We often treat online dating with distrust. And for good reason: there is always the possibility that the one with whom we communicate is impersonating another. Our heroine knows about such “swindlers” firsthand – and even wrote a book about them.
In 2017, after her second divorce, Samantha Thorne decided to use the services of a dating site: twice a week she went on dates with strangers from the Internet. The 42-year-old Englishwoman was serious. She wanted to find someone with whom she could build a family: “When I first started using the site, I believed that all its users are who they say they are. But the more I interacted with people, the more I realized that this is not always the case.”
In fact, Samantha has encountered “catfishing”: this word describes situations when Internet users pretend to be someone else in order to attract attention to themselves. And their profiles are partially or completely false information.
The first “catastrophe”, in the words of Samantha herself, was an acquaintance with a secret swinger. At first, they had a good date at a local pub, where the man seemed to Samantha “normal, kind and interesting”, so she was excitedly waiting for the next meeting. And suddenly she received an offer to take her … to a swingers club: “When he said that there was a place where he wanted to take me, I thought it was a good restaurant. But he wanted to “connect other people” to our communication…” There was no limit to the disappointment of the woman, because in the profile of her counterpart there was not even a hint of his special interests.
A few months later, Samantha experienced another disappointment. For more than a week, she talked with a man who, according to him, “received a lot of money working as a model.” Daily communication dragged Thorn, it seemed to her very sincere – until it turned out that the story of the interlocutor was a lie inside and out. The scam was discovered by Samantha’s friend, who checked the “model’s” photos and found them in an American modeling portfolio. The victim of deception did not wait for any explanation – the man simply blocked her.
Seems like it’s worse? But the first place in Samantha’s personal antitope was taken by a date with a man who was photographed using “smart” angles and good lighting, and looked on the Internet much slimmer and younger than his real self. True, a completely different thing spoiled the meeting with him in the bar: when she saw the boyfriend from the back, Thorne realized that she had already gone on a date with him 7 years ago. The man did not remember this and accused her of lying. As a result – no hint of attraction or chemistry. However, like many years ago.
The matter was not limited to these three cases: Samantha described 22 more in her book A Year in the Life of Online Dating. Surprisingly, the negative experience did not deter her from finding a loved one, and in March 2020 she met “the one.” It turned out to be a railroad engineer, David. During isolation, they met and walked, maintaining social distance. And in September they came together: “It was a strange time in my life – sometimes fun, but for such an experience you definitely need to have“ thick skin. Now my story has a happy ending: I have a man, and I will not use dating sites anymore!