Romancing the Crone

If any of you out there are newly solo and rushing to join a dating website, let me offer you a word of caution before you dive in. There is a new breed of man out there looking to hook forty plus women. He will whisper words of utter delight in your ear, he will look like a God and will immediately be smitten by 'your beautiful smile.' The downside is he's a Romeo Scammer, and, as a mature friend of mine told me, they are wriggling all over the dating website scene, like woodworms in wood!

Yes, in tough economic times people are no longer responding to spam emails promising to grow your penis three extra inches or from melodramatic Nigerian government officials asking to lend them money which you will get back soon with 400% interest. These days you need to have the time, and a certain amount of talent to lure gullible people into parting with their cash.

For the woman of a certain age it all starts when a sexy young under thirty guy connects with you on a dating website and sends you a hunky photo of himself. You might initially think what the heck, even if this guy is a tad too young for me he is smokin' hot, you go girl! If you live in America this guy will claim to be American but alas, he will always live at least a hundred miles away. He'll tease and torment you with his emails at first which are grammatically unsound but you think, well, he does say he's a contractor working in Nebraska, so what if he spells like someone who has just learnt English. When the heart finds that perfect soul mate who cares if he can't spell for shit?

The scam goes on in that the guy never gives you his phone number or asks for yours, starts IMing like a love sick schoolboy and sooner or later arranges to fly over to meet you until a glitch occurs, he claims finances are tight, could you please wire over the money for the flight my dearest darling girl, so we can be together? My friend is au fait with the procedure as she sometimes likes to toy with these Romeo Scammers for kicks. And when she checks their IP addresses they are always (quel surprise!) located in Africa.

If there are any documentary makers out there I'd love them to find out if there are call center type places called Romeo Towers or Passionate Plaza in Africa where these Romeo Scammers ply their trades. Just imagine the conversations when a new guy comes on shift:

Romeo 1 "Where are you up to with that lady in Baltimore?"

Romeo 2 going off shift: "Well, I having warm her up nice hot and you can go in for killing. I have told her I am ready to be flying out to Baltimore from Nebraska seeing to her give one. I telling her in last email: Waiting you the playing sweet music love the making me. Cannot wet to your stroke soft skin and shower the perls over you."

Priceless!

All I'm saying is don't be caught out by the new Romeo Scammers out there. If a young toy boy with abs of steel is immediately smitten by you be assured he may want to plunge, not into your hot body but deep into the crevices of your wallet.

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Also you must check out my pal Claire's (aka UK Desperate Housewife USA) blog. She is a Brit in Columbia who is a flip flop wearing, cowboy hat totin', sunworshipper who has already sampled a lot of US cuisine including corn dogs and crab. She did me the honor of interviewing me so check it out!!