Why not convince one of the young women to tell the guy's wife? They probably don't have a spouse of their own to worry about.
For the apo-approved reasons heebie cites, I won't ask you to explain here what you expect the impact to your own marriage of the blowback from upsetting a sociopath might be, but that's worth thinking about and preparing for before you do anything. I don't mean that you shouldn't do anything, but making sure your husband won't be blindsided by the disclosures about you that may come back at you seems important.
And to maybe clarify, what I mean is that you shouldn't let any shame you feel about getting ensnared keep you from saying anything, because predators and abusers are often protected by that dynamic. But you also need to be strong enough to handle what you'll have to handle if/when you do disclose what's up.
A few basic questions:
1. How sure are you that it is all being done by the same person - i.e. that all these identities really belong to the same guy? (Identity theft is a thing. Especially with behaviour like this.) If the answer is anything other than "yes, certain beyond reasonable doubt", then DO NOTHING.
2. If the answer to question 1 is yes: do you have reasonable grounds to believe that this guy has committed any crime under the laws of the jurisdiction where he lives? If so, then you should report him right away - anonymously if necessary. Eighteen-year-old women are adults, though, and having online affairs with adults is not a crime (sleazy though it may be at times).
It seems to me that there are people here who stand to be seriously harmed by this guy, which means doing something is warranted if there's an effective way to get him to stop or dial back what he's doing. If telling his wife is likely to affect his behavior in a positive way then that's what you should do. That's hard to figure out, but it's really the key issue for making a decision. I guess I lean weakly in favor of telling. Thorn's caution about blowback is worth taking seriously.
Huh. I don't know, and don't really get, the details of the online communities he's being predatory in (like, if he has secret identities, how have you got access to multiples of them). I would be thinking about outing him in those communities; introducing various girls/women he's pursuing to each other; generally trying to screw up his process, to the extent it can be done in a fairly brisk/not involving yourself in ongoing stalking this guy way. That seems more meaningful and productive than bringing his wife into it.
But of course the details of whether that makes any sense at all depend on what, where, and how he's doing what he's doing, and whether outing him in his favored communities is practicable. (And what Thorn said about blowback to you; I'd count on anything that had been private between you and this guy to be taken public, possibly to your husband, so you want to figure that out.)
And what Ajay said about really wanting to be sure you know what you're talking about before you do anything.
He conducts these relationships through public blogs (on, yes, tumblr) so it's fairly easy for me to see what he is up to. He never gives up any truly identifying information but leaves a clear trail of breadcrumbs from one blog to the next (posting something from his new blog as the last post on the old blog). They all have the same look with the same fake information about himself. There is certainly no definitive standing there, but I am certain that each of these blogs are his.
The typical girl he goes after is a high-schooler who says she is 18. So, yes, adults (assuming some of these girls aren't lying), but just barely. He also posts a lot of stolen naked selfies of teen girls that are likely not eighteen (gak).
Thorn is likely right that he is relying on the vulnerability of his victims to keep him safe from being outed. I have no idea if he knows that I know what's up: I never confronted him, I just completely ghosted.
But not what Ajay said (implied?) that you should mind your own business unless you're certain that he is literally violating the law. Details matter, but there is definitely behavior along the lines you describe that I would consider a good reason for bringing about social opprobrium/condemnation even if it wasn't illegal.
(And what Thorn said about blowback to you; I'd count on anything that had been private between you and this guy to be taken public, possibly to your husband, so you want to figure that out.)
Yeah, this too. His wife may or may not be aware of what's going on; Amelia's husband, presumably, is not. This is not a great position to be in, tactically.
10.1: what I meant was that if he's breaking the law, she should definitely act; not that if he wasn't she should do nothing.
The typical girl he goes after is a high-schooler who says she is 18.
Somebody could try catfishing him.
I would want to wait a long time before even thinking about doing anything until I felt like my judgement wasn't clouded by being upset about the breakup.
There are possibilities here where you'd need to report him to the police or the people running whatever fora, but I don't think there's any scenario here where telling his wife is a good idea.
9: oh, ugh. But that should make it fairly easy to follow the advice in 7.1 while remaining anonymous, right?
