really kick-arse bands.
All that being said, after a devastating break that not only
shredded my heart but ended an over 5-year friendship — or what I thought was a
friendship until I learned I had been played for a fool for the past year. This
experience wounded me so deeply that I fell into a deep depression filled with
anxiety; I started smoking again after having quit two weeks earlier, and I had
to ask my doctor to prescribe something to get me past all this. So I’ve been
on Xanax and will remain on it until the end of February. After that, if I
still need something, he’ll prescribe something that is not addictive.
Well, last November I joined the 5 most popular and largest online dating websites; a couple of them even advertise on television. I won’t mention their names, just
to be safe from any legal issues. After 3 weeks, because I didn’t get one
single nibble, I left one site before the month was over, so I could get my
money refunded. But I stuck with the other four and have had some interesting,
embarrassing, disappointing, depressing, stressful and disillusioning experiences. I’m
going to tell you about a few of them — each woman claiming to be a widow whose
husbands (and son, in one case) had all died tragically. But first, let me tell you that every drop-dead gorgeous woman who has contacted me first turned out to be scam artists: women with Hollywood or porn film star looks and bodies never give me a second look in real life. So.....
Now the area codes of the cell phone numbers these women gave me all
checked out, but the problem with cell phones is that the area code is not
fixed, like a landline. I have friends who live here in Chicago who have
cell phones with area codes ranging from Arizona to California; they had
purchased their phones either while living or vacationing in those states. The other
problem with cell phones: burner phones, used by scam artists all over the
world.
So I set up five new email addresses, to use just for dating correspondence. Most of my "likes" and "views" and "flirts" have been from women living in other states. Many are too young for me or too old. I'm sure both men as well as women are posting old photos of themselves and lying about their age. Here are a few tips I was given by veterans of the Online Dating Scene:
Beware those who will not chat on the website and instead ask for your email address right away.
Beware those who live in states (or countries) other than your own. Stick with prospects who live in areas you're familiar with so you can question them about their neighborhood, their town, their suburb.
Beware those who will not exchange cell or landline numbers with you, who won't actually talk to you on the phone.
Beware those who come on strong, hot and heavy, and then talk about how they prayed to God that they'd meet someone like you!
Beware those whose dating profiles mysteriously vanish as soon as they make first contact with you.
Tips online dating sites advise to avoid scammers who:
Ask you to talk or chat using an outside messaging service or email account.
Vanish mysteriously from the site, often after being caught and removed.
Talk about "destiny" or "fate" when meeting you.
Claim to be recently widowed.
Ask for your address or contact info under the guise of sending flowers or gifts.
Make a lot of grammatical and spelling errors.
Say they live in the U.S. but are currently traveling abroad.
Always eventually ask you for money.
As I said, most of my Likes and Flirts come from women who do not live in my state, from gals 30 years younger to 20 years older. Apparently, the websites' computers think these people are good matches for me while totally ignoring my preferences and parameters. I don't think people even read the profiles. It's like they're just clicking on every photo that catches their eye.
Now, on with some misadventures in this brave new world.....
The first woman I made contact with was, supposedly, from an
area just south of where I live in Chicago. She had some lovely photos of
herself and we corresponded via the dating site for about 2
weeks. She then told me that she was in Mexico on business and would be back in
town by Thanksgiving. She even gave me her cell phone number, and the area code
checked out, although as already stated, that means nothing. Well, one day she
told me that she and a bus load of tourists had been stopped, held at gun point
by members of a drug cartel, and robbed of cash, jewelry and credit cards. She
had no one to loan her money and no way to get home. My thoughts were: if she
had indeed been robbed by a drug cartel they would have killed her,
too. (As my Dad always said: work alone and leave no witnesses.) So she asked me if I could send her
a few hundred dollars to help her out, and she would repay me upon her return.
When I casually asked how she wanted the money, she told me to send her a Gift
Card for 300 dollars: scan the front and back and send the images via email. Ding! Dong! The alarm bell sounded. You never send money to anyone, and the Gift
Card is an old scam because you pay for it and therefore, it’s just what it is
— a gift. Can't prove intent to fraud. Well, bye-bye, I told her, and that was the end of it. I then went
back to the website to check out her profile, and it wasn't there: either she had
deleted it or it was reported by someone and the site removed her. But about a
week later, she contacted me and asked me if I was still interested in her. She
was still in Mexico, of course, and once again asked me for money. Ha!
Woman #2 contacted me, claiming to be from a nearby suburb,
and of course her cell number area code checked out. So we corresponded for
about a week and she told me she was from Toronto, originally, and also said
she was the CEO of an exterior design corporation. When I checked out the
business website, there was her photo, listed as CEO. She even sent me a short “video”
telling me she was in Istanbul on business and would be home December 20, but
her accent sounded very middle-eastern and was quite hard to understand. Well,
we corresponded for a few more days and then she said that her company had run
into some tax problems and she couldn’t leave Turkey until the tax situation
was settled. She asked if I could help her out in any way, that she needed $6,
500 dollars. This time she sent another video, explaining the situation; she was sitting in a room surrounded by stacks and stacks of money. I
figured only drug dealers or some other sort of “villains” would have that much
cash lying around. Bye, bye, I told her. A few days later she had the nerve to
contact me again, begging for help. When I went back to the dating site, her
profile was gone. Deleted or removed? Your guess is as good as mine. Also, the
corporation’s website is now different: her photo is not there, although there
is a photo of a different woman by the same name now listed as CEO.
