RSVP, Finding Someone Online and Getting Off ASAP
I have a confession, I’ve never gone into an online chat room or tried to meet someone through an Internet forum. I’m an Online virgin for want of a better term !It would be fair to label me an Online luddite. My internet usage being by and large limited to sending emails to people I know, reading articles, paying bills and banking. In industry jargon they‘d lump me into the low user category. My Tech savvy friends regularly remind me that I’m only skimming the surface of the offerings out there on the Wide World Web. And one of those ‘offerings’ is the opportunity of meeting women.
I’ve recently been receiving an email informing me that there are ‘12 Women You Just Have to Meet.’
They must be able to sniff out blokes going through dry patches . Anyhow I get this pop up appear on my computer screen with the photos of a dozen 40 something women scattered across the United States. I gather too many blokes have been burned by Romanians and Ukrainians. They’re flogging native English speakers to avoid the mine field which cultural-linguistic differences invariably present…. Then there are those ubiquitous pop ups offering introductions to women in my neighbourhood like Yahoo’s Match.com.Call me unadventurous but the prospect of meeting someone in a local café and sitting through a session of Every Man Who Has Done Me Wrong fills me with dread.
I haven’t been tempted by Match .com’s seductive snap shots of local ladies nor those of the dozen frumpy yanks for that matter.
The founders of OK Cupid , pioneers of online matching sites in the US came up with a novel labelling system to match up-introduce men and women who shared core values and would be best suited to each other. In their categorization method, certain men fell into what they called the ‘Hornivore’ category- roaming sexual sub humans.
They were invariably matched up with the female ‘Genghis Khunts’- masters of men, bringers of pain.Well I’ve been on the receiving end of some painful stories associated with online meetings. However whenever I hear of romance having blossomed from an initial Internet contact, the romantic in me feels a genuine happiness for the newly besotted.
But unfortunately I’m more often stunned by the modus operandi of some of the charlatans who trawl and scour these sites.
Match .com commissioned a study which revealed that online is the third most common way for people to meet. And they’re claiming that one in five new relationships start from an online contact. I’ve met with several people who use these forums to hook up and I’ve heard some fascinating stories. From the little white lies associated with bolstering profiles with old photos to fabricating absolute blatant bullshit.
An ex partner, who was at the vanguard of the chat room phenomena was delighted with an online friendship she had developed with a fireman from California. Apparently things were going along really ‘swell’ until our fireman attained the appropriate level of confidence with her to then suggest some reciprocal virtual self exploration of an intimate nature [ cyber wanking ]. She soon gave chat rooms the flick and took up online Share Market Day Trading instead ! A few years passed before my next chance chat room involvement. A former girl friend was another user [ chat room ]. While we enjoyed each other’s company I wasn’t willing to commit to the sort of relationship she had in mind or wanted ,so after several months of dating she dumped me to once again try her luck on line. About six months later I received an unexpected phone call from her, alongside with an invitation to dinner.
Over a couple of glasses of wine she recounted several of her internet dating sagas, and there were some ‘doozies’ in amongst the blokes she had agreed to meet. One bloke who claimed to be a pilot broke into her house while she was at work. Then stole some of her redeemable personable belongings, a couple of hundred dollars of cash and a stash of her recreational drugs.
My ex girlfriend’s experiences are fairly benign when compared to a young woman I met in Italy a few years ago. Sara, a 30 year old primary school teacher entertained a dinner party with one of her romances gone horribly wrong. Sara had met her Merchant Banker boyfriend in a chat room. Not long into their whirlwind romance she was sufficiently besotted to give up her flat to move into a hotel suite with him. Not long after being ensconced in this Four Star bed in, the boyfriend had to travel overseas for work commitments with the Swiss bank he worked for.
During his month long absence he placated her growing concerns by assuring her that he was negotiating to lease an apartment, in one of Rome’s more salubrious suburbs. And regularly reassured her that they would soon be moving in once the red tape-legal matters were attended to. While his month long absence was somewhat disconcerting for Sara she was reassured by the way he punctually payed the hotel bill with his credit cards.
It eventually took a visit from the Italian equivalent of the Fraud Squad and the hotel’s refusal to accept any further credit card payment to begin to unravel some of Sara’s by then increasing suspicions.
The police informed her that her boyfriend wasn’t a representative of a Swiss Bank as she was led to believe but a petty criminal with links to a criminal syndicate from Naples. Their clandestine operations included ATM and Credit Card scams and fraud. The police not only cleared up the mystery surrounding her boyfriend’s absence but also informed her that the hotel now expected her to fix up the bill for her month long stay .
A 40 something male acquaintance has had his recent virtual infatuation discovered by his wife. It took a missing $50,000 from their joint savings account to eventually unravel her husband’s virtual romance. In summary, he had become besotted with a woman whom he had met in a chat room. She lived in France, they had never actually met but had in all probability explored the sensual delights permitted by computer monitors and a healthy dose of imagination. In summary she wanted to start a business- was short of funds and he provided an online no doc loan.
His wife‘s no nonsense summation of this betrayal was, “ I’m still undecided as to whether I should hate him for giving away our money or just pity his pathetic state.”
I can’t see myself going online to meet someone anytime soon. I’m having far too much fun being entertained by the tales of those who do.
Fabrizio Marsani
fmarsanI@yahoo.com.au
