An Australian Story episode on online dating con artists gave reviewer Jenny Valentish a jolt: she’d once been duped by a guy like this too
, which hit the top 10 on Netflix in 92 countries – but also many podcasts, including Who the Hell Is Hamish?; Conning the Con; Dirty John ; Cold and Do You Know Mordechai?
Many of the women hadn’t been duped out of money. Often, the men were already in other relationships, butthey sought to appear to be a dazzling success story. “Being adored was his oxygen,” says one woman. I’m reminded of when the man I dated, who we’ll call Kane, ventured, “I get the feeling I’m your hero.”In Kane’s anecdotes he always cast himself as the strapping, accidental hero, surviving on his quick wit, the Bear Grylls of suburbia.
If you’re chortling that someone would take at face value such tall tales, well, I can only offer that I thought lying was a device for saving your skin, not for fashioning your own creation myth – though at one point, during my debrief with Claire, I had a vivid memory of blurting out an outright fib in the playground once. I remembered how, for a brief moment, it won me admiration. I remembered the feeling of power that gave me. And how easy it was.
While dating apps usually offer no more protection than the ability to report someone, there is – as Wood says – a playbook, and the more people who know what to look out for, the better. Perhaps they have a scant internet footprint. They disappear for periods. They don’t introduce you to family or old friends. Claire described Kane’s life as a Venn diagram where no circle must overlap.
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