Since Patrick died I have expanded my circle of friends and acquaintances. I have accepted almost every friend request I have gotten and I really feel it has enriched my life to get to know people who knew him from work or school. I try to be somewhat cautious because I think people prey on widows but if I can identify some connection I will accept them.
Social media is a blessing for grieving people. The Option B Facebook groups that were started after the release of the Option B book have been a great place to share thoughts. And it's nice when I can offer advice to someone who is newly bereaved. I've even shared some blog posts on there. So, when I got a Facebook Messenger request from a man who was also in the Option B group I accepted it. I asked him why he was contacting me and he said my profile interested him. I told him right off the bat that I was skeptical but I decided to see what happened. He told me he was also a widow and he had a seven year old daughter. Now if that doesn't pull on your heartstrings…
The conversations were odd and I almost asked him if English was his second language. Our first conversation was very short then the next morning he sent me this message.
"Morning” is a gud time to“Remember” all d sweet things & all swt.persons in ur “Life so Wake Upwith ur “SWEET MEMORIES To See ThisBeautiful Mrng.gd mrng"
Huh??! Very strange! I text very slowly and I don't use a ton of abbreviations. Spelling and grammar errors are very distracting to me. I don't think I could talk to someone who sent messages like this! So I didn't respond. Later he seemed to remember how to type in full sentences so I chatted a bit more. I started noticing inconsistencies between his profile and conversations. The conversation was still mundane so I wasn't too worried but finally I remembered you could do reverse image searches. You guessed it, he was a fake. I was tempted to keep talking just to mess with whoever it was. I was thinking I could tell him a sob story about being broke and make him think I was trying to con him. I KNOW Patrick would have done that! In the end it just seemed like that would be a lot of effort so I just blocked him!
I'm a tiny bit proud of myself that I figured it out so quickly! Part of me wishes I would have played along a little longer to see what the scam was all about. I'm sure that is just Patrick urging me to do what he would do! He loved telemarketing calls. He would try to turn the tables and pretend he was selling something. Or he might randomly ask for the supervisor. I wish I could remember more of the conversations but usually I would cut him off since the calls were interrupting our life. I also usually felt sorry for the person on the other end of the call! I was a spoil sport but he loved to mess with them!
I feel like I am stronger than I used to be and I'm pretty sure I would spot anyone trying to take advantage of me. But, now that I know there really are people who prey on widows, I will be extra careful. Scammers beware, don't mess with me!