The title of this blog entry refers to two people that I dearly loved last year. And both of  them broke my heart, though not at the same time. But they ARE connected. Both professed to be Unitarian Universalists, like me. And I dealt with them both on Facebook. I will tell their stories through links and screenshots of my Facebook postings about them and those who commented on them.

I first met John Wiley at First Jefferson Unitarian Universalist Church. At the time I knew nothing about him, and assumed he was a regular guy like I was. We saw each other in Sunday School classes, but otherwise did not interact. Then one day in September 2017 he contacted me though a dating site called Meet Me. It was only then that I found out he was a non-op transgender man (having a male personality but an unaltered female body). After chatting for a while I went to visit him at his apartment….and then we began dating!

 

Everything seemed to be going fine between John and me until early January, when it all started to fall apart. Because he GHOSTED me!

Enter Madeline Wampler aka Madeline Haley, who I had befriended in a Unitarian Universalist singles group a year earlier. She lived in the Chicago area.

You can guess what happened next…..

And then some months later:

 

Because Madeline was among those who helped me recover from the loss of my relationship with John Wiley, I became more interested in her. After some discussion about the issue, she finally said she only wanted to be friends with me, which I accepted. She even taught me a valuable lesson about self-esteem and how to avoid abuse in relationships.

 

But then in the summer of 2018 she began to bombard me with stories about her being chronically short on money and fearing homelessness, losing her car, and/or losing custody of her toddler daughter, so out of sympathy for her and the baby, I sent her some money. Madeline repeatedly asked me for more and more money, promising me she would pay me back later.  And yet she never did! Not one dime. Finally, in December of that year I made her give me a deadline for repayments: New Year’s Eve. And again, she failed to keep her promise. But before that, she sent me a pic that was supposed to prove she was gainfully employed and therefore COULD pay me back later. But a careful analysis of the pic showed me the opposite was the truth!

This was NOT a paycheck from a business at all, but a personal check that was intended to be a LOAN. Thus Madeline was not only scamming me, but at least one other person! I felt sick to my stomach.

I waited until January 1, 2019 and it was then that I struck at her. After unfriending her, I made this:

Madeline blocked me right after I made that. No apology, no credible explanation at all.

Thankfully, I had already made screenshots of the post and most of the comments after it and posted that as a back up, both on my timeline and elsewhere:

Others picked up my story and began to spread the word. And this prompted a reaction from Madeline that confirmed she was a scammer.

I knew she was lying about being in hospital after Christmas because she never mentioned it openly on her Facebook timeline. It was instead an avoidance maneuver to keep me guessing and delay the inevitable.

What legal action? Since I had told the truth and had broken no laws, I knew she had no legal basis to threaten me.

It does not matter in the slightest how loving and supportive someone appears to be at first. Eventually, the truth about a person always comes out and when it does there will be hell to pay.

I got cheated on by John Wiley and scammed by Madeline Wampler. If there is anyone who questions why skepticism of religion, politics and anything else in the world is so important, these stories of personal betrayal should illustrate our need for it! And that ANYONE, even someone who considers himself a skeptic, can be tricked if others push the right buttons to appeal to his ideals or his compassion. I was deceived into becoming a Baha’i in the 1990s too.

I am reminded sometimes of this classic song by the Who: