Romance...What Romance?

Oh yeah, peeps. There is bromance, girl crushes, guy crushes, obsessions, stalkers, trolls. Did I miss any category?

With the rise in popularity of online chat rooms. AOL, Yahoo, Google Hangouts. Then the dating agencies morphed into dating sites. Dating sites quickly became over run with married people turning them into "trolling for sex" sites. Many singles trolled for sex, too. Any sex they could get. Cyber, phone, irl. Anything.

By now, it's common knowledge that many of the profiles were either bots, fakes put there by the site itself or the loathesome romance scammers. Many of the profiles are just good ol' packs of lies.

1. Married people claiming to be single or the infamous "separated".(Separated as in she's at home with the kids, he lied about going out for a 1 - 2 hour trip for milk, cereal or a quickie. Still, married)

2. Lies about habits that will nix interest in their profile. 

(i.e. smoking, drinking, age, height, weight, location, job, interests)

3. Intention as in what the person is actually looking for. 

4. Photo shopped, altered, or 25 year old photos. This was sometimes done by noobs, possibly thinking it wouldn't matter very much.

(I admit, I was naive enough to believe it wouldn't matter. It does!)

5. The "Fake a Future" jerks. These snakes would write in depth of all the fun things they could do with you. Party, travel, support each others dreams, spend holidays with each others families.

Then? As surely as they passed into someones life. *POOF* GONE!

6. The ones who would message & chat for weeks, even months, without so much as a phone conversation or meeting in person. Most likely it was because they were married or in a committed relationship or lying about something that would be obvious irl.

As if all of the above was all that there was to weed through on the sites where lonely people were hoping to find a sincere match.

Enter: Romance Scammers

Usually more skilled than other fakers. Many, work together in teams, so they can be cnstantly available to their victims. Most often, when a victim thinks they are in contact with one person, it's actually 3 people, can be as many as 10 - 12 if the victim seems willing to surrender copious amunts of cash & assets.

Many people fell for these evil practitioners of flowery lies.

Who would fall for this load of dookie? Contrary to what many people have written that they believe ~ all sorts of people.

Younger

Older

Single

Married

Educated

Uneducated

Unattractive people who are lonely

Attractive people who are lonely

There is no certain type of person who falls for this garbage.

The media pays the most attention to the successful scams involving a small, laser focused pawn in a scam. The stereotype is an older woman who is widowed or divorced, obese, unattractive, lonely. The stereotype is just that. There are more types of people who are scammed, this demographic is simply the one the media hypes up.

Occasionally, I was contacted by a scammer. It was kinda fun to toy with them, to encourage them. 

One time, I agreed to send $500. I would use a new & popular type of money that was only printed in my state. Once I had sent it, they could print it from their computer. A very valuable type of money that all gamers love!

Then, when it became so easy that it got stale, I called them out, had a good laugh. It was fun to hear the various reactions. When a player realizes they had just been played, that's when it's fun for the would be victim, less fun or lucretive for the scammer.

Scammers are happy to fleece anyone who will believe the lies they tell, feeling sympathy for the made up stories that scammers use. The sad stories are often from a script that has proved to be successful over & over.

The media has paid more attention to stereo typing the victims as somewhat elderly, overweight, unattractive, widowed or widowers, with a comfortable income.

The truth?

If you believe the stereo type, I have ocean front acreage in Arizona!

(I know I just repeated, I did it with purpose.)

People of all different varieties have been scammed out of millions of dollars every year, worldwide. There is as much diversity in locations as there are in the victims, themselves.

Some scammers are even ballsey enough put on an act worthy of an Academy Award, scamming the victim in real life. I have nearly become the victim of this variety of scammer. Real life.

I say nearly because, I caught them early on, called them out.

Oh, the sheister lied at such a level, it seemed as if they might have believed their own lies. 

I saw through it, called them out, buh bye.

This also went for married guys, swearing they were 100% single.

Letting them know at the start that if they were, in fact, married or in a committed relationship, I would bust them. If not, no worries.

Keep yourself true to your marriage vows or relationship, or end it.

I was drawn into one of these webs of lies, I was nearly killed by the other half along with her girlfriends. I had no idea. The cheater had been doing it for so long, with so much skill at deception. She had the wrong person. The one who should have gotten a beating was the cheating, lying, husband.

Is romance completely dead?

Far too often the idea of romance is confused with sexual acts. There is a huge difference. A child can be conceived by only one of these. If you google the word, "Romance", hundreds of photos depicting sexual acts, poses, memes will appear. 

Even google has it wrong.

If romance between men & women is dead? Dating sites, chat rooms online, even texting along with snap chat played a big part as an accessory to its demise. Sure, cheaters are going to cheat. Using technology has made it easier to do, easier to hide or for the sloppy ones, to reveal.

Again, is romance completely dead?

Possibly it's still very much alive. 

Myself, I create a romantic vibe in my beautiful needlework. In the evening, the glow of candle light along with soft music lends a softness at the close of a day. Writing melodious poetry that is about more of a feeling than it's about another person.

That's my favorite style of poetry. To write about how I'm feeling vs about a person. 

Although the words may allude to a person, it's 99.9 % referencing a fictitious idea flowing from my heart into words.

I can still live with a romantic vibe, a feeling of soft well wishing emanating from the soul of a poet, the heart of a child.