Tell me why it makes sense to not tell her.
Because you're married with children; you don't know what is going on between him and his wife; you cannot tell his wife without implicating yourself in his deceptions; you don't know how his wife would react; and you don't know what might be the repercussions for your marriage.
Is he in any of the photos or are any photos at his place? Same city?
I'd say don't meddle unless you're sure of more than online photo cajoling. If you're finished with him, then his shitty online behavior is not your problem.
7.1 sounds rather like a bad idea. If the guy is doing something illegal, best to get the authorities involved. If he's not, he's a sleaze, but Amelia inserting herself into a bunch of drama seems like a way to make her life suck for very little benefit, because it does seem, given his habits, that it would involve a lot of internet stalking.
9.1: As described, I'd probably feel certain enough to do something on that basis.
Tumblr I don't really get, functionally. Like, I see individual Tumblr blogs, but the whole community aspect of it with followers and so on I've never really worked out in detail. This seems a little stalkery, but how would it work if you set up a Tumblr blog of your own with links to all of his blogs, a quick description of your understanding of his MO, and a warning to anyone who sends him pictures that he's probably going to post them publicly, and notify everyone you're aware of that he's pursuing/involved with in the least intrusive possible way, and ask them to spread the word to anyone else who they think is involved with him.
This may be insanely overinvolved of you to get -- it's off the top of my head, and I'm not confident at all it's a good idea.
19: I share your puzzlement over how this is actually working. Surely his latest target must be able to see that his tumblr's full of pictures of his previous targets?
If he's posting images of girls you know are underaged, easy peasy, report him to the authorities and he'll be in a world of trouble. Otherwise, he's just one sleazeball in a world of (much worse) sleazeballs, and not your issue, no matter how stupid he made you feel.
20: Yeah, there's that. If this is all in public enough that it's clear to our esteemed aviatrix what's going on, that may mean that it's, um, non-deceptive enough in relation to the girls/women he's pursuing that maybe this is not something where action needs to be taken? Still sounds incredibly sleazy, of course.
I guess what I'm thinking is that I can see value in warning people about someone who's predatory. But if your basis for thinking of him as predatory is public information that his targets really do have already... I don't know if there's much of a point to it.
This guy sounds gross and worthy of condemnation and shaming, but unless you're sure he's doing something affirmatively criminal that absolutely requires you to act my strong guess is that it's best for YOU to just forget the whole thing and focus on getting yourself back together. Getting more heavily involved with online shaming or whatever has possible outcomes for you that range from you being way too psychologically involved in this mess and unable to move on for a while (best case scenario) to, as others have said, horrible blowback on your life, marriage, etc from a sociopath (worst case). It's all downside for you.
Unless the behavior is so awful that you believe you're morally compelled to sacrifice yourself to protect others, I'd just stay as far away as possible, and ISTM that in this case "is it actually illegal" is a good enough dividing line between "bad thing you need to get involved in" and "bad thing to run away from and move on" that unless you're extremely certain he's committing a crime, and it sounds like you're not, I'd just run away and move on, for your own sake.
Age of consent isn't eighteen in most states, AFAIK, which complicates the reasoning in 24. (Admittedly, again without looking it up, I think eighteen is the age beneath which pictures are illegal.)
25: The reason so few people in our age bracket know how to pronounce Nabokov.
26: Right, typically the rules about naked photos are much stricter than the rules about actual sex. Hence all the news stories about people getting charged with child porn for taking selfies.
Hence all the news stories about people getting charged with child porn for taking selfies.
The last one of those annoyed the crap out of me -- all the headlines were about a kid getting prosecuted for a selfie, and then when you read the story, he had naked pictures of a bunch of other teens as well as of himself. You can reasonably argue that child-porn laws shouldn't be used on teens exchanging naked pictures with each other, but that wasn't a prosecution that was about the selfie.
Don't leave comments on any blog he has the keys to!
27 is something I just learned now.
Don't say I never did anything for you.
To clarify: his new blog makes no mention of his old blogs, it's his old blog that links to the new one. So someone seeing his most recent blog wouldn't necessarily know about his past.
