Frustration Reigns...

I frequent a message board. There is a person on the board that I watch like a hawk. This person is someone that I don't believe can be trusted as far as he can be thrown. I'll call him "the guy". I worry about the ladies on the board falling for the same ploy as another friend did. Let me give you some background: One day a little over a year ago, I get a message from this guy telling me that he's madly in love and has never been happier. Now, I know that he's married, and so was she, but ok, you can't help who you fall in love with, or when. You CAN control how you handle it, but hey! I'm not perfect, who am I to judge, right? Besides...the excitement of new love is contagious! You WANT to be happy for those folks that are lucky enough to find it... So I chat in PMs with the happy couple. He's traveled to visit her while her soon to be ex was out of town. They made plans. They seemed so happy. She came to Oregon on vacation, and I was tickled pink to get to meet her, and even posted pics of the two of us together on the message board. "He" posted on that post, calling her his "hot bride to be". (Some of you KNOW which message board I'm talking about...go look for topics I've started...you'll find it, it's still there.) Before you get all moralistic on me, you should know that I'm a sucker for romance, and I think it's incredibly romantic to find one another and work to bring that romance to fruition. I know that these things inevitably end up with someone being hurt, but believe that those "someones" will be hurt one way or another. I actually believed that these two were going to have a "happy ever after", that the respective spouses would go their own ways and end up with happiness too. So....in my excitement, I call the spousal unit into the room and tell him about it. I let him read the private messages that have been exchanged. Then I hear him say, "He's after money. She's going to be really hurt." I was flabbergasted! He was out of his mind! This was LOVE!! And with that, I bet him $5 that it would work out the way it was looking like it would from the messages! Spousal unit tells me to READ the messages where the guy states that the woman should take her soon to be ex for everything he's got. The guy said it more than once. I should not have risked the $5...and the "I told you so" that accompanied it. The woman's husband, in a desperate effort to keep her, made some trouble for the guy. The guy, afraid that his wife would find out what was going on, shut everything down. He sent a message to her, and told me, that he would be in touch when she was divorced and the path was clear. In the meantime, the guy was going to do his best to wrest part of the millions that his wife supposedly holds in assets away from her. The guy claims everything is in her name and he had to be careful. Not so sure I believe that, but if it's true, the guy's wife is one smart cookie not to trust him with any money. She obviously can't trust him with her heart, she shouldn't trust him with anything else either. Long story shorter, the woman ended up without a lot. She got her fair share, but half of not much is less than what the guy expected her to come out of her divorce with. When I pressed the guy, asking him if he was keeping both his wife and the woman on the line to see who had more money, he ADMITTED IT!! He asked me why the hell he should give up everything! "Uh....because I thought you were in love?" At that point, I handed over the $5 to the spousal unit, and I listened to the "I told you so" that was accompanied by a wink, a grin, and a return of my money. My disappointment was palpable. A great love story shot down in flames by the guy, who turned out to be a money grubbing toad. Not the end of the story tho. I continue to watch this guy, who flirted with other women on the message board at the same time he was "seeing" the woman. I know this from the women he flirted with. He quite proudly told me that one of them, whom he had openly on the board made plans to visit with, had a rather vulgar email address. So I watch. I see women going nuts over him. I see him promoting his business by flirting with them. I wonder if he's already got another victim on the hook or if the guy's wife has a tight enough grip on what he's doing that he hasn't had a chance. I wish I could put a stop to his taking advantage of these women. I can't. I've had to face the fact that I can't save the world from this guy, who is now playing on the sympathetic natures of the women on the message board by claiming to be seriously ill. Some kind of autoimmune thing. Tells all that if he gets a cold he could die...and then talks about how he went to a 100 mile yard sale, bought this and that, talked to lots of folks..... Wait! How many of us, no matter our level of intelligence, knowing that a simple cold could KILL us, would expose ourselves to hundreds of strangers and handle items that have been who knows where and contaminated by who knows what? It gets better. Can't afford the meds required, so apply for assistance. Whine because it's denied. Supposedly has a home, plus a vacation home, several cars, buys one thing after another, and he can't afford meds? What must the people on the message board, who honestly can NOT afford their meds, have nothing because of having to buy meds, sometimes have to make a choice between groceries and meds, what must they feel when they read about his whining about not getting free meds, but on the same day talks about going to the vacation home...or talks about blowing over $300 on a toy... You get my drift. I'm frustrated with the people on the message board that don't READ ALL of his posts, and don't reason out the ones that they do read. These folks are so soft hearted, and so trusting that they don't see what he's doing. All they see is someone that complains incessantly about how miserable he is....and being the kind hearted souls they are, they want to help someone that needs help. So they send him things. They pray for him. They send him business. They can't see beyond the fact that he's a male in a predominately female message board, and therefore someone to dote on. It just makes me sad.