trenino Posted May 25, 2009 Posted May 25, 2009 I am concern with my best friend. She has been corresponding with a guy from Paris. They " met " (virtually) in dating website and since then they have been corresponding via email and even phone calls almost everyday! The last update was he invited her to come to Paris and he will pay for her tickets to spend weekend with him. She shown me all his emails and he sounded like a monk, super religious, and every sentences has something to do with God and mentioned a lot of bible verses. He is calling my friend honey, dear,..etc.. I am afraid this guy is up into something and setting up some bad things, like drugs trafficking or prostitution. etc.. perhaps i am too paranoid. I want to stop my best friend to go to Paris. Does any one every have such an experience? Do you believe someone who is so in love with somebody else just by email and phone calls? what do you guys think? i would rather find a guy in a club rather than strangers in Paris.. whom we never know who and how he is.. am i crazy?
lora22 Posted May 25, 2009 Posted May 25, 2009 One of my best friends met a guy online (she's American, he lives in Europe); they "dated" online for several months, she studied abroad for a semester in his country where they continued to date, and she transferred to a college there. They have been married now for a few years. So yes, it's possible. HOWEVER, I absolutely do not think it's a good idea for your friend to go alone to another country/city to meet a guy she's been talking to online. If she desperately wants to meet him she needs to find a safe way to do it.
lora22 Posted May 25, 2009 Posted May 25, 2009 I also think age is very important here; how old is your friend and her online bf? Is this something her parents are aware of, or should be aware of? You really hear so many terrible things (scams and so on) about situations like this...
Mahatma Posted May 25, 2009 Posted May 25, 2009 Age is really the most important question here. If the girl is in her teens or early twenties, she is likely to be a target for things you mentioned. Is your friend generally good at reading people? Normally, I would say that she could tell them to meet somewhere and check him out first to see how she felt. However, if he pays for her tickets, he will know exactly where she comes in. This could be totally wonderful for her, or mean her life. Personally, I would recommend to steer clear. Just the small amount of conversation between them you shared seemed creepy to me.
Author trenino Posted May 25, 2009 Author Posted May 25, 2009 my friend is 29 and he is 39. She seems to like him and considering of going to meet him but as a friend, i am worry what his intention is. In all his email he talked he sounded like a preacher which is totally weird. He told my friend that he was brought up in seminary or something like catholic school for 15 yrs and he is actually from England. But if i look at his photos, dressing style.. totally.. doesnt look like "religious" type. and if he is really an english guy, i looked at his email, so many typo, wrong vocabs, n even once she put him on the speaker for me to listen.. i doubt he is French or Brittish...
cbreitel Posted May 25, 2009 Posted May 25, 2009 I know Paris fairly well. I was married to a Parisian (for less than a year, but I digress). I think it's very dangerous and foolish for your friend to go on this trip alone. This is the kind of move I'd expect from an 18-year old, not a grown 29-year old woman who should know better.
paddington bear Posted May 25, 2009 Posted May 25, 2009 I met a guy years ago in a club who said he was French, but he didn't have a French accent, turned out he was Algerian - not to be totally rasicst or whatever, but just in terms of cultural differences, treatment of women by certain cultures and religious beliefs, I ran a mile. To me, an Algerian man living in Paris is not the same as a French man, if you know what I mean, the two backgrounds give an indication of how you might be treated as the women in that man's life. This guy you mentioned sounds really dodgy and your friend should in no way go there at all, is she so enamoured of this man that she's never met that she's determined to go? Is there any way you will be able to talk her out of it? Even if the guy sounded perfectly normal going to a foreign city to meet him, where you don't know your way around and don't speak the language and know no one else, is a pretty daunting and dangerous thing for anyone to do.
cbreitel Posted May 25, 2009 Posted May 25, 2009 I met a guy years ago in a club who said he was French, but he didn't have a French accent, turned out he was Algerian - not to be totally rasicst or whatever, but just in terms of cultural differences, treatment of women by certain cultures and religious beliefs, I ran a mile. To me, an Algerian man living in Paris is not the same as a French man, if you know what I mean, the two backgrounds give an indication of how you might be treated as the women in that man's life. Er... Paris has a very large north African (which includes Algerian) population. Many "Algerians" are French... French-born and French-raised. So while I don't want to throw around labels or accusations, I don't think your post is well taken. It's kind of like saying, "Oh, you're dating an American? Well just make sure he's not one of those BLACK Americans because they're not really American and you won't like their culture." I happen to know some Algerian-origin French people and they are wonderful, and that includes a very happily married couple where the man treats his wife like a princess. I also happen to have an American friend of mine who just got back from a few weeks in Paris where she dated a few Frenchmen ("real" Frenchmen I guess, by your definition), and she thought they were complete and total pigs.
paddington bear Posted May 25, 2009 Posted May 25, 2009 Er... Paris has a very large north African (which includes Algerian) population. Many "Algerians" are French... French-born and French-raised. So while I don't want to throw around labels or accusations, I don't think your post is well taken. It's kind of like saying, "Oh, you're dating an American? Well just make sure he's not one of those BLACK Americans because they're not really American and you won't like their culture." I happen to know some Algerian-origin French people and they are wonderful, and that includes a very happily married couple where the man treats his wife like a princess. I also happen to have an American friend of mine who just got back from a few weeks in Paris where she dated a few Frenchmen ("real" Frenchmen I guess, by your definition), and she thought they were complete and total pigs. Yeah, look, that's not what I meant - I realise a lot of people living in whatever country have been born and raised there and are 'French' or 'American' or whatever and would be no longer considered to be from their original country of origin. It's not to do with skin colour, it's to do with religious differences, how you've been raised as a man to think of women and so on. In one job I worked in a Muslim couple would arrive in for their regular appointment to see a doctor and this man's wife had to walk always behind her husband, she was not allowed in to see the doctor and hear his opinion about their child, only her husband did that, she had to wait outside unable to hear the diagnosis about their sick child. For me, raised in Europe as a 'Western' woman, I simply could not consider dating someone with such vast cultural and religious differences. If this man and his wife are happy to live their lives that way, and that is their belief that is their business and I'm not going to stop them or try to convince them otherwise. They have their beliefs and I have mine. But you can see why someone like the husband in the scenario and me would never be compatible as a couple. This particular Algerian, who by the way, I did talk to to try to get to know as opposed to walking immediately away from, firstly acted sleazily (granted any man from any country can act that way), and immediately started talking about that he thought women shouldn't drink, women shouldn't do this or that and I put two and two together and thought - vast differences here in our views on relationships, women's rights etc. Not for me and that was the end of that. I'm open to dating anyone from any race, but once it is made clear that their background or beliefs are so vastly different to mine, whether they're black, white, blue or purple, it's adios as is my right to decide.
cbreitel Posted May 25, 2009 Posted May 25, 2009 I simply believe in judging people on their individual merits.
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