Your Opinion

[Winnie G]

Ok I like your opinion.

I know sister who has her profile on a LDS single site not this one.

She has fallen for someone in Utah and they have spent more hours more then I could ever dream of chatting and hours calling each other.

Being in Canada we have phone planes that cover long distance calls for one flat rate so I drilled it in to her to drill it in to his head that she could call him for that flat rate.

Finley he understood and it sunk in and she is now footing this bill.

I tell you this in case you asked.

Ok this has gone on for a month and he is flying up to meet her and her son.

She is a single mother and he is a young divorced RM.

He looks normal and down right hunky if she asked me and she did.

He has not seen her yet, no on line photo in her computer. I offered to take one and email it to her but she said no. She looks like a “very young” 32 year old. Six years difference, she is older. She not eye candy but man look twice.

He popped the question yesterday.

The big question is if you were a betting person what would you say their chances are?

I have encouraged this in hopes to mend a very broken hart that has left her lonely for many years. She has taken up husband shopping like extreme sports.

[Marsha]

He popped the question yesterday.

.

He asked her to marry him? That question?

I would say that they need to take it slow, but can it work? Absoulty. I met my man onlne, then in real life a few days later. Within 2 weeks I moved to his city. We have been together for 3 years now and have never had any problems. It was meant to be and I am so very greatful for the internet otherwise I would still be a lonley "old" woman. (NOTE: I said OLD loosly, old I am not)

This man has accepted my family as his. Together we have one beautiful grandson. My children are "his" as well as the grandbaby. There is no his or mine, they are all ours as well as anything else in this life.

Tell her to be careful, check on her while he is here. Make sure that she has a "safe call." If you dont hear from her within a specific period of time, go and see her. When she calls, have a "code" word to give you or sentence such as "So how Ed today" or "What is the lesson for RS this week." That way you will know that all is ok. If not ok, then she can ask, "When are you COMING over this week?" If you hear that, get your tail in gear and go over there NOW.

Be sure that you, Winnie, have his peronal information. Name, Address, Telephone number. This is for obvious reasons.

You can never be too careful, but with safe calls in place you can be assured that someone else knows what is going on and be there to help if necessry.

Let us know how it goes.

Marsha

[Winnie G]

Yes, he has proposed.

Check on her while he is here

I have painted my self in to a corner on that one.

He asked to stay at a member’s home wile he is here and before I gave it a second thought, I told her he was welcome here.

That way I can be the mother hen on this, we live 20 min out of town on the military base so it is a long way to go with out a car. My son is going to the collage near were she lives so he can drop him off in town and then pick him up.

He has told her since they have both "Bin out there" they will not be spending any time alone.

She has been a member for a year yesterday so they plane on a temple wedding.

She has talked to his mother and a couple of his brothers during this last month and marathon phone calls.

She asked me if I thought she was crazy and I said “No that two of my sons meet their sweethearts on line and I know others who have meet and married thanks to LDS sites”

I also remembered the marathon phone calls that took up 90 % of my courtship when my husband and I meet. I worked three jobs and had four small children he worked shift work and that is how we know each other so well when we married.

I think it was the best thing that ever happened us.

My only concern is she will be selling off the contents of her apartment and packing up her son and moving to Utah.

She is what I call high maintenance and never slows down and some of her worldly history will send her in to a high dive of a culture shock in up tight Provo.

He laughed and said her high speed is very much like his mother so will see.

We drove her back from Stake Conference this last year and for two in half hours she did not shut up once. I even put a CD on and she kept on talking.

When she gets a bee in her bonnet, I giggle and say “Good heavens girl you need a Valium”.

Good amounts of the ward here think she is nuts and cant see pass all this. The bishop thinks I am some kind of Saint and hugs me once in a wile.

She knows that others talk behind her back; it is hard to miss the younger women of the ward rolling their eyes when she enters the room. It makes me angry that some have even asked her to really changer who she is to make them more conferrable. Remarks like “You’re never going to get a husband that way” and then there I am wiping her face when I find her in the bathroom crying. People call her “Crazy sister so and so”.

