A Westmeath woman had what she deems a lucky escape after she was contacted by a suspicious-sounding man on a dating site. Trina, from Mullingar, said she was contacted by a man who said he was from Belgium and asked her a series of peculiar questions not long after they struck up a friendship.
By Claire Corrigan
The 47-year-old divorcee joined the site three years ago and had previously gone on a number of dates without incident. Six months ago, she was surprised to see a message from the man, saying she had never received interest from somebody from abroad before. “We struck up a conversation and continued to do so for about four months. He seemed like a nice man, with a lot of qualities I like in a person. We enjoyed each other’s company and communicated often, both by text and telephone conversation.”
However it wasn’t long before her suspicions about the legitimacy of the man’s identity were raised when she discovered that two other women were talking to a man with eerily similar circumstances. “I know several people (women mostly) who are on internet dating sites and one night whilst I was out for a birthday party for a friend of mine, it turned out that five of the fourteen of us sitting around the table were all on dating sites. We were telling our stories and having a bit of a laugh at our own expenses when one of the women mentioned that she was recently conversing with a French man. I was interested in this as it was similar to my own situation, so I told them that I was talking to a Belgian man. It turned out that another of the women was in touch with a Frenchman also.”
As the women chatted, the similarities shared by the three men became more and more apparent. “Their personalities were similar, and their basic habits too. The three men had good jobs which meant they worked irregular hours, often meaning it was difficult to contact them or for them to contact us and when they did contact us, it was often late at night.”
All women reported that the men had eagerly questioned them on seemingly random topics such as how far they lived from an airport. One woman was even asked how good a driver she was and if she could drive at high speed if needed. Trina says that the questions were asked in such a way that they did not elicit feelings of mistrust or suspicion. “These questions might sound like alarm bells should have been ringing but keep in mind that when they were asked, it was done in a playful and fun way.”
The situation came to a head when Trina mentioned the man to a work colleague whose response “terrified me to the core”. “I’m sorry if this disheartens you but I wouldn’t touch him with a ten mile stick. I would be very careful dealing with anyone, especially male, from outside of my own country, especially mainland Europe at this time. There are just too many dangerous people out there who are trying to expand their terror network.”
Trina is now urging anyone who may be in the same situation to be extremely careful and admits that the attention she got from the man may have blinded her to the potential dangers of inviting a stranger into her life. “Looking back, I feel so stupid to have trusted someone so much at a time when the world is far from safe. But if I am honest, I was desperate for male attention. It was nice to be flirted with and yes, there was a bit of prestige attached to the fact that he was from abroad. My male work colleague brought me in a newspaper article about ISIS activists trying to infiltrate as many countries as possible, by whatever means possible. Reading the article made me go weak at the knees when I imagined the terror I could have invited into my life and worse, the life of my children.”
