I had a disconcerting encounter today. Someone I had never met, a beautiful young woman living in a foreign country, messaged me out of the blue to say that she had seen me in a dream and believed that she had fallen in love with me. She wanted to se me and be with me. The only problem is that her mom died and she needed $2,000 for the funeral... but not to worry, since she was going to get paid $35,000 in one month's time from the movie she was working on, if only I could Western Union her the cash now.

It's an interesting variation on the Nigerian Prince scheme, I'll give it that. She couldn't have known that I'm not allowed to send money to a foreign individual if I'm interested in keeping my job. She also couldn't have known that, as an older man who is still single and utilizes dating apps, women trying to squeeze me for money is essentially Tuesday for me.

I got pretty good at fielding the sugar babies (yes, I will buy you dinner, no I won't send you money before we meet in person, yes I might help you out now and then if we're actually friends because my parents' generation basically screwed all of us in the job market and things are tough right now, no I won't give you my phone number or tell you my mom's maiden name). I became adept at not even swiping on suspicious profiles ("The same beautiful Chinese woman has been the pic for the last four profiles... think they're quadruplets?") or, if I do by accident, not following them to WhatsApp or Snapchat or whatever untraceable platform they want to do me dirty on.

But let me tell you about Maria.

When I met Maria, her profile said she was a military nurse stationed in Puerto Rico. She seemed nice, we wanted the same things with regard to family, and I was very interested in meeting up with her in a month when she returned to Minnesota after her 6 month rotation was up. We talked for over two weeks. She would ask me about my day, I would ask her about hers. She talked about the covid outbreak at the clinic, I told her about my Type 2 diabetes and how it made me afraid to risk covid.

It went on like that for over two weeks. She asked me for my phone number so we could talk better, off the app. I figured it was probably okay, but it also wasn't my first rodeo. I got a Google Voice number and gave her that. I did get a suspicious text on that number shortly after that told me I had $0.01 Mexican in my account and I just had to claim it. Odd, but it could have been directed to the previous owner of the number.

Then one morning two weeks ago, she asked me how my night was. I told her, and she said that she was locked out of her cryptocurrency account and she really needed to get some coins. My heart sunk immediately, because I knew where this was going. "Oh? That is too bad. Have you tried asking the help desk?"

Of course, she wasn't interested in the help desk, she wanted me to sign into a cryptocurrency forum and then send her my login info. "Maria" didn't exist. I told "her" that I didn't use crypto and couldn't help "her" with this. They said they would walk me through the process, and I just had to send them my login information for my new profile (which no doubt has my banking info attached). I deleted my Google Voice number and reported their dating app account for fraud.

So I wasn't suckered then, and I wasn't suckered today. That doesn't mean it doesn't fucking hurt. That I am still alone at my age is a sore subject for me. I want a happy and comfortable relationship. I even want kids, though the clock is ticking on that. Dangling a relationship in front of me, for the price of a few thousand dollars? Tempting, but even if it were a real offer (it's not), I would always know that I didn't attract the woman of my dreams with the strength of my character of the goodness of my heart, but with money.

That might work for some men. It's not what I want.

I already posted pics of Taylor today. This is the kitten of a rescue cat that ran into my friend's house earlier in the winter.