This isn't the first time I have been played like this either. I play the online game, World of Warcraft where I have many online friends, some of whom I consider extended family. When I first started playing, I met a woman named Maria* (named changed). She was the Guild Leader, or head of all of us hooligans. She really adored me because I worked hard in keeping the guild a happy place and making things happen. I was promoted to an officer position and worked with other officers (my "extended" family
) and Maria as well.
One of the officers, we'll call him Bob, starting seeing Maria long distance as he was in Oregon and she was in California. Maria was constantly in and out of the hospital and she said she had breast cancer. We, the officers, would stay up late thinking best thoughts for her and also taking care of her guild for her.
Later we come to find out that she had tried to get Bob to buy her drugs which he would *never* do. He had also bought her gifts to make her feel better during her stays in the hospital, even jewelry and expensive chocolates. When he called the hospital to see if a Maria Mendoza was there (again, full name change) they said no, but a Juan Mendoza is and he was going in for the stomach surgery where they make you're stomach smaller so you eat less. Yea... they used whatever money had been sent to Maria to pay for that kind of thing. Maria had said that she lived with her sister, her brother-in-law, her nephew, her mother and her brother. When in actuality, it was her sister, her brother-in-law, HER SON, HER GAY HUSBAND (literally, he liked men), and her mother.
She played us the entire time. I told this woman secrets even about myself. When we finally cornered her, she threatened to tell everyone, about everyone else's dark secrets. It was horrible. We scared her off. (Internet fraud is illegal in California and Bob had connections) To top it all off, most of the time, it wasn't even Maria that was playing, it was her gay husband, Juan. He would call her over to speak on the mic so we could occasionally hear her speak. Fool me once, shame on you... fool me twice, shame on me.
Yes there are people like this in the world unfortunately. But as previous posters have said, what this does show is how a community banded together for the love of a member. Who or what, it doesn't matter, your ideals do not change. If you want to see something good out of this, quite honestly, I donated to the website, I had planned to but this bumped it up a bit quicker
Hugs to all. AD... you still rock!