# Friend met an online girlfriend. What's the probability it is legit?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [August 30, 2022, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599 "2022-08-30T13:08:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2022, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/41 "2022-08-30T17:57:28Z")
Craigslist in the early days and Backpage throughout its history were wink-wink “dating” sites that were mostly prostitution (a mix on Craigslist, essentially all of Backpage).
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2022, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/42 "2022-08-30T18:15:14Z")
Backpage was explicitly a prostitution site. Craigslist had separate sections for dating and escorts. Try again.
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### Author:  [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2022, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/43 "2022-08-30T18:45:11Z")
Hey, I’m just spitballing what kind of sites Horatius might be thinking of.
And while Craigslist had separate sections for relationships and escorts, there was some bleed-over. It was not unheard of to post in Relationships and still be contacted by professionals.
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2022, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/44 "2022-08-30T18:57:49Z")
> [@TroutMan](#):
>
> Hey, I’m just spitballing what kind of sites Horatius might be thinking of.
Got it. Sorry for the snark. You may be right.
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### Author:  [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2022, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/45 "2022-08-30T19:15:32Z")
> [@Charlie\_Tan](#):
>
> Even if legit, why would she be interested in an over weight 50+ schlub? Green card, of course. To him, that might be worth it as a trade, but love it ain’t.
50+ ‘schlubs’ often have good careers, homes, money, and aren’t going to have young women at home chasing after them. Also, there probably aren’t a lot of attractive 20 and 30 somethings looking for a foreign bride.
Whether this particular case is a scam or not, there are hundreds of thousands or millions of women in poor countries looking for decent men in wealthy countries, and they aren’t necessarily picky about looks.
I know two people who married foreign brides they met online. One worked out well, one not so much, but the reason for the latter was simply that they don’t like each other a lot. No scams involved.
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### Author:  [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2022, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/46 "2022-08-30T19:26:06Z")
Another thing, which probably doesn’t apply in the Philippines as much and certainly not in the OP’s scenario but which is definitely a thing in Indonesia, is that the woman and her family - the family is ALWAYS involved in Indonesia - are looking for a suitably devout Christian mate. Since Indonesia is majority Muslim, there aren’t a whole lot of choices for some Christian women, especially if they are super-devout and want to marry a deeply religious man.
I once was on a flight from Tokyo to Jakarta that was so delayed that the airline put the passengers up overnight. I ended up befriending two men on the flight, one of whom was a reasonably worldly guy who seemed to see the universe through a lens similar to my own, and the other of whom was a “mail-order husband” of sorts, going to meet his internet girlfriend (presumed to be his bride-to-be if all worked out) for the first time. He was adorably innocent and VERY Christian, and all excited about meeting his girlfriend for the first time in person. They had internet-met on a Christian dating website. This was his first time traveling outside the US.
Worldly guy and I exchanged a few eyerolls behind his back but couldn’t really talk about it. I don’t know how it all worked out eventually. I had to serve as translator, calling the family to explain our flight delay and arrange when the woman’s brothers should come to the airport in Jakarta to pick up the guy. Dunno what the Christian guy would have done if he hadn’t been able to befriend someone who spoke both English and Indonesian, and I have no idea how he managed once the brothers picked him up. I guess the girlfriend must have had SOME English to get the relationship going.
ETA: Autocorrect rendered the first sentence of the above paragraph as “Worldly guy and I exchanged a few eyeballs behind his back.” I almost wish I hadn’t caught the mistake.
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### Author:  [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2022, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/47 "2022-08-30T20:44:47Z")
> [@Charlie\_Tan](#):
>
> Even if legit, why would she be interested in an over weight 50+ schlub? Green card, of course. To him, that might be worth it as a trade, but love it ain’t.
Anecdote: I worked with Mike, who was a classic corporate computer nerd. Good enough looking, probably 20 pounds overweight. He ended up on some dating site and met a very attractive Russian girl. Everyone assumed he was being scammed.
He went over to meet her, and that went well, so he paid to bring her and her mother over to the States so they could get married. Everyone then assumed that she would dump once she got her green card/citizenship, but it’s been 15 years or so now, and last I saw a Facebook post they were still together with at least one kid.
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### Author:  [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2022, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/48 "2022-08-30T23:25:57Z")
> [@hajario](#):
>
> Bullshit. Have you ever online dated? Since my divorce in 2005 I have met more women online (okcupid, match, craigslist dating, bumble, tinder) than you would probably believe. There were a small few matches on bumble or tinder who claimed to be prostitutes in early messages (they probably weren’t even that and it was a scam where they asked for a deposit or something) but effectively all of them were actual local women looking to date or hook up.
> [@pulykamell](#):
>
> Maybe the sites you were using? Almost everybody I know has done some degree of online dating and I don’t know of any prostitute stories. I’ve been out with maybe a dozen women from these sites (including my wife) and never had any issues. (I am from the pre-Tinder/Bumble days, though, mostly Match and OK Cupid.)
On the regular dating sites, you’re pretty unlikely to run into prostitutes. The sugar relationship websites are a whole 'nother ball of wax.
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### Author:  [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2022, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/49 "2022-08-30T23:27:48Z")
> [@pulykamell](#):
>
> Maybe the sites you were using? Almost everybody I know has done some degree of online dating and I don’t know of any prostitute stories. I’ve been out with maybe a dozen women from these sites (including my wife) and never had any issues. (I am from the pre-Tinder/Bumble days, though, mostly Match and OK Cupid.)
Me, too, but it was eHarmony (before we found out about the founder’s homophobia). Met my wife there, and we will celebrate our thirteenth anniversary next month. I mean, there’s plenty of nastiness in online dating, but I never encountered anything like fraud (unless you count married guys looking for a side chick).