It started to really damage her self-esteem. I heard the elders say it to her face and I told then flat out to stop calling her that! I put my foot down with her and told her to not allow any one to call her that. We have had long talks about not allowing what others think to change her core self.

Ether you like her high speed or they don’t that is their problem.

So Yah you could say in many ways I have painted myself in to a corner, good old mother hen Winnie.

[Guest Crazy Horse]

As I said earlier somewhere around here, I know two peole who met on this site and are happily married and live in my branch. So it can happen. But... B)

[Heather]

There are quite a few who have met here and gotten married. Just need to be careful. She could run a background check on him if she really wanted to.

Also, one thing I would recommend is Vonage. It's telephone that runs through your high speed internet. I pay $25/month for unlimited/free long distance anywhere in the USA and canada, and $0.03/minute to the UK. (If you're interested, let me know, and I'll send you a referal. I get a month free, and you get a month free if you sign up that way.) We have saved so much money getting all of the phone features (voice mail, call waiting, caller id, etc) included and where we have a lot of family in Scotland, it has really cut down on our phone bills.

[Palerider]

we have 3 couples from our Branch that have met on line.....just remember....caution...use it wisely

[Heather]

Here's what I think of chances:

I think a lot of what happens on the internet isn't based fully in reality. I know a lot of people like the idea, because you can fall in love with the real person, and not judge by appearance. But when you meet up, there still has to be some level of physical attraction. The fact that he says he wants to marry her, and hasn't even seen her, sends up red flags to me. I don't want to judge the guy, but I wouldn't marry anyone or even consider anything near that until I had actually been with the person. Anyone wanting to marry me who hasn't seen me would fall into my category of psycho. That's just my personal beliefs on it. It's so easy to get a picture scanned in or take one from a photo disk--if I was getting serious with someone, serious enough to meet them, I would really be questioning why they're not taking a little time to send a photo.

There is so much more to a person and so much more to a relationship that can't be experienced online. The best way I can compare it to is the first few dates with someone, and how you feel so "in love." You don't know any of their "flaws" because they don't show you any of that at first. (And we all know we have them.) On the internet it's even worse, because it's so easy to mask all of the flaws and become whoever you want to be. She shouldn't be looking to rush into anything. She should look at this as a "lets meet him and see how it goes." I don't think they shouldn't be walking into it with so many expectations. Marrying and living with someone is a huge wake-up call. No one should rush into that, especially when you consider our beliefs that you're going to be with this person forever.

Where they have both been in a long term relationship before (assumption with being a mom and a divorcee) I would think that both of them would want to make sure that this was the right choice and take the time to find out. Besides that, where do they plan to live? Have they considered immigration laws? If he wants her to move here, why would she even considering uprooting her child and moving away from family unless she knew for sure this was the right guy?

So chances? Anything is possible. I say their chances are the greatest if they take the time to make sure it's right and plan everything so that it will be best for both of them.

[Fiannan]

I think people should see each other's pictures at least.

However, I think such a couple has as good a chance as any other. I personally think online meetings are far more superior to the current singles program the Church has. This is especially true for people that don't fit the cookie cutter norm. At least in LDS dating sites you can just let people know who you are without putting on any show and maybe you will meet someone you normally would never encounter.

[Aristotle]

Ok I like your opinion.

Winnie,

I met my husband, Aristotle, at a stake fireside. Eleven days later, we eloped to the Temple. We have been married for over 20 yrs now. I would venture to say that many who correspond via email or in chatrooms, know one another better than my husband and I did when we got married. ;-)

With that said, I would add that if I were serious about someone on the internet and planned to meet--even in an LDS forum--I would first hire a P.I. to have him investigated.

- Mrs. A

[Sugarbay]

Anyone that says they want ot marry you based on online conversation and phone calls is still a nut. Being the recipient of such nuttiness I can tell you that red flags went up all over the place and a Freak Alert went off. Just in time.

[Guest Monica]

Have you seen the commercials on television for EHarmony.com?

