You can’t. She most likely won’t believe you, and it may spoil your friendship if you try. You can, however, ask some leading questions - such as “why is this guy dating someone almost half his age?”. Has he told her anything about his family? How often does she see this guy? Only on weekends? Only on weeknights?
I think he’s a liar, and she is in for a world of hurt. Just be there to pick up the pieces when it all falls down.
If someone is actually involved in clandestine, or secret gov’t. activity threy’re not going to talk about any part of it. There are many ways to explain travel w/o telling someone where your going and then saying you can’t talk about it.
Guys like this are more than bad boyfriends, they are potential con artists. If she believes this, he could well be tempted to take advantage of her financially, or some other way.
If he tries to tell her he’s confiding in her it’s total BS. If he were really what he’s claiming, the last thing he’d do if confide in someone w/o a need to know. Need to know does not include satisfying personal relationships.
He has 3 kids, the eldest of whom is 5 years younger than she is. He lives 4 hours away from her now, and they see each other sporadically. I have no idea why he’d tell her he had to go to Afghanistan for 11 days. It’s such a flagrant and ridiculous lie, it just screams BULLSHIT. Aren’t there other things he could have said that wouldn’t have seemed so ridiculous?
Yeah, I don’t know how I’m going to tell her. She really is fantastically naive. This isn’t the first guy ever to take advantage of her, though this one does tell the biggest lies.
Oh I can answer that one for you. Apparently “because he can”.
I had a really good friend, who coincidently was in his early 40s and had a 19-year-old girlfriend. I went down to visit them once, and stayed overnight with them. After the girlfriend went to sleep, my friend told me the real reason he had left the army. What we thought was because his bad knee had gotten worse during basic training, some 17 years previous, was just a cover story.
You see, he had really been such a great shot, they put him into sniper school. Yup, my good friend, of 20 some-odd years, had been a sniper, but I never knew that. You have to ask why he didn’t say anything. Well, this may surprise everyone here, but he had gone on a secret mission to shoot someone in some country in South America, but it was so secret they wouldn’t tell him where he was or who he was killing.
He said that he got there, but then couldn’t do it. The back up shooter (which they have on rookies’ first mission – a fact you can now use to impress people at cocktail parties, “Did you know they send back up shooters on snipers first missions? It’s true, I read in on the Net.”) took out the guy and they hightailed it out of there.
So he decided to quit, and after they couldn’t get him to change his mind they agreed that this was the best thing. Why they didn’t just dump him back into the main army was not a question answered. He kept it all secret for so many years out of concern for our safety. Wasn’t that so kind of him? He was afraid that if he told us, we would be in danger.
So have you ever sat and listened to a friend of 20 years lie to you? I didn’t even try to poke holes in his story, it was just too silly. Of course, the next day, he tells his girlfriend that he had told me, and suddenly I realized what was up. He had tried that shit on her, she wondered if it were really true, why didn’t he have told me, so he had to lie to me as well.
I suspect that men in their 40s going after inappropriately young women have a number of issues, one of which is manifest in outrageous lies.
I see all of this as a combination of his being a fantasist and picking her, such a young person, for his girlfriend, thinking she’s more likely to believe his bullshit.
What reason does your friend give when asked why she is dating somebody almost twice her age?
Also, Canadian forces have taken over the mission in Afghanistan, along with allies. Not the US COAST GUARD FREAKIN’ RESERVES.
I may be wrong, but this article states that Canada is in charge in Kandahar province, in particular, with other NATO member-countries in charge of other provinces. Various agencies of the U.S. government, including U.S. Special Forces (no mention of the U.S. Coast Guard, of course) do participate in certain operations there, such as poppy eradication.
The BF is BSing though.
When I was in my late teens/early 20’s, I usually dated guys quite a bit older than I was. Nothing lasting ever came out of it - my husband is 3 years older than I am - but there it is. I just didn’t get all the head games with older guys I did with guys my age.
She luuuuuuuuuuuuurves him. She’s socially inept and has trouble meeting men, even though she’s a cute, fit girl in her 20’s. She was also sexually assaulted a few years ago, went through a lengthy and torturous prosecution, and was traumatized by it. This makes me doubly angry that this guy might be taking advantage of her, since this is her first attempt at dating since it happened.
Ruby, I fear you will have to let her fall flat on her face on this one. Hopefully it won’t end too badly. *Then *maybe she’ll listen to you when you recommend counseling.
The Coastguard’s elite Beach Infiltration and Tactical Combat Hombres have been active on lake Zarkol recently. I believe he may be telling the truth.
You’re thinking of Uzbekistan. Or possibly Lichtenstein, but that seems unlikely. Afghanistan borders Iran and Pakistan, both of which have significant sea coasts.
It should perhaps be noted that there’s a Coast Guard station in west-central Nevada.
Forty-something dates twenty-something does not scream PROBLEm to me the way that it has to others.
OTOH, Imbecile tells embarrassingly idiotic lie to ditch girl for a few days does scream ASSHOLE!
The problem with sowing doubt in her mind is that she is going to want to ask him and he is going to invent a few (initially) plausible (to the naive) lies to cover his ass while saying things that will cause her to want to distance herself from Rubystreak. That is unfortunate.
(Of course, if someone could find out where his current (and not really divorced) wife was living and drop a few hints, there, or contact him anomymously but with malice aforethought to persuade him to drop the younger woman–something about her fabulously wealthy mobster Dad who is letting her try her wings but watching from a distance as she recuperates from her bout with HIV while asking his favorite soldiers/made men to keep an eye on her. The sort of thing that he might invent but be too stupid to recognize how silly it sounds.)
There is a US Coast Guard Afghanistan Campaign Medal. So I guess the Coast Guard has sent personnel there. The Coast Guard doesn’t only have stations on the coast-- there’s a Coast Guard Station on Seneca Lake.
Buuuttt, why would they take a 43 year old retiree and send him to Afghanistan?
Now, if he’s lying, what the hell was he doing for 11 days that he couldn’t talk to her at all? They’re long distance now, so it’s not like he sees her every day anyway. Seems like he could have come up with something less fantastical, or found a way to call her every couple of days, regardless of what he was doing.
Not to mention, they’ve heard of the Internet in the middle East. Hell, Tripler even posted from over there.
Actually, while it is under “Coast Guard medals,” the description indicates that it is a general military medal, not one dedicated to USCG service, so it is sort of “there” in case a Coastie does spend some time in Afghanistan:
Nw the Coasties might actually have some folks there. The USCG provides policing and security duties for ports, which could include airports. I don’t recall whether or not they have been employed as meteorologists. I knew a USCG Reservist who went to Iraq, but he was doing port security.
My WAG: vacation with the wife and kids.