@BSzandra 21 February 2022 more from that month

Love is blind **It is often said that love is blind and I think that is very true.** Just think that when a relationship breaks down, we immediately start to see our partner’s mistakes that we haven’t seen before or just don’t think of them as serious as they really are. Or think about it, our friends and family have been trying to warn us throughout our relationship that our partner is not a good person or just not for us. But we only realize this when love is over. Now, I don’t want to write about personal love, but about online love. Surely many people do not believe that you can really fall in love without a personal encounter. Here, of course, we could also talk about what we call love, and what we call just attraction, flare-up, for example, but I don't think there is a precise definition for this and it is a separate topic anyway. So it can be exponentially true for online love that love is blind. After all, we can’t know for sure that the person we’re talking to is really who he says he is, and not just saying what we want to hear. Of course, this can be true even if we get to know each other personally, but personally it’s harder to lie about our appearance, wealth, or lifestyle, or even their marital status. I don’t want to be really negative, as there are always exceptions, but overall, I find online dating dangerous, especially for teenagers and the elderly.

Just to mention positive examples, my mom met her partner on an online dating site years ago and she’s happier now than ever. When I was a teenager I also fell in love with a boy I met online. In that case, my goal wasn’t dating, but that boy completely enchanted me. Later, we met several times in person, but I had tender feelings for him before. I was lucky because at the train station the boy I met was waiting and we had a great time together. Mainly because of the great distance between our residences, this love did not become a serious relationship, and on the other hand, my feelings were stronger than those of the boy. But overall, I was not disappointed. By the way, we never used a webcam during our online dating, we only saw each other in photos. That's why I say the meeting was lucky. After all, it could have happened that someone else was waiting for me at the station, not the person in the photos. I don’t think I need to explain how dangerous it can be as a teenager, not because it can be disappointing, but because very bad people try to lure young girls with fake photos. I wrote earlier that it is mainly teens and the elderly who are at risk when it comes to online love that is harmful, but it is not age but the state of mind that is more important. Lonely people who are very eager to fall in love are more likely to be deceived. That's clear, but I was still shocked by some stories I read a few weeks ago. I don’t really use Facebook for personal purposes, I rather read news, articles, interesting posts, and the content isn’t always important, I’m more interested in the comment section because it’s very interesting how people react to certain content. So the stories I want to write about can be found in the comment section of this *facebook post*. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=489124729240422&id=100044286976904 These stories are mostly written by the children of older people and in most cases they are about the abduction of women. The manipulating man is almost always a foreign national or is abroad. At least the personality that this man introduces to that woman. In many cases, these people are widows, men raising their children alone, or wealthy heirs, and after seducing a woman they cheat money out of them for various reasons, such as being caught in certain places and not having access to their property and asking for a loan, but there was a case. Or the man lied that he had been paid gold somewhere for his work, but he needed money. They also often send "proof" of their own assets to convince the woman in love that she will definitely get her money back and not want to take advantage of her.

In one case, this thing became so serious that the lady, after selling a house to send money to her beloved man, took out additional loans which she could no longer pay because she always sent her money to the fraudster. The lady turned against her own children as they tried to expose the fraudster. The children have no choice but to watch helplessly as their mother takes to the streets or to jail, as the lady is already in police custody because of the many loans. There was an old woman who lost not only her money but her dignity. The 78-year-old woman was also found on the internet by love, and she was so enthusiastic that the man could persuade her to send him a nude photo showing the woman's naked body showing all the details. However, making an unfortunate mistake, the woman did not send the photo in a private message, but posted it on her Facebook page. Of course, the mentioned woman also sent money and eventually lost everything, money, jewelry, a house. Unfortunately, the family could not prevent this in this case either. Honestly, I’ve always known there are scammers like that, but I’m shocked by this plethora of stories in a single post. And all of this proves what I started this article with: *****love is blind*****. I would like to ask everyone to pay close attention to your lonely family members, friends, and possibly your single elderly parents and draw their attention to how many scammers there are on the internet. I know this isn’t really a happy and touching article about love, but maybe that’s why it’s special. And it’s also important to talk about the dangers of love, not just its beauty. I hope @JonicaBradley accepts this article as my entry for **writing prompt #22: Love**. Finally, I would like to quote a comment from that comment section what I wrote about, to close this article with a smile: I started chatting on the internet with a beautiful Filipino girl. A year and a half later, I traveled to marry her on our first date. I was lucky, she was waiting for me at the airport, although I had no doubt about that. We have been living together ever since and are expecting our first baby in May.

/Images source: Pixabay