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Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.

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Speaker 2: Mama Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters

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Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on For MoMA Mia, this

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Speaker 2: is no filter. I'm mea Friedman and I wanted to

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Speaker 2: pop a little extra bonus episode into the feed this

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Speaker 2: week because a lot of people have been talking about

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Speaker 2: the new series called Fake that stars Asha Ketty, about

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Speaker 2: a woman who falls in love with a con man,

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Speaker 2: and today we wanted to bring you the true story

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Speaker 2: of the woman in that series in an interview that

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Speaker 2: I did with Stephanie Wood, who is played by Asher

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Speaker 2: in Fake. I did this interview a couple of years

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Speaker 2: ago with Stephanie. She's in her late forties or she

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Speaker 2: was when she decided to go on a date with

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Speaker 2: a guy she met online. And she'd been online dating

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Speaker 2: for a while and had found it pretty unsatisfying, as

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Speaker 2: many people do. So when she met this guy called Joe,

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Speaker 2: who is handsome and charming and seemingly different from the others,

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Speaker 2: she fell for him. She felt pretty hard and pretty fast,

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Speaker 2: and she had no idea that it would change the

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Speaker 2: course of her life forever now. Stephanie is an award

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Speaker 2: winning journalist and an author. She's smart, she's experienced, and

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Speaker 2: she does not stand for bullshit. But when she met Joe,

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Speaker 2: all of that sort of fell away, because, as we know,

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Speaker 2: love does funny things to the brain, and Joe turned

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Speaker 2: out to be well, as the name suggests, a total fake.

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Speaker 2: And fake also became the name of Stephanie's book, which

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Speaker 2: is now the name of this new series on Paramount Plus.

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Speaker 2: It stars Asha Ketty as Stephanie and David Wenham as Joe.

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Speaker 2: It's being hailed as a love and lies fueled thriller,

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Speaker 2: and this is the true story behind it from the

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Speaker 2: woman who lived it. Here's Stephanie Wood. Steph When you

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Speaker 2: met Joe, what was your first contact like with him?

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Speaker 3: It was we met through online dating and we caught

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Speaker 3: up for a drink at a bar in the city

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Speaker 3: in Sydney. There were no sparks for me and I

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Speaker 3: don't thin for either of us really, although who knows

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Speaker 3: what he ever felt. I thought he was a little awkward.

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Speaker 3: I thought he was a bit short, which he proved

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Speaker 3: not to be. Must have been hunched and down in

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Speaker 3: that chair. He talked a lot about himself, and women

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Speaker 3: are pretty used to men talking a lot about themselves

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Speaker 3: and I sort of peppered the conversation with questions, which

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Speaker 3: as a journalist you learned to do to keep conversations going.

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Speaker 3: I think we were there for a couple of drinks

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Speaker 3: and said goodbye, and I didn't imagine i'd see him again.

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Speaker 1: How long had you been online dating for and what's

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Speaker 1: it like as a woman.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I hadn't been doing it for a long time.

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Speaker 3: I've not done a lot of it because I find

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Speaker 3: it so awful.

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Speaker 1: Why is it awful?

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Speaker 3: Oh, I guess the caliber of men you're meeting. I'm

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Speaker 3: sorry to say, I find it hugely awkward. The sort

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Speaker 3: of walking into a space, a bar, a restaurant to

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Speaker 3: meet someone that you've never ever set eyes on before,

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Speaker 3: and you have no context for who they are. It's awkward.

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Speaker 3: They're usually incredibly disappointing. I think a friend pushed me

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Speaker 3: into it right back in about probably around two thousand

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Speaker 3: and five, when i'd broken up with the guy I

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Speaker 3: thought I was going to marry. I think maybe it

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Speaker 3: was just starting around then.

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Speaker 2: So you're in your thirties then, late thirties, yeah, late thirties.

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Speaker 2: If you're a woman in your late thirties, what kind

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Speaker 2: of men are on the apps.

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Speaker 3: Well, of course, it's widely variable. I was looking for

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Speaker 3: intelligent guys, which I mean, is that okay? I mean,

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Speaker 3: you know, I suppose I wanted someone who seemed to

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Speaker 3: have a bit of wish about them and a bit

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Speaker 3: of humor. I've never sort of had a physical checklist

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Speaker 3: at all. If I were to be honest, I don't

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Speaker 3: want someone who's short. But apart from that, I'm fairly

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Speaker 3: open to, you know, physical imperfection.

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Speaker 1: Did you decide who to swipe left on and who

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Speaker 1: to see?