Pretty interesting, right? There must be some school for scoundrels
and scam artists I don’t know about. I've talked with a few women who have been on or are still on dating sites, and they told me of similar encounters and experiences with men. So these scammers and all the other BS involved happens to both sexes.
Photo
courtesy of Google Images
But wait, there’s more!
Since these two experiences, there have been others.
One woman from the south side of Chicago claimed to be living
in California but had a house here; she even gave me the address. She also
claimed to be a widow who runs her Dad’s construction business. After a number
of dating site conversations, she told me she needed $244.00 dollars to fly
here to meet me. I asked her if she had a credit card and she said yes. I told
her to charge the airfare and once we met I’d give her the cash. Never heard back
from her again. One other claimed to be in Florida and would like to come up
here to meet me but could not afford it. Guess what? You got it — she asked me
for money! Needless to say, both their profiles are no longer on the dating
website.
Are these actually different women? Or just one woman using
fake profiles? Your guess is as good as mine.
I have also talked with three women: one sounded like a witch
and was of a nasty temperament. Another had a Polish accent so thick she couldn’t
converse well in English and had nothing to say! One other had a Russian accent
that was also almost unintelligible, and she wasn’t interested in any of the
things that interest me. None of these women answered any of my questions regarding famous places and landmarks where they lived.
I’ve actually met with 2 women. One claimed to be 60, then
confessed that she was actually 65, but looked like an 80-year old bag lady. She
was nastily opinionated, had no sense of humor, and didn’t even offer to pay
for half the pizza or even leave the tip - then had the nerve to ask me to drive her home . . . 1/2 block away! She popped up on another dating site, under a different username and using a profile pic that must have been taken when she was in her 20s!
The other lives 10 minutes down the street from me: a
divorcee with a 25 year-old daughter and a cat. After many conversations on the
dating site and then a few phone calls, we finally met on January 6, had a nice
time and, as of this writing, will probably get together again, although I don’t
think she’s for me.
I was also conversing with a woman who lives not far from where I grew up, in the Logan Park District, near Humboldt Park. She knows the city and suburbs near me, having answered all my questions - and we even hung out at the same beach back in the 1960s and 1970s: Foster Avenue Beach. However, after a few on-site chats she ghosted me; must have decided we weren't a match. She is still on the site, so I feel good about the fact that she wasn't another scammer.
Since January 5 I have been conversing with a fashion designer who claimed to live in a suburb just west of me. Her photos were stunning and although she
claims to be 61, she actually looks at least 10 years younger, if not more. She’s
from Poland, also a widow, and we actually have a lot in common. She told me she will be leaving for Poland on business and
will return in 2 weeks. Being as suspicious as a Chicago cop questioning a suspect, I reported her to the website. A short while later her profile disappeared: did they take her down or did she remove it? I'll never know.
However, later that day I asked her why I can no longer see her profile on the dating site. She replied, "Because God answered my prayers and sent you to me." Yeah, right.
Then, just as I expected, on January 11 I heard from her. She gave me a huge song and dance about her business and all sorts of problems: her credit card had expired and she has no other way of paying the Team that packed and shipped her cloth and other material. She asked for $1800.00. I "laughed" at her and told her I was going to pull the same scam on her. She actually had the nerve to message me that it's not funny, it's not a scam, and that she's very disappointed. "Hey, lady - don't try to guilt me out," I told her. "You didn't know my Mom, who was Queen of Guilt Trips. Besides, I'm Sicilian: I have no conscience and I am well connected, if you know what I mean." Never heard back from her after that.
To date I have had eight women try to pull this exact same scam on me. I know these dating sites can't and don't do criminal background checks. But they should. At least they can charge people extra if they want a criminal check done on one or more people.
So beware and be careful out there. Online dating can be
stressful, depressing and anxiety inducing. I don’t like this “new tech age” we’re
living in and in many ways I’m glad I’m on my way out. I prefer the good old
days of meeting women. Whether or not there will be a follow-up to this blog remains to be seen: depends on what kind of experiences I have and if they're worth writing about.
Maybe it's me and not them. Maybe I'm not exciting enough, handsome enough, active enough or rich enough. Maybe the word SUCKER is stamped on my forehead and everyone but me can see it. Well, whatever. Oh, I'm still on the dating sites, but if you want me, I’ll be at the corner bar where I know the only reason women are conversing with me is because they're drunk. Or maybe I'll just head to Las Vegas because you know, what happens in Vegas.....
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