“The very next evening when I returned home from work, I had received a response. But it wasn’t a response to my email! It was a response to my profile. Our messages had crossed in the mail! She had chosen me as well! Breathlessly I wrote a message to this lady and posted it. The reply came within minutes and we spent the rest of that evening exchanging our thoughts. It was apparent from that first night, we were very compatible.
“Her name was Laiinet. Soon we were communicating on a daily basis and it was very obvious that we were developing a real friendship. Yet there was a formality and reserve to our exchanges. I felt that it was due to the fact that we both seemed to have very little experience in communicating with the opposite sex and only limited experience in the world at large. I initiated a discussion about that perspective and she agreed that she felt the same. We expanded our personal communication and I gradually realized that I was falling in love with this amazing woman, yet I had never actually met her! I didn’t even know her last name. I thought I saw signs that she loved me too but I suspected that she was too shy to admit it. At least I hoped that was the case. Growing closer had opened a whole new area of communication for us and we began to talk about the world, its joys and its problems. We seemed to agree on most things.
“Gradually she learned far more about me than I knew of her. In time the discussion even included my job and my economics. She still seemed reluctant to discuss her employment and so I did not press the issue. I admitted that while I was rather well educated, I had a mediocre job and was not particularly well off. She seemed taken aback by this and I thought that she might soon lose interest in me. But that was not the case; she made it very clear that she believed she could help me with my income. She wanted me to do some investing according to her advice. I certainly had dabbled a bit in stocks and bonds but most of my investments had been in mutual funds. I was really not terribly interested and knew very little about the market. She asked me to trust her and began to offer suggestions for investments.
“In the next ten or twelve months I made several million dollars following her advice. I quit my job and began to educate myself and learn to manage the investments. I was so busy that I didn’t really think too critically about what was happening. I did have some concerns that I might be benefiting from insider information but when I broached the subject she assured me that I had nothing to fear. I could not know then how true that was.
“At this point we had known each other about eighteen months. I considered the possibility that she had been badly hurt by a previous affair and was unwilling to take a risk on a new relationship. I couldn’t tell what it was; I began to be somewhat obsessed with determining the truth of the matter. Our communication seemed to be better than ever but she was still would not agree to meet in person. She steadfastly refused to give a last name or tell me where she lived or worked.
“At the time, I was living on the East coast and I thought I had determined from the context of our emails that she was somewhere in Los Angeles. I finally became determined to find her and made plans to go to California. I made arrangements with a private detective who specialized in cyber issues and he was able to track her emails through a number of proxies to a software firm in Los Angeles.