And just to add to the datapoints, my asshole ex-brother-in-law signed up with a Filipina dating site, eventually went to Manila, and brought the woman home. They’re still together, and according to my sister, who keeps in touch with the lout and has met the new wife, she’s a sensible, intelligent woman who’s neither a prostitute nor a scammer. (Don’t know if it means anything, but said Asshole Ex-BIL is another gun-fondling, election-denying, librul-hatin’ Trumpster. I think he couldn’t handle a woman who was smarter and more mature than he was, so had to take to emotionally abusing my sister until she finally divorced his pathetic ass. I’m not fond of my Ex-BIL, does it show?)
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### Author:  [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2022, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/50 "2022-08-30T23:45:59Z")
I don’t have enough information on the friend yet to make an even WAG to the legitimacy of the possible girlfriend, and don’t have any anecdotal information about online dating or international brides to share.
What I do want to ask @Crafter_Man is if he asked said friend about why the “dating” was in quotes in the original. Unless that was his own additional emphasis. Because if it’s in the original, it may well be that ‘Steve’ is fully aware of the risks, and is comfortable with what could very likely be a highly transactional relationship.
Which leaves me… uncomfortable? I mean, I do not judge either party in entering into a relationship where both get what they want. I don’t object to prostitution for similar reasons, but by the same token, I worry about the power imbalance in exactly the same way I do in the debate on legal prostitution.
Although, Steve could just be the sort that thinks having a relationship online is only technically ‘dating’. I have been known to read too much into things. So hopefully C\_M can give us just a bit more info.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2022, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/51 "2022-08-31T00:28:03Z")
> [@hajario](#):
>
> Backpage was explicitly a prostitution site. Craigslist had separate sections for dating and escorts. Try again.
The point I was trying to make earlier was that it didn’t make sense for professionals to use legitimate dating sites when there are much more direct conduits to likely customers. It’s not like they have to trick people to get business. I didn’t specifically mention backpage because it doesn’t exist anymore. I’m sure there are other things that replaced it but since we no longer have a Vice unit I’m not in the loop.
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### Author:  [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2022, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/52 "2022-08-31T00:33:36Z")
> [@Gyrate](#):
>
> And if he’s a QAnon guy, the odds of him being able to rationally read the situation go way down.
The wonderful irony is that this is probably true. I suspect that people who believe and promulgate the most preposterous conspiracy theories are so out of touch with reality that they are least able to detect when people are _actually_ conspiring against them.
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2022, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/53 "2022-08-31T00:37:40Z")
By strange coincidence, I just got an e-mail saying someone had checked out my profile on Linkedin.\*
Turns out to be a nice-looking young woman from the Philippines, a purported schoolteacher who enjoys “reaching children through Jesus Christ”.
Maybe not the hottest potential mail-order bride material, but we’ll see.
\*which I don’t recall ever posting.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2022, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/54 "2022-08-31T00:43:53Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#):
>
> \*which I don’t recall ever posting.
I am on neither LinkedIn nor Facebook and never have been. I get Russian / Ukrainian bride spam regularly that opens with them having fallen tush over pussy in love with me from my profile or postings there.
Sorry Svetlana, you blew your chance in the first sentence.
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### Author:  [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2022, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/55 "2022-08-31T02:14:56Z")
> [@Horatius](#):
>
> There are a lot of other scams out there, too. She could try to talk him into criminal activities, like being a drug mule,
We knew someone this happened to. An Eastern European bikini model who was just looking to settle down and have a normal life.
He spent a few months in an Argentinian jail - which was likely a good thing, as he might well have been killed by the people who were expecting to bring him the “empty” suitcase he’d been persuaded to bring to his lady-love in another country.
The bikini model was a real person - but had absolutely zero involvement in the whole thing - her photos were stolen off the internet.
Back to the OP: I think the odds are low - but not zero - that it’s legit. Interestingly though, you noted that he used to be quite liberal and has now gone far the other way. I wonder if that’s a symptom of some, well, degradation in his judgment ability?
Not specifically that he has right wing beliefs (I’ll reserve commentary on that, because this is not the Pit etc. ) but that he seems to have swapped his beliefs so radically.
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### Author:  [@dummygladhands71](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dummygladhands71)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2022, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/56 "2022-08-31T02:17:21Z")
> [@Gyrate](#):
>
> The QAnon thing suggests an immunity to reason or persuasion away from his preferred beliefs
Excellent reasoning.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2022, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/57 "2022-08-31T02:18:59Z")
Said another way, it suggests high susceptibility to catchy stories well told. IOW, he’s gonna be easy prey for whatever they intend to do with him. He’s going down hook, line, sinker, pole, _and_ boat.
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### Author:  [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2022, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/58 "2022-08-31T04:40:04Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> … it suggests high susceptibility to catchy stories well told.
Very well spoken!
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2022, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/59 "2022-08-31T05:29:02Z")
I’d suggest that dating sites (especially ones with a free option), fakes are far more common than prostitutes.
To me, the way the OP’s friend talks about the situation makes it sound like his date is a fake. And I would suggest that, in general, fakes are more common with these sorts of overseas situations.
That said, I’m pretty sure I encountered a real person once doing this. We talked, and I let her know that I probably wasn’t going to be able to afford going anywhere, and yet we still continued chatting every so often, inasmuch as her broken English would allow.
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### Author:  [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2022, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-met-an-online-girlfriend-whats-the-probability-it-is-legit/970599/60 "2022-08-31T06:08:54Z")
Zero.
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