If finding out his identity weren’t that hard, it would be in the story. It would otherwise be extreme journalistic malfeasance. There’s an old newsroom saw: “Get the name of the dog.” That’s never relevant. The name of a defendant, though? That’s sort of what news does so long as they aren’t a minor, which doesn’t seem to apply here.

But yes, the whole thing is irritatingly light on details.

I never Felt that way.

This is the correct assessment. Name the agent and lay out the grooming, and now you have a story.

But hourslong calls with a Scottish lass? Would you turn down the opportunity to have that in your ear?

I mean, tell that to my ex-fiancee where it took us a year to get engaged after meeting on Reddit. Then Covid hit and we couldn’t meet. We still talk, years later, but now we’re in “old friends” mode.

Everyone knows you can only yell “fire” in an empty theatre. You generally get trespassed immediately thereafter.

The quality of questions fell off a cliff well before Match Group came in and really enshittified the whole affair. I soured on continuing to answer questions once the new ones were almost exclusively false dichotomies.

Meet people online via shared interests. I’m not one to tout Reddit, but really engaging in niche communities there gives you wide exposure specifically targeted. Don’t expect immediate results, but it is a valid method.

“If I had a million dollars? Two chicks at the same time.”

I agree reasonable people just move forward to the next thing, but we aren’t all still of clubbing age, and internet dating is shit.

This is a “good in theory, bad in execution” example. Absent any context whatsoever for where things went wrong, it’s platitudes masquerading as an AI version of whoever wronged you.

I have a giant corpus of increasingly testy emails with my ex (it got to the point that actual conversation was impractical without the situation immediately escalating, so despite sharing a bed, we resorted to email), but I’m not feeding that to an LLM, and without that, there’s no way to know to be able to say things like “I’m sorry I threw physical objects at you” – which would be out of character for her in the first place. She has the ability of Trump to admit error, which is to say none.

I get the demand for such “solutions” but worry about the actual psychological effects. Turning abusive partners (or friends) into sympathetic characters who regret their actions has no basis in reality and could actually make matters worse.

Surely, you can paint with a broader sexist brush.

I’ve been through multiple rounds of therapy. The issue is the quality of care available to anyone who doesn’t have upwards of $100 a week (insurance only covers MSWs, and sometimes, you need a Ph.D. to really help).

OkCupid.com (founded 2004) asked users a wide range of multiple-choice questions. It then went further by also asking them to specify the responses to those same questions they wanted to see from prospective partners.

I met both my ex-wives on OkCupid … in 2004. Of course, I had no idea I met my second wife before getting serious with the first.

I put scores of hours in answering match questions, and the whole experience was, dare I say, fun. Longform profiles with candid photos and the ability to see how answers differed so you could get the dealbreakers out of the way before wasting any time messaging.

Oh, and it was completely free.

I tried a few apps after getting separated in 2016, but the experience was truly a nightmare. I’m not a terrible-looking guy, but my looks are not what has ever drawn anyone to me, it’s how I comport myself. This is completely useless on these apps. It felt like high school popularity contests, which I was happy enough to escape the first time, except that to participate in any meaningful way, you have to pay.

I did find one use for them, and that was getting drunk with my girlfriend (who I met at work) and mocking profiles.

Sounds like he should jump over to adult entertainment.

What people should do has historically been at odds with their actual actions.

Yeah, I’ve just gotten to the point of trying to network instead of applying for things that don’t exist.

What platform were you searching on?

This sounds shockingly familiar. The job market is a scam these days, and I’ve been homeless for a year and a half. AI hype is just going to make it worse.

In my last job search, I sent out more than a thousand applications across multiple industries, got one interview, didn’t get the job. It’s very plausible.

An engineered one to finally end the middle class by grabbing assets at fire-sale prices so everyone has to rent, while simultaneously being able to further raise rents on account of all the new demand.