Jon Ronson On... The Internet Date from Hell

[@helenhortin7059]

Oh bless her heart. Very unsympathetic people out there - saw a few articles of people degrading her for being "so stupid" - There is nothing stupid about her. She got caught up in a web of lies and is a victim of a very cruel person. Brilliant episode! I really like Jon Ronsons' interview style.

[@johndoe-gt4rx]

You can be gullible AND be taken advantage of. In this case I think it's both.

[@stitcha123]

oh man, we're alllllll susceptible to manipulation and being fooled. It's foolish to think otherwise.

[@balthasardenner5216]

People always want to victim blame because it makes them feel safer. "This could never happen to me because x y z reason!"

[@mmabennyj]

This is simply the best half hour program ever!

[@ianbaldwinson86]

Fascinating ... and heartbreaking. Sounds like we are all being manipulated by sociopaths. All makes sense now.

[@jostpuur]

Just one theory: I believe that the guy had made some technical adjustments to the TV and video sets that allowed showing of the news to his wife with some time delay without the wife realizing it. If the guy had seen the news when they originally aired, it would appear to the wife as if he was having some insider knowledge. Messing up the woman with some gaslighting would be an aid in this too.

[@MaryTurnerThomsonAuthor]

Nice theory but (being the wife in question) I was getting the news from various sources including TV and Internet.

[@Xosidhe]

17:29-- I actually gasped!!

[@DoubleMKGaming]

This is the longest "date" i ever heard of..

[@ummagumma00]

Definitely break up & get away from a sociopath- you won't "hurt" them emotionally -but it can be dangerous because you are relinquishing their control.

[@contactkeithstack]

from the description "the program sounds like nothing else" what about This American life?

[@AntonSlavik]

Ah fuck sake. Most of the evidence points towards him being an actual spook. Just because the Courts went through this particular process and some woman rang her up on the phone means he _wasn't_? What about the fact that all loose ends need to be tied up? If I had an agent out there who got compromised by the police, I would frame him as a sociopath, let him get processed by the Courts, and "disappear" him from the prison. And what about him looking emaciated and suffering depression after his trip? What turned him into that? It's not that fucking hard to imagine.

[@IndependentGeorge76]

+Silver Pill did you listen to the end? He's serving 5 years in prison for bigamy, fraud, failure to notify sex offenders register of movements and deception.

[@AntonSlavik]

IndependentGeorge76 uh.. yeah. I made that pretty clear in my comment. Like I said, it means very little. If you make an ass out of yourself, you're not going to be helped by your organisation. What would we all have thought if he wasn't charged with those things? He's a spook and the people watching our backs against ISIS, North Korea, and Iran are unruly and rogue.

[@IndependentGeorge76]

+Silver Pill He was convicted of bigamy, and has 10 kids from 5 marriages. Do you really think the CIA would have an agent like that?

[@AntonSlavik]

IndependentGeorge76 I don't recall the 3 other marriages and there being 10 children. At the time that fact mustn't have made much of an impression on me. I come from a family of 7, myself.

[@MaryTurnerThomsonAuthor]

He is/was not a spook. He served about 3 years in jail and was then deported back to the USA in 2009, where he immediately went back online with a new name/age and posed as a British Intelligence officer, ripped off more women. The new victims though had something online to find about him because of my book and I helped one new victim set him up with a police sting and they arrested him in 2014. He took a 3 year plea deal in New Jersey for fraud and was jailed again. He was released in October last year and is once again out and up to his old tricks. Since he was deported I have been contacted by 6 new female victims. (By the way - I have now found 13 children by 6 different women - that will be the tip of the iceberg.)

[@pbezunartea]

Great show!, horrible audio... :P

[@andrewdeen1]

pbezunartea ?? audio seems perfectly fine..

[@HannahMarriott]

+pbezunartea I've just started listening and I honestly don't know if I can cope with the audio :S but I'll push through... I'll push through XD

[@IndependentGeorge76]

+pbezunartea sounds fine to me

[@Solaar_Punk]

Sounds fine

[@uploaderofmonkeybath.mp4761]

strange

[@AntonSlavik]

"If you have 50 friends, 2 of them are sociopaths" - Oh come on now! Life doesn't work like that. Maybe the restaurant example might be true, but people choose who they befriend, mostly on an unconscious level. Chances are most people with 50 friends has 10 sociopath friends... or most likely IS a sociopath themselves. Come on. 50 friends? lol Excellent show. Thanks for sharing.

[@johndoe-gt4rx]

That actually is how statistics work. 4 in 100 people are psychopaths so if you know 50 people than 4 "could" be psychopaths. Its not an exact figure it's a statistical chance

[@lynncrf]

That figure is not accounting for skewed populations. For example, my husband has excellent boundaries and would never fall for a sociopath's manipulations. However, a younger me would certainly have.

[@RainmanCT]

8:54 spolier - unreliable narrator!

[@johndoe-gt4rx]

He was so chivalrous he walked on the side of the road. Is this lady delusional?