The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc

[SparklesTheClown]

@L-B-Heuschkel When I was 13 I got catfished by a 10 year old pretending to be 12.

I broke things off and she started sending very long messages about how much she loves and misses me and all of this stuff >__<.

These were the AOL days. I still know her and am not allowed to ever bring it up to her lol.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@HelloProject said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:
These were the AOL days. I still know her and am not allowed to ever bring it up to her lol.

At least she's acknowledging that she was a prat and some things better stay buried?

I found out later that the same player went on to have a relationship IC with another player and when that ended, shamed him as a pedophile. Then again, she also claimed to be terminally ill and that her boyfriend in real life broke into hospital to beat her up twice, and that she regularly missed school because of near-death experiences. There's a certain breed of teenager on the internet you just need to stay the hell away from.

[Coin]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

I found out later that the same player went on to have a relationship IC with another player and when that ended, shamed him as a pedophile. Then again, she also claimed to be terminally ill and that her boyfriend in real life broke into hospital to beat her up twice, and that she regularly missed school because of near-death experiences. There's a certain breed of teenager on the internet you just need to stay the hell away from.

Have had encounters of this kind, will attest it is the worst. Not so much the "damn, you're HOW old?" but yes the hilariously obvious (in hindsight and with years and years of experience that I did not have at the time) lying and woe is me, etc., etc.

[Tinuviel]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

There's a certain breed of teenager on the internet you just need to stay the hell away from.

[mietze]

The woman who stole pictures of my twins sonograms and baby pictures (I'd created a website/blog for family m) so that she could pose as a mother of twins on a message board and create a dramatic story of one dying (there were some medical pics on my site because my boys had ttts and one almost died from a hospital acquired infection)....later got caught posing and soliciting private interactions as a 14 year old cancer survivor, including trying engage people in romantic communication.

She was in her 30s, married, ect.

There are a ton of people who get off on doing that sort of thing of all ages. Might be harder to do now with the advent of Skype and real time video chat but. I'm sure it still happens.

[Auspice]

@mietze

Ugh. That's gross. Like, the kid part is gross.

Many years ago, on a game, we found out someone was doing something similar (not the medical part; but using photos of other peoples' kids).

It got discovered because a bunch of us from the game were hanging out (a few of us lived local-ish in SC: 3 people were roommates, I lived an hour away... a couple people had flown in to visit, so I drove down) and two guys mentioned that this girl had sent them photos of herself, flirting with them. One of them was married, had told her this, and she persisted. So, y'know, all of us young (early 20s) and drinking are like 'omg show us' and he had a link still (logged everything). Well, so did the other guy.

As soon as we see them: 'That's not the same person!'
I showed them how to reverse image search: they were photos off of modeling agency sites.

Which, OK. Whatever. We had a good laugh over it, it seemed harmless. She needed to stop trying to mack on the married dude, but OK. Fine.

...but then she began, on channels, a few weeks later, telling everyone about her kids. And sharing photos of them. And knowing about the whole fake-model-photos thing.... I reverse-image-searched those. The two photos were both of three kids, all blonde, but if you looked really close they.... looked similar but not really the same three kids.

And both went to completely different profiles on message boards.

That's when what she was doing went from 'kinda weird, but mostly harmless' into pretty skeevy.

Don't use pics of other peoples' kids, folks.

[Ganymede]

@mietze said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

The woman who stole pictures of my twins sonograms and baby pictures (I'd created a website/blog for family m) so that she could pose as a mother of twins on a message board and create a dramatic story of one dying (there were some medical pics on my site because my boys had ttts and one almost died from a hospital acquired infection)....later got caught posing and soliciting private interactions as a 14 year old cancer survivor, including trying engage people in romantic communication.

There's a special place in Hell for this kind of person.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@mietze There are, and it really is about getting off on it. There was this woman on a MU I played... Some of us finally started to grok what was going on when we started talking about her, instead of to her (she was expert at keeping relations so that her friends never talked to -each other-).

In the span of a few years she was raped, pregnant, miscarried, pregnant again, miscarried again, abducted, found a dead body, seduced in a romance story worthy of Hollywood, dumped in a ditto, made homeless, opened a shelter for street dogs while homeless, attempted killed by her sister ... the list went on.

Hundreds of people on social media appeared to support her through one disaster after another. Once we started poking... They were all stock photos. Every single one.

[Tinuviel]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

In the span of a few years she was raped, pregnant, miscarried, pregnant again, miscarried again, abducted, found a dead body, seduced in a romance story worthy of Hollywood, dumped in a ditto, made homeless, opened a shelter for street dogs while homeless, attempted killed by her sister ... the list went on.

Maybe she was a character from a soap opera (or a MU) that came to life?

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@Tinuviel Considering she went on to scam people into paying for her groceries (homeless and destitute!) and her new laptop (the old one BURNED!), I'm inclined to say she was just pretty damn smart.

[Tinuviel]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

@Tinuviel Considering she went on to scam people into paying for her groceries (homeless and destitute!) and her new laptop (the old one BURNED!), I'm inclined to say she was just pretty damn smart.

She didn't happen to get them to buy her any kind of furniture for medical reasons, did she? Just asking... for a friend.

[Auspice]

@L-B-Heuschkel

Wonder if it was the same lady I mentioned above.

She supposedly had inherited a ranch in AZ and had rescued over 40 dogs!

....but had no job and thus needed money/donations to support her and her kids and all the dogs.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

Doesn't sound like her, but I suspect there's a substantial number of them out there. People who start out as drama queens and descend into complete catfishes, particularly at the time they begin to realise there's money to be had.

[Ghost]

@Auspice said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

@L-B-Heuschkel

Wonder if it was the same lady I mentioned above.

She supposedly had inherited a ranch in AZ and had rescued over 40 dogs!

....but had no job and thus needed money/donations to support her and her kids and all the dogs.

Reminds me of a guy here in town who told us he lost his job and got a serious medical diagnosis. We put together a drive with our friends to help cover some of his bills. Probably 600 or so was donated.

He used it to get a tattoo. Not sick. Still has a job.

People are dicks.

[Ghost]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

Doesn't sound like her, but I suspect there's a substantial number of them out there. People who start out as drama queens and descend into complete catfishes, particularly at the time they begin to realise there's money to be had.

I wonder if it's the same girl I knew. She mentioned being pregnant, dumped, needed to MU from library, dumped again, etc. Was willing to send nudes.

My catfish spotting skills are better than Manti T'eos

[silentsophia]

Honestly, I think it's a little crappy to pull the ol 'TS friend in every time zone', and I cringe when I see it. And how do people beg so shamelessly? I feel horrible asking for help when my cat's butt exploded and I landed myself in the ER twice. Yes, I lost my job, but I started up a patreon, do mturks and cheesy data entry tasks.

[JinShei]

@Ghost nah she was never willing to send nudes because the only photos she had were from the internet. She was mudder, not musher...

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@JinShei She sent me piles of artsy fartsy pictures of women in silhouettes dancing around with large swathes of fabric or posing in yoga and ballerina positions, always with the head cut off -- very artistic, apparently, only photograph half a body.

I mean, I'm not bitter or anything. This person only cost me most of my online friends and several very good offline friends as well.

[Arkandel]

Uhm, did I miss something here? The last few posts lost me.

[JinShei]

@Arkandel Go back to Ghost wondering if LB's person was his person. Then me saying nah behaviour doesn't fit.