I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Out of curiosity and because things weren’t working out with the BF, I signed up on two online dating sites in the past year and discovered that the number of love-frauds and scammers out there is just mind-boggling!

Since recent media reported many cases of women getting conned on online dating sites, I decided to ink down some of my experiences. If it helps someone weed out the fakers and save her some heartache, my excruciating online dating experience wouldn’t be in vain.

First of all, choose a guy who lives in your own country because after all, you want to be able to meet this person, look into his eyes and hold his hand. And if he says that he is actually overseas when he is supposed to live here, then you have caught him out on THE BIG LIE. Don’t be stupid – drop him like a hot brick NOW, Girl!

If he passes this first test or you take your chances on a guy who lives overseas, then maybe these next few pearls of wisdom will help. How do I know all of this? Because I’ve met them all, my dearies.

1) Weed out the Most Obvious fakes – the ones with really bad English (so I’m a language snob, shoot me), the ones who extol how beautiful you are and how they are so in love with you already in their first email (gag), and the ones who are only asking for sex (ick).

2) Never trust that who you see is who you get. If a paedophile can pretend to be a 14-year-old girl online, then any of these guys you see can be someone else. Many scammers use other people’s online photos in their fake profiles and if the guy looks like an absolute hunk, ask yourself this – why would he really need to hunt for love online much less in another country?

3) ‘Wink’ or send feeler emails out to those who catch your eye. And of those who answer, delete those who will not share about themselves but would instead only praise the beauty of your toes and ask you only for more details about yourself. This ploy endears the woman to them because they appear to be good listeners and seem very caring.

4) Ask about his job – what exactly he does, who he has to deal with, why he chose such a job. Very often these guys are listed as Engineers (usually oil and gas engineers because they think women don’t know much about it, duh!) and other technical careers. If he can’t give details about his job then he probably doesn’t know much about it either, so hit the panic button (Danger, Will Robinson!).

5) Scammers usually use a Yahoo email account or yahoo chat. I’m not sure entirely why, but I suspect that Yahoo does not track new account holders as much as Gmail or Hotmail.

6) Beware of UK phone numbers. If he asks for your contact number, ask him to give you one first. It is easy to apply for a UK telephone number online so many scammers usually say they live there and will give you a UK number. If you can trust your ability to distinguish accents, call him from a secure line and listen to how he speaks, not what he says. Some of the guys I called had rather dubious British accents, including one who claimed to be Canadian! The rest had fake accents, with the majority sounding like Nigerians trying to sound Brit, I kid you not!

7) Overseas chappies will also say they don’t have webcams. This prevents you from actually seeing that they are nothing like their online profile pictures. They will ask you for more pictures of yourself – don’t do it as this is also one way scammers get access to more pictures to create more fake profiles.

Most of these guys will have some kind of sob story to get your sympathy. I got these – widowed and left with a beloved young daughter; cheated on and with a sick mother; and my personal favourite – a tragic accident that killed his kid who turned out not to be his kid because his ex-wife had been cheating on him. The stories are endless. It helps when some scammers try juggling too many targets at a time. ..

The Canadian-widower-with-a-beloved-daughter sent me an email meant for someone else called Sammie then forwarded me the exact same email with the ‘Dear ….’ name changed. Ha! You should’ve seen the back pedalling he did after that. I was giggling with glee all night. It is vindicating to have suspicions confirmed, but you won’t always have that luxury.

The Cheated-on-with-sick-mum guy “travelled” to Nigeria (alarm bells!) and while there, ran into some problems transferring some money for an urgent operation for his mum, asked if I could help. Pfft. Riiiight. And what urgent op did she need? A cataract operation. Sigh. Do your homework mister.

When I told Guy-with-dead-kid-who-wasn’t-his-kid that I was planning to come to Perth to visit him, he quickly arranged for a “work trip” to another town to bid for a project and found himself short of $11,000 for an orientation course. DING DING DING!!! Jackpot — another major loser.

I am not saying online dating is a complete failure because my search did throw up a couple of possibilities who are here, and who are willing to meet up. Meeting up face-to-face really helps you determine whether you could start something, whether this will be a new friend for you, or if this is a complete lost cause.

If you think that I am perhaps some embittered cynical chick, my friends will tell you they actually think I am too trusting and open-minded. Why do we put ourselves through this rigmarole? Sigh, maybe it is because our social circles are too closed to reveal new friendships. Maybe it is because we just aren’t the social animals we used to be. Maybe we are afraid to step out of our comfort zones. Whatever happens, don’t go online when you are vulnerable.

Go in with eyes open, a healthy dose of scepticism, and a truckload of common sense.

And because I am always such an optimistic romantic fool, I still believe there’s someone out there who’s just right for me, and for you! Happy and Safe Hunting!

Metamorphoenix is an over-40 full-figured newly-divorced sister searching for a happy life. It’s sometimes painful, sometimes funny, sometimes ridiculous … but always from the heart.

by Metamorphoenix

After my father’s death last year and while the wheels of divorce were still turning, I planned to make my maiden solo vacation.