I'm definitely on the side of not saying anything. It's been close to ten months and I've yet to say anything, why start now? I've mostly gotten over it, but I recently found an old email from him, checked to see if he was still up to no good, and confirmed that he is. Since then I've had a nagging sense of doubt about whether doing nothing is the right approach.
Perhaps he has an agreement with his wife, but I doubt it. When he were friends, he mentioned repeatedly that his wife would be furious if she knew and our thing was almost entirely platonic and between two full-grown adults. Not the multiple online teenage girlfriends he now has.
I'd love to subtly screw with him and try and shut down his operation, but I'm also not interested in wasting any of my limited free time on him.
I'll keep that in mind, along with the speech contest judge who told me about the "nuclear" thing.
Age of consent is lower than 18 in many places HOWEVER in cases of big age differences with one party below 18 there's a "corruption of minors" charge (a misdemeanor here) that can apply and at least locally prosecutors will be motivated to use this if they're really skeeved out.
I'd love to subtly screw with him
Bad commenter! Wrong! Do not stick your face in the blender!
Unusual amount of consensus here on how to solve the problem, which suggests that there's a clear right answer. Ignore and move on unless clear evidence of crime, if evidence of crime go to police and let them handle it.
Now that we've solved the problem for real, can't someone come up with a fiendishly diabolical yet untraceable means of exacting revenge? You could call the A-Team, if you can find them, and if they exist.
I'm also not interested in wasting any of my limited free time on him.
This, on the other hand, sounds sane.
can't someone come up with a fiendishly diabolical yet untraceable means of exacting revenge?
Catfish the guy under the guise of an 18-year-old girl. Simultaneously, catfish all his 18-year-old former girlfriends under the guise of, I dunno, someone or other.
Arrange (in your teenage persona) a date with the guy at a given location.
Arrange (in your other persona) dates with all the other girls at the same location at the same time.
Watch and liveblog.
Can't you just buy a no-contact phone and, while being untraceable, pretend to be a high school girl? That sounds unhealthy, but at least it's an option.
Providing the girls with leopard skins and thrysuses (I have no idea of the correct Greek plural there) would be a nice touch.
Like what Odysseus pulled on Achilles, but with GHB instead of spears.
Oh my God, there's another Bush brother?
I don't expect this to be met with much hospitality, but "I'd love to mess up his life" is for one's diary or pseudonymous Tumblr, not real life.
Re Achilles, this is a horrifyingly fascinating account of what happens when your tendon completely detaches:
http://pointemagazine.com/issues/octobernovember-2015/true-grit
Good news is - no pain! Bad news, it rolls up your leg ...
It's really a shame there are so few videos of her dancing, hopefully someone has a stash somewhere.
You could always arrange for him to send a confession about all this stuff to his wife/friends/co-workers/etc.
Do not stick your face in the blender!
I see I'm not really needed in this thread, but absolutely this.
I still don't get 27. The internet says that the pronunciation is roughly what's in the song.
But, on topic, I've not tried to put my face in a blender, but I think that if I did, the blades would be at least three inches from my face unless I somehow modified the pitcher.
However it's pronounced, you can be sure that VN had intense, contemptuous theories about how it should be pronounced.
From the horse's mouth, and explicitly rejecting the Police pronunciation:
Q: As with Gogol and even James Agйe, there is occasionally confusion about the pronunciation of your last name. How does one pronounce it correctly?
A: It is indeed a tricky name. It is often misspelt, because the eye tends to regard the "a" of the first syllable as a misprint and then tries to restore the symmetrical sequence by triplicating the "o"-- filling up the row of circles, so to speak, as in a game of crosses and naughts. No-bow-cough. How ugly, how wrong. Every author whose name is fairly often mentioned in periodicals develops a bird-watcher's or caterpillar-picker's knack when scanning an article. But in my case I always get caught by the word "nobody" when capitalized at the beginning of a sentence. As to pronunciation, Frenchmen of course say Nabokoff, with the accent on the last syllable. Englishmen say Nabokov, accent on the first, and Italians say Nabokov, accent in the middle, as Russians also do. Na-bo-kov. A heavy open "o" as in "Knickerbocker". My New England ear is not offended by the long elegant middle "o" of Nabokov as delivered in American academies. The awful "Na-bah-kov" is a despicable gutterism.