[Guest Syble]

It isn't too much safer out on the main stream when looking for someone. My daughter was being stalked for over a year by a guy she met at work. They dated off and on for a few months and when he became a busive she dumped him. He then started to stalk her.

She is now afraid to date anyone.

[Guest MrsS]

Winnie,

I met my husband on a LDS single site. We pm'd, chatted & voiced chatted on yahoo, we talked on the phone. The first phone call was for 10 hours! Both of us have had bad marriages. Both of us were sick and tired of the stupid head games that are often associated with dating.

I had no time for that nonsense. I had written to a couple of LDS Gentlemen, and after two pm's from them, I knew they were NOT LDS, and not what I wanted to get hooked up with.

My Dear Husband, had been on the single sites for about a year. He had come across more loonies, crazies and non-lds posing as lds.

Believe me, we LDS have our own lingo ~ and after a while it is real easy to spot the phonies, wanna-be's and anti's. They just can not get the lingo down right.

I was unemployed at the time, thus I was home a lot. I was going out on job interviews, and going to the Employment Department for retraining, but I was also home a lot. Dear Husband was working and at the same time cleaning up his rental house that had been trashed by his meth head tenant. He would get up at 5am, pick up some mexican workers, drive 50 miles to his house, work outside until 9am, then work inside until noon. Take them all to a fast food Mexican joint ~ feed them, drive 50 miles back, drop them off ~ go home, clean up and and get to work at 3 pm. He would get off work at 11 pm, go home and sleep until 4:30 am and start all over again. He did this three days a week.

When we started conversing on the site ~ he was nearly done with the clean up and renovation. We would be on the internet for hours. I would forget to eat.

We asked each other every question we could think of. From the mundane to the in depth spiritual, and later on to the really personal ones.

He asked me if I was for real or if I was just playing a game. I told him I was fed up with the head games and YES I was for real. Wouldn't it be the stupidest thing in the world to lie and then when we met/ possibly married ~ those lies would be found out! Lies are always found out ~ sooner than later. Truth is forever.

To prove to him that I was for real, I gave him the ward and stake that I was in. I told him to have his Bishop look up the name and number and to call and talk to my Bishop. He did the same. We both talked to our Bishops AND they talked to each other!!

We have Family Home Evenings on the internet nearly every night. We prayed together, alone and with our Bishop(s). I fasted and went to the Temple. He fasted and went to the Temple.

My Darling Husband is 63 years old. I am 53. Neither one of us has a lot of time to waste on the stupid dating rituals, and the even stupider head games.

There isn't anything ~ and I mean ANYTHING that he doesn't know about me. I left the church for 28 years, and was sooooo far from the doctrines of the church. Mostly it was the Word of Wisdom, but there were other things too. He knows these things ~ because I told him. He knows about my 28 year marriage from Hell.

I know all about him too. His three marriages from hell, his life of debauchery ( he wasn't as bad a kid as I had been, so my using the word debauchery is teasing him)

We proposed to each other ~ I typed it in chat and he typed it in chat at the same exact time! Then we both typed: When ~ Where??, at the same time!

He took time from work to drive 1200 miles to get me. I packed up my belongings, gave away over half of it too, got a large dog carrier for my two cats and we got married. Because of the time frame, we didn't get married/sealed in the Temple. My Temple was closed for cleaning, and I was not going to travel with him and not be married! Neither one of us wanted that.

We will be sealed in the Temple in a couple of months ~ again, we have to wait for a time frame and his job is a royal pisser when it comes to that.

We have been married for 18 months. We have found our soul mates! This marriage is truly blessed by God. Our life has not been all peaches and cream either. His youngest brother is a meth addict, he abused and stole from his own mother. She has advanced Alzhemizer's, and they (baby bro, his wife and 4 kids) were sponging off of her, living in filth. Filth you would not believe! We took her from her home, cleaned her up some and put her on a plane to go live with middle son and his wife. We are now trying to clear up the mess baby bro has caused by stealing and selling her identity!

We weren't married 3 months when my oldest sister passed away. So I had to go back to the Pacific NW, via plane for her memorial and to help my family take care of her things.

