Wake up, girl!

I received the following e-mail from a reader in Taiwan:

Dear Dr. Jao,

Hi. I always read your column in Allure and I thought I would try asking advice from the expert.

I met a guy on-line sometime in 2000 but we did not get along well. One of his high school classmates e-mailed me their high school website (he is the website master) and I e-mailed him back saying it was perhaps a mistake for I was not a member of their organization. From then on we exchanged tons of e-mails, chat messages and phone calls. To make it short, we became an item – Internet lovers, if you want to call it that way.

We got along very well and I even spoke to his mom and his daughter from a previous relationship. I know this is crazy since I have not met him personally but I helped him a few times with financial matters.

One day, I received off-line messages. The sender asked me if I was her husband’s friend. I asked who she was and she said she was his wife. We chatted and she even asked me to call a number which he earlier told me he had cut off because his bills had soared and he noted a lot of unknown outgoing overseas calls. In short, I called the number and I talked to the woman claiming to be his wife.

I talked to the guy right after my conversation with that woman. He explained to me that it was all crap because she was a daughter of his father’s friend. He told me she came to his house once in a while to clean.

Another incident happened. I received off-line messages from him and I got him on-line and he said that he was in big trouble. He told me he was in jail and he could not chat with me for long as one of the guards was pulling his cable. I became so worried and I told him I would call his mom so someone could help him but he told me he didn’t want his mom to know about it.

I called his home phone number even if I knew that nobody was there to answer my call. I just tried because I was desperate to get help for him. To my surprise, he answered my call but when he recognized my voice, he hung up on me. I called again and a woman answered me (the same voice of the woman I had spoken to before) and I heard from the background that she was calling him. From what I could hear, he did not want to talk to me.

We did not talk for almost two weeks until one day, I received an e-mail with his apology. He told me he decided not to talk to me because he had felt that I stereotyped him (he is of a different nationality). In short, we were back in each other’s arms again.

In October last year, he said he wanted to meet me but he said that he was a bit embarrassed because he had no money for the airfare. I gave him the money but his trip was postponed to November, and then postponed to December and again to February. February has passed and he has not come. We reached our first year last March and I decided that it was already time to meet. I e-mailed him my intention to visit his country and at the same time to attend my nephew’s fourth birthday. My brother lives in his country.

Before that happened, we exchanged a lot of sweet e-mails and he told me that he did not know what to do without me. I got a little bit of a weird feeling that he would ask some money from me again so I told him in my e-mail that I was glad he felt that way. I mentioned to him that I was helping my older sister financially, pretending that I was not aware of his intention to ask money from me (although he did not mention anything to me in his e-mail about money; in other words, I was just guessing). He did not reply to that e-mail and instead forwarded me some jokes. It has been a few days since he last e-mailed me so I decided to e-mail him and told him, as I had mentioned, of my intention to come to his country for a visit. Since then he has not replied to me.

I probably know your analysis and answer to this but I still want to hear from you because I’ve got nobody to clear my mind and I am very confused and depressed and dismayed. Nobody knows about this problem and about the money issues, not even a single friend or family of mine. Please help me. Thank you in advance and more power. – N.B.

* * *

Dear N.B.,

You said you already knew what my advice to you would be. You seem to be such a nice and generous person. I’m really sorry that you have fallen prey to such a deceitful e-mail sender. Wake up, girl! You deserve somebody better. Forget this e-mail lover.

There are some people who find a lot of pleasure fooling people through e-mails. The things he has been communicating to you appear to be all fabrications. He probably is not single. He is not in trouble nor was he in jail. It is obvious that he has malicious intentions to filch money from you. He most probably is also not from the address he disclosed to you.

Instead of spending a lot of time in front of your computer, get to know real guys whom you can socialize with in person, face to face. Try widening your circle of friends and meeting new interesting people. Join civic, university, church or community clubs or organizations. Go out more with your friends, family or people in the workplace. You will be in a better position to distinguish real friends from fake ones in real-life situations where you have interpersonal transactions.

Good luck to you, anonymous on-line reader from Taiwan.

* * *

(In case you have other problems, particularly about love, looks and relationships you would want me to discuss in this column, do send your letters to The Philippine STAR c/o Allure section or send them directly to Suite 506 Medico Bldg., Lourdes St., cor. San Miguel Ave., Pasig; fax no. 631-3877; tel. no. 633-3893.)