Well, you can make your choice now. Incidentallv, the first name is pronounced Vladeemer-- rhyming with "redeemer"-- not Vladimir rhyming with Faddimere (a place in England, I think).
Apparently I've been pronouncing Faddimere wrong also.
55: Maybe you need a new blender.
57 has decided me to keep pronouncing it the way Sting does.
Going with the despicable gutterism? It's a choice.
61: It works better that way during karaoke.
Vlad, you don't even know how to pronounce your own name.
It took me three reads to figure out what was the right way to pronounce his name. How can this guy be a famous novelist?
(I am feeling guilty about 39. I apologize for the tone there, and ask that you imagine I was a well-mannered person saying something substantively similar, if you would?)
I really only quibble with the topography of it.
40: If the A team isn't available, maybe those guys from Leverage could help out. They're somewhat less awesome than A team, as any group without Mr. T must be, but they're probably good enough.
I pity the fool who can't put his face far enough into the pitcher of a blender to lose his nose to the blade.
Can't you just buy a no-contact phone and, while being untraceable, pretend to be a high school girl?
Moby, you should take your kinky requests elsewhere. I hear Tumblr is good for this sort of thing.
Nabokov has always seemed like the worst kind of in love with his own cleverness jackass. Opinion confirmed!
67: No offense taken. I have resolutely decided not to stick my face in the blender.
Hey, anyone know where a nice married woman can meet a nice mostly-sane married man for a fun, online friendship?
Sorry, now that I know it's an option, I'm only interested in eighteen-year-olds.
Lur seeks flaneuse for online badinage, repartee and boob shots. No 19-year-olds need apply.
Has anyone ever been more of his kind of thing than Mr. T? I don't know what exactly I mean by that, but something like: tough guy with unique, unreproduceable look and set of bizarre catchphrases becomes culturally ubiquitous, while doing nothing but being himself with his look and catchphrases. I can't think of any comparable person to Mr. T, ever, not even Nabokov.
Aaahnold isn't as far out on the spectrum, but is the closest I can think of.
Pro wrestlers are sort of close, but Mr. T didn't even wrestle. He was just Mr. T.
Arnold is close-ish but he was a real actor and last of the liberal-ish Republican governors. Zsa Zsa Gabor feels closer, maybe, but also less unique and of-herself-alone than Mr. T.
84: You stole my answer. I guess I'll go with Charo instead.
A heavy open "o" as in "Knickerbocker". … The awful "Na-bah-kov" is a despicable gutterism.
Maybe this is my typically Californian meager complement of vowel sounds, but I have no idea what distinction Vladeemir is trying to draw here.
It's not Zsa Zsa's fault that Eva existed.
87: You stole my answer. And my children are obsessed with her because she's on the Pee-Wee Xmas special. (This is also why they suspect Grace Jones may be a cousin of the one of them who had that last name pre-adoption and thus a cousin to all of them now.)
unique, unreproduceable look and set of bizarre catchphrases becomes culturally ubiquitous, while doing nothing but being himself with his look and catchphrases
Nearly all of the Muppets.
Arnold is close-ish but he was a real actor
Wasn't Mr. T a real actor?
It is kind of intereting that these guys were products of the 80s, when bulging muscles and a few well-deployed catchphrases could bring you international fame and fortune. Still I think Mr. T stands alone in both the bizarreness of his look/catchphrases and in being entirely complete and whole in his bizarre look and catchphrase-ness, without need for anything more.
88: God knows why I remember several different quotes from Nabokov on how to pronounce his name, but somewhere he rhymes it with "gawk of". [Googling....]
I once composed the following rhyme for my students:
The querulous gawk of
A heron at night
Prompts Nabokov
To write.
Does that make the central vowel clearer?
95: sure, but that's the vowel I would use in "bah".
Huh, Pee-Wee IS a good answer, as is Grace Jones I guess. The 80s!
Wasn't Mr. T a real actor?
Tigre thinks that Mr. T drives around Lake Forest in his convertible yelling at his neighbors.
