Seduced by a virtual FaceBook Hottie

Cover of The Girlfriend Experience [Blu-ray]

This actually ‘almost” happened. But first, let’s talk about this headline. They say in copywriting that headlines are very important. I’m hoping this headline will make you curious.

Sometimes pretty women do approach me to become FaceBook friends. And I – being single – like to accommodate these requests. FaceBook – in its infinite wisdom – now asks if you know someone outside of FaceBook. If I don’t, I say no.

A few days ago, I accepted one of these requests. Let’s call this female Marilyn Taylor (i.e. from Marilyn Monroe and Liz Taylor), which is a fictional name. After I accepted this request, I got this reply (i.e. I blanked the number out):

“…going to be in Carol Stream and getting drinks at Rosie O Reilly’s this Friday. Text me at my new ph number XXX XXX XXX -just text me if you’re looking for something to do and wanna trade some pics xoxo P.S. I’m sorry for the very random chat.”

There are some problems I see here:

The pub mentioned is Irish. While it serves food and drink, it isn’t in Carol Stream, Illinois USA. It’s in Wheaton – the home of Billy Graham – a city adjacent to Carol Stream.
This person has one FaceBook photo in a bikini.
They don’t have any About tab info, nor do they have any location info. No education info, etc. Nada.

I remember something recently on ABC news. But I forgot the name. So I asked the local public library reference librarian for help. The sports figure is Manti Te’o. Here’s a typical story talking about this incident:

Friday Cat Blogging, Hurry! (Photo credit: cobalt123)

The Fake Girlfriend Experience

So I responded way on FaceBook:

“Not sure about Friday. Will let you know. Thanks for the invite.”

I got this response back:

“I know your probably having a really busy Saturday. I am totally not lol. I’m on video chat for a few minutes if you wanna join. Shoot me a text if your available for a few so I can send you to my page. oh yeah text me your username once your on. Well, getting off here text me talk soon.”

Later, I got this message (i.e. again I edited the text and blotted out the phone number):

“Sorry to bug you again. It’s just I just moved here last month and don’t really know anyone yet. I’m back on video chat again for a few min if you can join so you can see me. Maybe we can hookup this weekend sometime. Any who ,shoot me a text XXX XXX XXXX if you’re not”

I decided to send a brief text message from my Google Voice account. I got a web page back to visit. But I had to test it first. It did pass the first tests from Virus Total . But when I went to the web page, my Web of Trust browser plug-ins said the site was untrustworthy (see Web of trust).

So I wrote back this on FaceBook:

The site you mentioned for video (i.e. text message reply) gets a bad reputation from Web of Trust . If you really want to video chat, why not use Skype . Are you open to this?”

In fact, please look at the article Fed Up With Skype? Here Are 6 Of The Best Free Alternatives at . It says this about ooVoo:

Video calls are extremely simple to set up and conferences can hold up to 12 participants. ooVoo is available for Windows, Mac, Android, iPhone, and Facebook.

I have set the application up on FaceBook. I can video chat with other FaceBook friends, as long as they have a computer web cam available. No need to go outside of FaceBook.

I haven’t heard back from this person via FaceBook. If I were the football linebacker, I would have insisted on meeting sometime in person. I even searched for this person’s picture at (i.e. Tin Eye ) – no results. The same occurred with a Google image search.

I also tried using reverse phone look-up at Reverse Genie, but no individual owner was identified.

Conclusions

I’m always wary of anyone who comes on too fast and strong. Real relationships take time to develop. Someone on social media should provide as much info as possible. The basics should be there – where they live, what they do and a bit about them.

Manti Te’o might have developed a real virtual relationship – don’t know. But he should have insisted on meeting in person, somewhere along the line.

If Marilyn Taylor wished to visit me at a local Irish pub, let’s do that first. No video chats needed beforehand. Why insist I join a site the Web of Trust doesn’t approve of – just to video chat? Why not use of the methods I suggest (i.e. ooVoo on FaceBook or Skype)?

Academic and business blog posts

Here are some blog posts I recommend from academic and business acquaintances of mine.

Why so many blog posts about kids? Because we have too many US mass killing sprees. Perhaps some good articles on proper childhood care can cure this current and future trend?