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Speaker 3: Well, in those days it was a bit different. The

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Speaker 3: tinder didn't exist, and I've only ever used hinder once

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Speaker 3: in my life. It was just looking at what their

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Speaker 3: interests were mainly, and their political leanings was important to me,

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Speaker 3: I suppose, And how will they wrote?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, tell me about that, because I imagine as you.

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Speaker 2: Get more look at more and more profiles, you learn

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Speaker 2: some some red flags and some green flags.

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Speaker 3: I wouldn't know about red and green flags. It's more

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Speaker 3: about what you like and what you don't like.

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Speaker 1: I kind of more mean that like yeah, you go,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, I'm someone.

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Speaker 3: Who speaks intelligent, writes intelligently, and well without spelling mistakes.

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Speaker 1: High bar for a journalist.

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Speaker 3: Well, it is a high barb. But is that such

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Speaker 3: a high bar for someone I don't know? Isn't that

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Speaker 3: a fairly for an moderately intelligent person. Isn't that half

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Speaker 3: decent writing skills? Like I don't know. Maybe I am

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Speaker 3: too fussy about that.

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Speaker 1: I doubt yourself.

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Speaker 3: But you like what you like, you like what you like.

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Speaker 3: That was always important, And I guess I was looking

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Speaker 3: for compassion, someone who was thoughtful and compassionate and sincere.

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Speaker 1: Women in their.

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Speaker 2: Late thirties are notorious for scaring men because of the

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Speaker 2: whole biological clo of course situation. Did you find that

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Speaker 2: that was kind of a subtext in all the.

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Speaker 3: No, And this is incredibly weird. I imagine for women

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Speaker 3: who are in their late thirties now to hear who

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Speaker 3: was still looking. And I wrote an article for Good

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Speaker 3: Weekend about this, probably in twenty sixteen. I think it

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Speaker 3: was about not having had children. There was so little

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Speaker 3: said back then about women's fertility. It really was. And

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Speaker 3: I've googled, I've gone back through the archives of newspaper

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Speaker 3: archives to see how much was written about women's fertility

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Speaker 3: and declining fertility, and very little was written. I think

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Speaker 3: I was probably little and I wanted to have kids,

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Speaker 3: but I was a little like I wasn't. I don't

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Speaker 3: think I ever had a surging biological clock, which I

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Speaker 3: know a lot of women do. I was concerned. I

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Speaker 3: did want to have them, but I don't I think

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Speaker 3: I thought I could still have them in my forties.

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Speaker 3: And as I said, there was just not a lot

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Speaker 3: written about it. So you weren't necessarily looking for the

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Speaker 3: father of you, you know. I don't which a lot

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Speaker 3: of pressure was. Although the guy that I broke up with,

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Speaker 3: who I had thought I might be with, he had

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Speaker 3: some medical issues that could have affected his fertility, and

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Speaker 3: we certainly had did talk to doctors about out what

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Speaker 3: our chances might be. So it was obviously on my mind,

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Speaker 3: but not in a panicked way, and I certainly would

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Speaker 3: never have raised it. I don't think that was ever

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Speaker 3: my thought. I don't think I ever went to any

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Speaker 3: of these dates, and there would have only been back

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Speaker 3: then about four or five six states, and I don't

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Speaker 3: think it was on my mind. I think on my

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Speaker 3: mind was is this guy nice? Is this guy decent?

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Speaker 3: Is he someone I could spend time with. There was

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Speaker 3: one really nice guy, but I don't think he was

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Speaker 3: very much into me, which is okay, devastating blow at

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Speaker 3: the time, but you know, you move on from these things.

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Speaker 3: Like there was one that I think probably ended that

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Speaker 3: period online dating for me. We met for coffee one afternoon.

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Speaker 3: He wanted to tell me he wasn't particularly good looking man,

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Speaker 3: and that was fine, but he wanted to tell me

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Speaker 3: about his recent holiday to India where he had visited

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Speaker 3: a tantric sex ashram. But it had to have STD

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Speaker 3: tests on the way in, And I just sat there

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Speaker 3: with my coffee in front of me, going in my head,

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Speaker 3: are you serious? You really really want to tell me

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Speaker 3: about this on our first date.

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Speaker 1: Well, at least did have the test?

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Speaker 3: Well you sure, we never got to check that out. Really,

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Speaker 3: But the funniest thing about it was that he recommended

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Speaker 3: I'm not I don't dabble in the share market. But

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Speaker 3: at the end of that encounter he said, oh, I've

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Speaker 3: got this great share tip for you. When I got home,

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Speaker 3: I actually happened for a very rare moment, I had

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Speaker 3: some money in my bank account. I thought, bargot, I'm

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Speaker 3: just going to go and buy some of those shares

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Speaker 3: and then they actually gent me a bit of money,

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Speaker 3: which I've sold them since.

