h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Put some meat on your personal space, gnatty! People are getting suspicious!...

And whoever mentioned that it's hard to disguise your written voice is right, but then the person(s) can say- oh, we've been friends for so long, we sound like eachother/use the same phrases etc.

I think it is rather tragic that anyone would need attention enough to pretend online to be dying. But I think such pretense is rare. Let's face it, there is a lot of sickness and death in this world, and most people's lives are touched by it in one way or another. It is natural to reach out to friends in times of crisis, whether online or in real life.

Ah, so it's banned where it started, so you're spreading it onto h2g2? Is that not going to encourage this troublesome user to join h2g2 instead?

I've known most of my friends on h2g2 for at least a couple years, and more often five years. If they are putting up a front, they have a lot of stamina!

If I were putting up a front myself, I would probably be claiming to be well, not sick!

Same here.

well said kaz

I tend to take people at face value, however,I don't have my brains in my knickers,either.If an online friendship was to be proved false, it's one knotch up to experience again,and a little feeling of disappointment.Just as in RL .

I have encountered people on the internet searching for sympathy for fake problems, including a number of fake suicides. Mostly it looks like teenage attention seeking. It hasn't much affected me, I guess I've never gotten involved in the internet in such a way that I care enough.

A completely offline incident. I know a girl who, as a teenager, told a lot of her school friends fake stories of suffering and abuse. She eventually confessed to this, was rejected by them, and ended up changing schools. She seems to be getting along OK now. She was diagnosed with manic depression, and her stories were essentially justifications, intended to communicate the way she felt. Again, I wasn't altogether involved, so neutral about the whole thing.

Some interesting posts, Im interested mostly in the notion that people feel ashamed of being taken in by a scammer and will shoot the messenger who outs the scammer.

I think its a little more complex than that. While it may happen just like that Im inclined to think of it the way that Ive seen other things work, namely soap operas. Ive been given some filtthy looks by people who cant get a grip on reality or more importantly would rather not. They are not ashamed of crying over a characters death and dont appreciate being told "they're only pretending, save your emotional energy for when you really need it", Ive gotten some foul reactions for stating the obvious. Some people actually enjoy the emotional rollercoaster and while getting involved to a certain extent and sometimes even sending money its a rather defined and somewhat distant way of interacting. Who am I to interupt their *fun* with rationality seems to be the general attitude.

When I outed a certain reearchers second account on here some people were angry about being taken in but there would have been more lurkers who were as interested in the voyueristic dramas they would be robbed of by a prominenet character disappearing. Then again there were lots of people upset by the fuss that followed the outing and others who thought it was all a hoot.

A few years back a soap character was put in prison and there was a national outcry about the fictional situation which even reached the point of the primeminister Tony Blair becoming involved

I think the lesson from this thread is that people, some of them, want to be taken in, they wont admit they are wringing their heart over fraudulent events, that would interfere with the willing suspension of disbelief, they do it none the less. Just remember that as with all things that you cant verify your self you should be very cautious about what you do on the basis of that information. Ive heard of people who've been duped into all manner of things like sexual exploitation, criminal acts and giving away cash over made up stories.

Ugh, blicky, I think you've generalised grossly and people may be upset with that. I don't think most people want to be taken for a ride. Some people are more naive than others, I know I used to be, but I don't think anyone wants to realised that they've been fooled by someone they care deeply about. I don't know about the soaps, I can't stand them, but as a cautious person, who chooses her friends very carefully, I'd say I never wanted to be tricked into believing sob stories.

To play on people's emotions is sick.

I have seen it go so far as to affect the health of the person trying to give support.

I have received a lot of help and support on this site. It grieves me to see my friends being duped by those who find it amusing to open new accounts, to enable them to tug harder at the heartstrings.

I've been on hootoo for 7 1/2 years now, and I've only had my radar go off once, or at most two times, where I thought, "no, this just isn't right...".

Still couldn't tell you what it was that alerted me, but... those people have gone now, anyway (I think, who can really know?), and it didn't bother me that I was fooled, so much, as just made me feel really sad, for myself and my friends.

blicky! okay, so tv soaps are painfully bad, but sometimes just being taken in by something that we know at the back of out minds isn't real is good for us. But at the end of the day the soap characters can't reply to us and play with our feelings, so we cry at the death of a fictional character, get up, make a cup of tea and move on, it isn't real. sometimes its a relief to have this sort of escapism when in real life, things really are bad.

<"they're only pretending, save your emotional energy for when you really need it">

save it for what? as a girl, sometimes i really do need to just cry whether for a reason or not, so why not just watch some soppy film and cry at that than bottle it up and "save it" for a rainy day.

and i feel much healthier mentally for it.

that was totaly off subject. sorry

I don't think blicky was trying to upset anybody, but there is some truth in what he says about people who either want to be duped, or at least won't take personal responsibility when it happens and thereby refuse to learn a very important 'life lesson' from the experience, in order to prevent such a thing from happening again.

I think it's very important to understand that *anyone* you meet on the internet is not really what/who they are projecting.

Heck, we can even be fooled by people we meet in our real day-to-day lives.

I'm like you faithy2, in that I quite enjoy having a good cry over a soppy film - that can really help release some pent up emotions. And yeah, I always feel a bit better afterwards. I even remember a tv commercial for orange juice that somehow always used to leave me in a flood of tears (go figure!).

But I think blicky's point was about being able to see the difference between what we are shown and what is actually real. And that we do have a personal responsibility to not allow ourselves to be taken in by fraudsters.

If it happens once, well okay, live and learn. But if it keeps happening ... well, why haven't you learned? And I think that is a very honest question people need to ask themselves.

az

>>namely soap operas. Ive been given some filtthy looks by people who cant get a grip on reality or more importantly would rather not.<< (blicky badger)

I can relate to that, I once got a very nasty reply when I dared to post in a conversation that it was only a TV series and asked what all the fuss was about.
Since then, I have avoided similar conversations, and I never reply to any postings of that person because I've seen him react extremely offended to any form of disagreement with his opinions, and frankly, I won't waste my time with that.

>> But if it keeps happening ... well, why haven't you learned? << (azahar)

It's often just not so easy to tell whether a person is sincere or not, so it might just happen more than once. I really don't want to lose my trust in people because of a bad apple or two. I have to admit,though, that that's not easy, and I'm far more distrusting now than I like to be.

I don't think it's a question of losing trust in mankind as a whole, B'Elena, but a bit of 'healthy mistrust' until you feel sure of the facts seems a pragmatic and practical way of dealing with people you meet in general, and not just on the internet.

And of course it's easier to be fooled by people you have never had eye contact with.

az

I don't intend to lose trust in mankind as a whole, that's not in my character anyway.
It's just when this sort of scam happens too often, it starts poisoning you, if you know what I mean.
Maybe I'm just a bit over sensitive at the moment.

It doesn't have to 'poison' you if you accept a certain amount of personal responsibility... that is to say if you question yourself as to how you let such a thing happen instead of just blaming someone else.

Then you can be wary without having to feel paranoid, as you have already understood that you cannot take people for how they might present themselves. Instead you will create a bit of 'healthy distance' until you feel more sure that the person you are communicating with is genuine or not.

az

As off here, if someone is seeking to make a financial gain or seek free accomodation, etc that would make me extra wary. You do have to trust someone on here to a certain point, but should be wary of giving too much emotionally too.

Sur, az, that's all good and right, but not really helpful for an ACE. As an ACE, you just have to be trusting and helpful regardless; but then you see so many things, you have to keep telling yourself not to get paranoid.