How To Wind Up Dead In An Alley Somewhere

I am about to tell you a story outlining why I believe that my female coworker will shortly wind up dead. She met a gentleman on the internet (back to the Plenty Of Fish sludge) last Saturday night – meaning four and a half days ago – when he sent her a message, noting that her profile was “gorgeous” and that she appeared to be his soul mate. She found nothing odd in this declaration, and they struck up conversations using his Yahoo Messenger (!) where he went by a handle with any number of romantic epithets (to include lover, soul, and romance) in a continuous string ending with @yahoo.com.

He launched into his life story and the searching out of her being, by declaring that he was successful in business as a structural engineer from London, residing in Hollywood, currently residing in Hong Kong because of a job upon which he could not elaborate, and did not want to elaborate upon why he could not elaborate. By Sunday morning, when she texted me, she had adjusted to Hong Kong time and having a boyfriend, and they were calling eachother, Love and Babe.

By Monday, he was writing her poetry and explaining how they were indeed two parts of a whole. Moreover, the emails were beginning to repeat themselves, as I noticed, although Coworker seemed oblivious of the fact and when I gently mentioned it, she cited those notorious Hong Kong internet servers. Parts of emails do not repeat themselves, clearly, but I sit next to Coworker, and she receives enough grief from everybody else about her sketchy love life, so I kept my mouth shut and smiled at intervals. She declared that she was worse than a school girl, and although that is difficult to quantify, she was.

Monday night she gave him her physical address and accepted his challenge to ‘trust’ him by forwarding secret papers to her, for her safekeeping. She agreed quickly, of course, and showed me the papers, outlining his three million dollar contract to plan a bridge in Hong Kong. The documents were scanned in, guaranteeing their virtual permanence, however she printed them off and kept them in her safe. By that time I had begun to worry, because I had a nagging feeling, at the back of my mind, that I had heard a similar story too often before; of insecure women, of men who invest less than a week in readying their weaknesses without so much as one sext, and of getting them to give their hearts (which Coworker has: she is planning outfits for the Christmas party, quite literally, as well as honeymoon destinations) before sending secret documents managing to suggest wealth, claiming to be across the ocean (so as to put at bay healthy inhibitions about divulged personal information), and eventually arrive with shadows and knives and death. At Boss’ request, I already had a discussion with Coworker on her re-entrance into what he calls “the game,” after her thirty-year monogamous spell, and safe sex practices. But this seems too much, especially for a good girl like myself, and I find myself unsure of how to proceed. They say men are stupid when it comes to sex, but women are worse, when it comes to flattery.

Isn't that sad?