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Speaker 1: But he's self alighting on that very bad.

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Speaker 3: That was exactly exactly and I sort of was so

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Speaker 3: amused by it as well.

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Speaker 2: What was it about Joe's dating profile that appealed to you?

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Speaker 3: Again, He's writing, He could write, and he could express himself.

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Speaker 3: It was articulate. He seemed to have a love for

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Speaker 3: the environment and nature, the things that are important to me, politics,

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Speaker 3: the current affairs the world, and a curiosity and an

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Speaker 3: interest in the world. And that came through really strongly

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Speaker 3: on his dating profile.

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Speaker 1: In that first date. Did he tell you he had kids?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so that the foundational story was that he'd been

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Speaker 3: through a fairly ugly divorce. At some point, possibly second

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Speaker 3: third date, he started to lead on that his ex

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Speaker 3: wife was completely psycho and why wouldn't I believe that,

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Speaker 3: You know, there are people out there who have mental

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Speaker 3: health problems. He was Now in hindsight, I can see

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Speaker 3: quite cruel about how he talked about her, but at

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Speaker 3: the time I took it on face value. He had

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Speaker 3: custody one week on, one week off with his ex

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Speaker 3: wife of two children and told me he lived in

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Speaker 3: a harbourside house, that he'd a modest harbourside house in

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Speaker 3: a well known suburb of Sydney that he'd built himself.

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Speaker 3: And what he told me he was an architect or

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Speaker 3: retired from architecture and had gone into private equity, and

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Speaker 3: that he had a small sheep farm south south of Sydney.

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Speaker 1: Was he your age?

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Speaker 3: He was about three four years older.

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Speaker 1: Than me, and you were in your early forties by now.

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Speaker 3: I was, no. I was in my late forties by

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Speaker 3: this stage. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Did he ask much about you on that first day?

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Speaker 3: Not really.

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Speaker 1: Eventually.

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Speaker 3: I was getting a bit frustrated by that, because to me,

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Speaker 3: that's a bit of a sign that someone's not particularly

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Speaker 3: interested or has very inefficient communication skills. I've been a

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Speaker 3: food and I'm not writing about food right now, but

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Speaker 3: in my background I was a food writer and a

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Speaker 3: restaurant critic. And he eventually asked me a little bit

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Speaker 3: about that, and he made a comment that was probably

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Speaker 3: the biggest red flag of that first date. He said,

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Speaker 3: you must be very well connected, well, not especially, and

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Speaker 3: it's not something I seek out. I'd run for a

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Speaker 3: mile from the opening of an envelope sort of thing,

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Speaker 3: you know, it's just not who I am, my world.

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Speaker 3: I find it tedious. I said, oh no, no, no,

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Speaker 3: not at all, not at all. He then did this

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Speaker 3: incredible backtrack and sort of reversal of position, which I

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Speaker 3: can now see he often would do when he had

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Speaker 3: said something that wasn't didn't meet with my approval. I

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Speaker 3: suppose he said, oh no, I wouldn't like it if

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Speaker 3: you're well connected, because I'm very private. Even when I

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Speaker 3: was an architect, I didn't like my work, our work,

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Speaker 3: the firm's work being published. And in hindsight, I've got

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Speaker 3: lots of architect friends and that's the holy grail, to

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Speaker 3: get their work published in architectural magazines, and it's how

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Speaker 3: you get business as well. So it was such a

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Speaker 3: dumb thing for him to say. But I don't know

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Speaker 3: that you're analyzing as much at that point. You sort

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Speaker 3: of your mind is so busy sizing them up, I

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Speaker 3: suppose physically, and trying to think of things to say

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Speaker 3: and trying to keep the conversation flowing without it becoming

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Speaker 3: awkward that I send something wasn't quite right, but I

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Speaker 3: moved on. You kind of have to to keep it

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Speaker 3: going in a way.

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Speaker 2: How did that first unremarkable date turn into a second.

