Online Romance Scams: Aussies And Americans Are The Targets

Last year were reported that Australians lost over 28.6 million dollars and Americans 201 million dollars in online romance scams.

My first question is: What a hell are we doing with people, relationships, and love?

As you all know, I had a long distant relationship for two years, and no, it’s not easy. Not because you don’t have real feelings and love for the other person, but because to visit your partner and spend with him or her quality time, it involves your ability to save money and also the disposition to move forward with the relationship. I can give the example that when he was in Portugal with me, I just allowed him to pay sometimes the lunch, nothing more. And the same happened when I was in Australia. He paid our stay in one beautiful apartment near the beach, and I cooked for us and bought the ingredients for it.

Although our relationship ended the way it did in the second time I was in Australia, it would never cross my mind to ask him money for anything or play games with his feelings. For example, on his birthday last September, and from Portugal, I exchanged emails and messages with one Australian pastry chef to make him a birthday cake. The cake was ready on his birthday, and he went to the cake shop to get it.

For me, this is love in action!

So yes, you can definitely have long-distance relationships, which the end goal is to build a life together. It is part of our human nature the need to connect with other individuals and praise them with our consistency and love. So, sadly, I don’t understand all this nightmare around dating and love.

How can someone use another human being to steal money “in the name of love”? How can someone use the vulnerabilities of another human being to exploit and destroy self-esteem?

I can understand that this modern society detached sex from love and removed old protocols in the dating reality. But that would be amazing if, in return, we would replace the old with a new and fresh vision of what and how should be a relationship between two individuals.

I would be thrilled if men and women would start to pay attention to life and prospective red flags in dating.

A recent study conducted by Harvard enlightened that men and women should stay away from prospective partners who have a public Instagram profile where they self promote who they are with selective and edited pictures. Bikini pictures, half-naked pictures, trip pictures, selfie-pictures with edition. Why? Those individuals are prone to accept friendships from other people and engage with them in sexy flirtation conversations while in one relationship. Also, the new trend, women use Instagram on dating apps to build their followings.

The way women and men use their profile on Instagram is a red flag that shouldn’t be ignored when you are looking for a long-term intimate partner.

For example, in Russia, girls take classes to seduce foreigners. Rina Piantanida, who married a Greek, has a series of youtube on how to “win” a foreigner man. And no, I’m not saying it is a scam, but we should stop a reflect about this.

You can see the full article here: https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/331087-seduce-foreigner-training-in-russia

Online dating, as I wrote in previous articles, should be one of the ways to meet new people, not the only one. The online dating pool is the favorite place to emotionally unavailable individuals, narcissists, sociopaths, and scammers navigate. The percentage of people that navigates in those platforms and really want a real relationship and are emotionally healthy is small.

Remember that those platforms were created to addict you to the process of online shopping for mates and that using electronic communication to perform the courting process is just having one relationship with the most insecure parts of ourselves.

The idealization of the partner à la carte removes you from the possibility to create a meaningful and real connection, not because you don’t have enough options, but because the illusion you have inside your head is too grander.

So my best advice to you is: Learn how to survive and thrive in an age of bullshit, but most importantly, don’t dump good and real men or women just because you think you can do better. The paradox of choice is here to confuse you and tear you apart from real love.

Have a lovely week,

Alexandra

Sources: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/14/us/online-romance-scams-losses-trnd/index.html

https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/tech/2020/02/09/romance-scams-australia-2019/