Which, I guess, is fair enough. (That article is priceless.)
96: Oh, then the problem is your Californian impoverished vowels. They're completely different to me.
Pee-Wee IS a good answer
We're getting pretty far from the "being himself" criterion. I remember reading that Rubens needed weeks to get into character.
We need ttaM to pronounce all the variations of Nabokov.
So Ms. Earhart can post the sound files on her Tumblr?
100: It's spelled "wanks" in the U.K.
A guy gets caught masturbating in a theater ONE time...
That's why you took your extended break?
There was a really unnecessary childporn prosecution, if I remember the details accurately. Didn't they prosecute him for a couple of images of arguably underage models in a large collection of vintage porn almost entirely depicting adults?
We're getting pretty far from the "being himself" criterion.
This is a good excuse (not that much of an excuse is needed) to remember the case when prince rented Carlos Boozer's house.
"He made it purple," Boozer said. "He wanted to put his personal touch on it because he wanted to make it feel like home. I was kind of worried about that when I saw the house. But Prince was great. I had a conversation with him. He changed everything back the way it was before he moved out.
"He did some very specific things that were built for him and his lifestyle, which is very different than mine."
Boozer's attorneys eventually dismissed the suit and Boozer said he signed a disclosure agreement not to talk about specifics.
"He knows how to live," Boozer said. "I'll put it that way."
Since we're coming up on Halloween, I guess Elvira might fit the bill. I mean she started out as a TV hostess, but for the last several decades, she's been making a living just being that character.
It's true though, that Elvira has clear antecedent, so she's not quite as unique as Mr. T.
106: That apparently did happen. I'd forgotten or never knew about it. Related, I was disappointed the Wikipedia didn't have a list for "People Arrested for Public Masturbation" or something.
I had the same question as 88, but 96 baffles me.
I'm so self-conscious about developing a Pittsburgh accent that I sometimes end up completely mispronouncing the ow sound, sort of like veering across the yellow line to avoid a small pothole.
Jimmie Walker fits into this discussion. Dynomite!
Hey, anyone know where a nice married woman can meet a nice mostly-sane married man for a fun, online friendship?
Here?
45. Thysus is a Latinisation anyway, so you'd be good with thysi. Greek would be thysoi.
yes to no meddling but if one WERE to meddle pretty sure the correct intervention is almost always telling people's mothers.
Yes, we have no meddling. We have no meddling today.
I don't know what exactly I mean by that, but something like: tough guy with unique, unreproduceable look and set of bizarre catchphrases becomes culturally ubiquitous, while doing nothing but being himself with his look and catchphrases
Arnie. Chuck Norris. Bruce Lee. The Rock. Dame Edna Everage.
Pro wrestlers are sort of close, but Mr. T didn't even wrestle.
Paris Hilton, Mr. T, Elvira, Charo and Pee Wee Herman in "The League of People Who Are Famous for Being Famous and Also Kind of Weird".
Let's face it, the case for Mr. T's uniqueness doesn't really stand up.
Isn't the big hulky dude sort of a timeless trope found in all times all places? Maybe M. T pulled it off in more minimalist form.
Michael Clarke Duncan was the minimalist version of that. He wasn't gimmicky.
Mr. T is so much more than just a big hulky dude.
I'll trust the experts, I know just about nothing about him!
Okay, I'm starting to be convinced that Mr. T is nearly unique in terms of how specific and identifiable his persona is. The wikipedia entry has this quote and I can immediately hear it in the Mr. T voice.
He gave up virtually all his gold, one of his identifying marks, after helping with the cleanup after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He said, "As a Christian, when I saw other people lose their lives and lose their land and property...I felt that it would be a sin before God for me to continue wearing my gold. I felt it would be insensitive and disrespectful to the people who lost everything, so I stopped wearing my gold."
Mr. T is not actually big. He's very short.
Mr. T is not actually big. He's quite short. I mean, he was totally built. He just is small.
Great thanks internet. Let me rephrase.
That's why he boxed in Rocky. Stallone is only 5' 3".
The internet says he's 5'10". Is that "very short" now? What are we, Dutch?
We're cheap, if that's what you mean.
