Yeah, this sort of thing fascinates me too.

Did I mention my high school girlfriend did stuff like this? She had this whole convoluted story about how she had cancer, but she had gone to the doctor herself so her parents didn't know. The doctor was writing off her treatment as research. She would tell me all sorts of stories about how painful spinal taps were and whatnot.

She could be very believable when folks were talking to her, but later on we'd be going, "Wait sec, this doesn't make sense."

I won't go into all the details, but it turns out my xSIL's fiance was a big fat liar who lied about most things in his life. And went so far as to produce fake documents, dress up and pretend to go to meetings and doctor's appointments to fool people.

I asked a few people about the were-monkey stuff, because that seemed completely absurd to me, but I was late to the board, and by that time he wasn't posting much anymore, iirc.

I never posted in Natter much when he did, but I always laughed when I saw the were-monkey posts because I assumed it was a big joke. I thought he had some other horrible illness but that he used the were-monkey joke because he didn't want to talk about what really was going on with him. I never suspected anything else though.

I tend to think of other people as performance art that occasionally interferes with my readng.

I won't go into all the details, but it turns out my xSIL's fiance was a big fat liar who lied about most things in his life. And went so far as to produce fake documents, dress up and pretend to go to meetings and doctor's appointments to fool people.

I can't imagine the energy it must take to do that.

Did we know there's a new Shibu Inu puppy cam? They're brand-new.

We watched in my class (finals were yesterday and I have to submit final grades today even though Graduation is not until the 15th). My students were fascinated.

Yeah, this sort of thing fascinates me too.

It is fascinating, but it's also incredibly sad. Especially when it's Munchausen by Proxy for real, not just internet stories.

I think it's a terribly difficult thing to confront someone about unless you're *absolutely* sure you're right, or you don't care about the fallout from being wrong.

It is -- I know that in the case of the weremonkey (ptui), I thought he was acting like an asshole in his later times in the thread, and I suspected a lot of his stories had to be exaggerated for effect (although I never went so far as thinking his whole identity was a fake), and I would never have said a damn word. It felt like it would've just been attacking him and bringing the drama when other people loved him, and so it was easier to duck out of the conversations when he made random appearances. (And that fact? Fucking kills me know, because of all the harm and hurt and fallout after the fact.)

So much of what we do -- not just WE we, or discussion-board and social media we, but all of human society we -- is necessarily built on really incomplete information about what's happening in other people's heads. And we trust it, because that's EVERYTHING (and it's beautiful and makes the right neurons go); I think the very same desire to trust makes it makes it really easy for a good con artist to work the strings, and makes it really hard to go against it when everyone else (appears to be) sending out the all-clear signal.

It is fascinating, but it's also incredibly sad. Especially when it's Munchausen by Proxy for real, not just internet stories.

Yeah. In the Warrior Eli case there's lots of people who have cancer themselves who wasted time and energy dealing with her. A lot of people were very emotionally vulnerable when they met and befriended Eli.

But I don't recall anyone saying anything until after he "died."

Well, not here, no. Because he was here.

It would have to be huge for me to think it worth it to disrupt the community because of suspicions that may or may not play out, and for which I don't have proof. I totally understand avoiding that sort of confrontation.

Hell, it was contentious after he left. Imagine the ruckus if someone had challenged him here?