fairy tale on my phone

 

I watched the tinder-guy film on Netflix (watched = had it playing while I did stuff).

Then I couldn't remember the title of it -- "The Tinder Scoundrel"?  No, that wasn't right.

The Tinder Swindler.

These young ladies  who found relationships with the guy spoke about it and described how he would talk to them and say things that women like to hear.  "He listened to me," one said.

(On a You Tube video by a psychiatrist talking about narcissistic abuse, the doctor said, "When a narcissist is listening to you talk, he is gathering information that he can use against you later, to manipulate you."

        She also said, "When someone compliments me, I become suspicious immediately because that's how the narcissist's grooming starts.")

On the Netflix Swindler movie, it showed a lot of the communication between the Romantic Man and his "marks" took place through texting on phones.  One girl said she was becoming nervous and suspicious after she had given him money, but he was still sending her nice messages.  She said, "I still had this fairy tale on my phone."

        About 1 percent of my mind and emotions was screaming, "Ladies!  How can you be taken in by this?!  How can you listen to his crapola??!!"

        But 99% I was -- feeling sorry for them.  It's sad.  Outrageous, and sad at the same time.

This can happen to men, too.  And the thing is, there are two people in the relationship, and they have mind-sets very different from one another.  One is open, hopeful, looking for love.  And the other person has a whole different plan.  They have a "big picture," a "long game."

It's like you're playing ping-pong, and the other person is playing football.

"OK,  my serve."

WWWHHHHOOOOOMMMMMPPPHHHH -- THUD!

(waking up on sidelines)

"Wha -- wha -- what happened?"

An article in The Guardian says that since the Swindler documentary, a study emerged that found Americans lost more than a billion dollars in 2021 alone, to "romance scams."

One Commenter said, "If you are vulnerable you will ignore the red flags."

Another wrote, "It'll never happen to you until it does!"

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