Stallone is only 5' 3".
But girls could not resist his stare?
Yeah I was wrong about the pro wrestling thing, but I don't think 115 is right or holds up. Mr. T wasn't just a John Wayne/Arnold style actor who played basically the same sort of role in a similar style in tons of action movies. He sua sponte created a totally original, completely bizarre personna marked by a totally unique look and his own catchphrases. Then he totally lived into the personna that was his creation and did nothing else, becoming then both famous and inimitable. I think Pee Wee comes closer, but Ogged is right that it's possible to separate out Paul Reubens and Pee Wee Herman, whereas Mr. T is a seamless whole on and off screen.
Paris Hilton is WAY less weird and creative than Mr. T. She gets points for self-fashioning, but she basically just took on the well-known role of the dissolute socialite and modernized it for her time. Mr. T was a true original.
Arnie. Chuck Norris. Bruce Lee. The Rock. Dame Edna Everage.
I would pay Manhattan prices to see that motion picture.
Do you go to Hoboken or something if you want to see a movie now?
135 Less weird than restoring vintage radio sets?
The Rock would be a good example if he hadn't tried so hard to convince people to call him "Dwayne Johnson"* or to tone things down in his movies and real life.
*I mean, no one does but he still tries.
Ooh! It's like THAT thread all over again!
Also, and I don't say this lightly, with the possible exception of the Action Park, NJ page, that Mr. T Wikipedia page is the greatest thing on Wikipedia.
139: Didn't he have to do that because that horrible guy who paid for his wife's losing Senate race owned a trademark on "The Rock"?
This might be my favorite wikipedia passage.
During these years he protected, among others, sixteen prostitutes, nine welfare recipients, five preachers, eight bankers, ten school teachers, and four store owners.[16] As his reputation improved, however, he was contracted to guard, among others, seven clothes designers, five models, seven judges, three politicians, six athletes and forty-two millionaires.
Sort of on topic: Your t-shirt confirms my uncomfortable theories.
That photo of Nancy Reagan with Mr. T as Santa Claus is...not what I was expecting to see!
139: I once had a customer service rep who referred to The Rock and then profusely apologized for not having called him Dwayne Johnson.
145: That photo is 95% of my positive memories of the Reagan administration.
The other 5% is for not shooting Gorby at a summit.
Should I apply for a job in Philadelphia? I live in the normal end of the same state, but my position is ending. It's not a sure thing if I do apply, but I think I'd be a strong candidate. Likely higher pay but much more monitoring of internet.
146: Were you calling about defects in Duane "The Rock" Johnson merchandise you had ordered, or did an unrelated customer-service conversation just happen to alight upon The Rock?
You should apply. You probably won't accept the offer if it comes, I would imagine. But apply in order to fight complacency and fatalism and all that stuff.
150: It was unrelated. I think he had asked where I was and when I mentioned San Francisco, he took the opportunity to ask if I'd seen Alcatraz, or something like that.
Oh my God.
In 2015, it was announced that Mr. T would star in a do it yourself home improvement TV show, with interior designer Tiffany Brooks, on the DIY Network. The show, due sometime in 2015, is to be titled, "I Pity the Tool".
While my brother is probably fine with it, I am not experiencing vast waves of love for Philadelphia from other family members. I blame Eagles fans.
I always get Mr. T and the A-Team confused with Fat Albert and the Junkyard Gang.
Least plausible urple statement ever!
156: But can you tell a hawk from a handsaw?
It does not take that many trials before you get statistically significant differences in the amount of time it takes to drag them through a block of wood.
Re Pee Wee, Paul Reubens has signed on to play the Penguin's father in Gotham, reprising his role from the opening sequence of 1993's Batman Returns. 'Verses align.
75.2: Since I know you aren't my wife (nobody talks her out of seeking revenge so easily), "How you doing?"
Between 57 and Boney M I am now despairing of learning anything about Russian culture from incidentally overheard pop music.
162: There is also evidence showing that, at best, they merely feel generally well-disposed towards their children.
Hey, anyone know where a nice married woman can meet a nice mostly-sane married man for a fun, online friendship?
Have you tried 4chan?