Then the next month my Darling was put in the hospital, his blood would not clot. For a little over a week they pumped him full of all sorts of things, then they did a "Windows" on him. Shut down his immune system with chemo and rebooted it. That worked. He went into the hospital on the 21st of Dec and was released on the 1st of Jan.

Winnie, no doubt there are crazies out there who prey on the LDS. We are such a trusting peoples. BUT these crazies prey on others from the other single sites too.

Your friend was so fortunate to have you there. She did it the right way ~ by having a third party there.

By the way, in our stake here alone, there are 4 couples who have met on the internet and married. The most recent was just before Katrina hit. The earliest was 3 years ago. All marriages are strong and healthy!

PS: we only "knew" each other two weeks!

[begood2]

Mrs. S,

I'm happy for you and your husband. I hope that you two have many wonderful years to enjoy together. :)

[lisajo]

Thats awesome Mrs. S! my oldest son has an internet relation ship and i was terribly worried till his girl friend emailed me and told me she would tell me any thing i needed to know about her, soon we were talking to each other threw email and phone, i told her i was worried, what if she meets my son and she changes her mind? how do i know who you really are? well in the past few months i have gotten to know her i have really gotten to like her, we send things back and forth in the mail, and have had many talks i feel much better now, i asked my son if they ever brake up can we still keep her? LOL

[Winnie G]

I receive a phone call last night, to make it short.

The visit was a Bed Idea. He was a self-rightus donkey.

He wined a lot about the cold “Its Canada” Duh?

He joined us for church and when asked how he liked church he called our ward a bunch of Sunday Mormons.

He judged this sister unfairly and made up his mind in her driveway before she opened the door.

Therefore, a month later she sent me an email wile I was on the phone with her.

She has decided to leave the church, she is not happy and has not been happy for must of her first year in the church from the get go.

I told her my friendship did not hinge on her membership in the church. Once she heard that and that I meant what I said her stress level went way down and I could hear it in her voice. That and the cup of coffee and smoke she was having.

I think her experience on line with other LDS members has been a mistake from the get go.

She has informed her on line friends of her decision, they are now dumping on her calling her an apostate, and that her actions will dame the sole of her son.

“Way to go Members of the true church” her quote.

I will visit with her today she would like to give me the extensive collation of books witch she has read since investigating the church.

She has read more church books then I have ever have and I have been in the church 28 years. I asked her a question last night that someone said in Sunday school that I have never heard of and she said “That’s not doctrine those are Masonic teachings”.

I looked it up and she was right on the money.

So who could teach who I thought.

[pushka]

Hi Winnie...I'm sorry to hear that your friend's romance has turned out so badly, and that it has coloured her opinion of your church too...that and the opinions of the other LDS she has come into contact with online...I'm really pleased that she has you there to support her through all of this, and hope that she finds the happiness she is looking for eventually.

[Winnie G]

It was a whole screw up from beginning to the end.

The elders pushed her in to her baptism to soon even with her saying “I am not ready yet”. They told her it would all come together once you are baptized. Yah OK

Another case of wet first, teach doctrine later.

She moved here last summer, her one year was last month.

I have seen this done with so many people it never comes out good in the end. Even my own mother did not take my advice-telling take your time. She is no longer a member on record.

This sister had only quit smoking three days before her baptism and when she took it up again she felt horrible guilt and tried to hide it.

I have never once seen new members that are rushed in to a life altering experience end up staying. They may come back later but it should be done the first time.

These one-line friends became so two faced and once they received her little email saying she had made up her mind, it was not working for her. They called her an apostate and said they had been told not to associate with apostates that they would fall away.

Take about that extra push to a falling victim.

My hart sinks for her she is heading hard and fast back to “worldly ways”, there is only hallow friendships, and one night stands waiting for her.

She has a date with a soldier she was introduced to last weekend next Friday.

All I can do is take her letter she has typed up for the bishop and tell him she has had it.

I can be her friend but there are limits to friendship. I cannot support some of the changes she says she is looking forward to again. It is a good thing she does not have a car, if she got loose on this base she would be like a fox in a chicken coop.

All I can do is just try to understand.