I was ashamed to admit that I had never travelled alone in my entire life, the same way I had never lived alone in my entire 44 years. So I chose a destination I’d travelled partially to before, and which had a couple of friends living enroute – Melbourne & Victoria. It was supposed to be a journey of self discovery but ended up as one of recognition and acceptance instead.

I had planned to set aside some time on the trip to take treks and perhaps pause to sketch or paint some of the sights and scenery, to take time to reflect on who I was and what I intended to do with myself post-divorce. I ended up discovering my strengths, accepting that I was far from perfect, and embracing my weaknesses.

I’m a planner (because I don’t do off-the-cuff very well) so it was no surprise that I drew up a 15-page document detailing what to pack, a travel itinerary, my friends’ full contact details, full information on the car rental company and hostels/motels, things to do at each destination, recommended restaurants and cuisines, detailed route maps for the drive between each town (LOVE Google maps!), and a shopping list.

If you think this is an indication that I have an obsessive compulsive disorder, you couldn’t be further from the truth. Besides, I’ll have you know that I didn’t go so far as to create hourly schedules for each day. So there!

Actually, I plan this extensively for only one reason – I do not handle surprises well. I freak out, hyperventilate, tear my hair out and cry copiously … not a pretty sight at all. So to save the Aussies from this deranged Singaporean woman, I planned ahead as much as possible. All this planning also helped create a clear picture of where I would be each day and all options available at each location.

Safe with the knowledge that each day had some kind of structure, I was free to pursue what I wanted at each part of the trip. Sure, I listed down 10 restaurants for each town, but I was free to decide which one to actually eat at. And if I saw some other cafe along the way that looked interesting, I stopped to have a chai latte, a falafel wrap, or fish and chips.

I made little unplanned side trips based on my mood. While driving down the Great Ocean Road I saw a sign for the Otway Lighthouse and made an impulse detour that gave me an unexpected close encounter with a koala. In a little inland town called Birregurra, I unearthed a wonderful little tea room at Gentle Annie’s Berry Farm that served the most delicious sweet potato and ginger soup with a comforting side of warm homemade damper bread and hand-churned butter. These little side trips created pleasant surprises and not stress, because I knew I had a fall-back plan for the day.

There are always the things that the locals can introduce to you that isn’t in any travel guide. In Lorne where I stayed with friends, I was brought to the hilly backstreets to look for mama koalas with their babies in the gum trees, and down to a neighbourhood lane where king parrots swooped down and ate from the palms of our hands. In the evenings, a grassy knoll by the Georges River brought out grazing kangaroos.

For the first time, I took time to look up and see birds flying in a V-formation. I handfed a strange marsupial called a pademelon and watched fairy penguins come up from the beach to their nest burrows. I drove onto a car ferry for the first time (my rampaging imagination had me hitting the accelerator instead of the brakes and driving off the ferry into the water) and I pursued a wild echidna into a ditch paparazzi-style just so I could get a snapshot of it. I realised I liked the coast and the mountains but didn’t think much of the city.

I discovered I could stay in a hostel single room (except sharing bathrooms and loos can be very traumatic) but that communal living in a 10-bed dormitory was beyond my sensibilities and capabilities (cue the aforementioned freaking out). Even with the best laid plans, I could underestimate driving distances and end up arriving 3 hours later than scheduled on an empty stomach. Trust me, one CAN survive for 7 hours on a croissant and large coffee but it makes you a very grouchy so-and-so.

So I took 30 minutes to initially set up the car’s GPS device but throughout the 18 days, I only misinterpreted the verbal directions and went off-route ONCE! That showed me that I was cautious, listened well, could negotiate unfamiliar territory, and above all – did it ALL BY MYSELF (beams with pride).

I learnt that I didn’t always have to ask strangers to take photos for me (love my Guerrilla Camera Stand!), and that I felt less alone when I was alone than when I was in a crowd. By the way, the best views are not always on the well-worn path but around the corner from what seems like an inaccessible rocky outcrop. Then three days before I left Melbourne, Facebook threw up a friend who had moved there and I enjoyed an unexpected day catching up with him.

I also discovered how expensive using Singapore ISP broadband overseas can get, how afraid I could feel when I was alone in a ground floor motel room, how wonderfully open-hearted the Aussies can be and yet how threatening a man in a car seemed when he stopped beside me as I walked down a dark street (I was lost at the time, trying to find my way back to the hostel from the train station so cue second major freakout).

Instead of painting, I captured the special moments and beautiful scenery with my digital camera (discovering that yes, I can deplete a fully charged battery in half a day), and kept in touch daily with friends, family and my Man through skype, emails and blogging.

I returned to Singapore with a sigh of relief (and overweight luggage), with lots of food for thought. I realised that I don’t like being alone, but if push came to shove, I could stand on my own two feet.

I was no longer a solo travel virgin, and I had done it without catastrophe – well except for two meltdowns. Everything that happened and every lesson learnt went into my blog, and you’ll get the entire travelogue in the next few articles.

My name is Meta, I am a survivor, and I accept this journey as my right to living a full life.

©Metamorphoenix

Metamorphoenix is a regular contributor to www.thegroovini.com.  She is an over-40 full-figured newly-divorced sister searching for a happy life. It’s sometimes painful, sometimes funny, sometimes ridiculous … but always from the heart.

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