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Speaker 3: Well, i'd been single for quite a few years, and

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Speaker 3: when you've been single for quite a few years, you

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Speaker 3: start to hear things like, oh, you're too fussy. Women

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Speaker 3: shouldn't be so picky, and I've been bored, Like I

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Speaker 3: have a full, interesting life, but that's a fairly substantial

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Speaker 3: part of life, and when it's not there, it's like, oh,

231
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Speaker 3: here we go again, not another night. It would be

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Speaker 3: nice to be with someone. And so I wasn't expecting

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Speaker 3: to hear from him, but he did email me and

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Speaker 3: asked to help me out again, and I thought, oh, whatever,

235
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Speaker 3: I'll go. And I think maybe what happens is that

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Speaker 3: when someone starts to show interest in you, and it's

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Speaker 3: quite clear that it's interest, your head does do a

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Speaker 3: bit of a yes, three hundred and sixty degree degree turn,

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Speaker 3: and it was like, oh my god, he's interested in me. Okay,

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Speaker 3: let's have another look at this. And I remember going

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Speaker 3: to that second day and being quite beside myself with nerves,

242
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Speaker 3: which I hadn't been on the first one, Like I

243
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Speaker 3: was just a bit nervy on the first one, but

244
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Speaker 3: the second one I was like, oh my god, he's

245
00:12:17,645 --> 00:12:20,085
Speaker 3: interested in me, and it was like the moment he

246
00:12:20,205 --> 00:12:22,605
Speaker 3: registered interest in me, all of a sudden, the game

247
00:12:22,685 --> 00:12:25,405
Speaker 3: changed a bit, which is silly. It's so silly because

248
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Speaker 3: of something we do. It's something we do. We should

249
00:12:27,525 --> 00:12:34,925
Speaker 3: be sizing up constantly for a long time, whether they're appropriate, suitable, honest, decent.

250
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Speaker 3: But instead, I don't think it's uncommon. The moment someone's interested,

251
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Speaker 3: it often changes the way you view the whole thing.

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Speaker 2: That's such an important insight, isn't it. And I think

253
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Speaker 2: I think as women were conditioned, Oh if he likes me, yeah,

254
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Speaker 2: I better be not grateful.

255
00:12:55,285 --> 00:12:59,765
Speaker 3: But oh yeah, no, no, yeah, gratitude, it's not that

256
00:12:59,965 --> 00:13:02,805
Speaker 3: might well be the emotion. And I was never like

257
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Speaker 3: the hottest girl at school or the one that had

258
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Speaker 3: boys following me, So it had always been a bit

259
00:13:07,845 --> 00:13:10,005
Speaker 3: exciting when a guy did express in me. And it

260
00:13:10,045 --> 00:13:13,085
Speaker 3: wasn't as if it was uncommon, But it wasn't. It

261
00:13:13,165 --> 00:13:15,445
Speaker 3: wasn't every minute of every day, as you know, in

262
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Speaker 3: my twenties and thirties, when I was in the height

263
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Speaker 3: of mind.

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Speaker 1: And it had been a while since, and it had

265
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Speaker 1: been a.

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Speaker 2: While, so yeah, after a lot of disappointing dates and disappointing.

267
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Speaker 3: Them a lot of time on my own. A lot

268
00:13:25,125 --> 00:13:26,965
Speaker 3: of guys that are not a lot of guys, but

269
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Speaker 3: there were certainly a couple of guys who turned out

270
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Speaker 3: to be really dishonest, And thankfully it never went beyond

271
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Speaker 3: a couple few days. But then what odd guys who?

272
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Speaker 3: One who proved it turned out to be married. I

273
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Speaker 3: got the sense that he was estranged from his wife.

274
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Speaker 3: Turns out they were still living together and, according to him,

275
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Speaker 3: had an open relationship.

276
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Speaker 1: I wonder if she knew that.

277
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Speaker 3: I wonder if she knew it was an open relationship.

278
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Speaker 3: And then another one who turned out to be living

279
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Speaker 3: with a girlfriend and didn't tell me. Thankfully, they didn't

280
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Speaker 3: go very far, and I was pretty upset when I discovered.

281
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Speaker 3: But not it was not so I wasn't so embedded

282
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Speaker 3: in the relationship that it was devastating. It was that devastating.

283
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Speaker 3: I mean, it's I think they leave their little marks

284
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Speaker 3: on you.

285
00:14:06,605 --> 00:14:09,045
Speaker 1: So Joe was clearly single and that was important.

286
00:14:09,845 --> 00:14:12,805
Speaker 3: Well, yes, on the face of it, Well, yes, as

287
00:14:12,845 --> 00:14:13,685
Speaker 3: we thought at that time.

288
00:14:14,005 --> 00:14:16,245
Speaker 1: Now did things accelerate quite quickly?

289
00:14:16,365 --> 00:14:18,845
Speaker 3: No, we still did it around a bit. The third

290
00:14:18,965 --> 00:14:23,645
Speaker 3: date nearly didn't happen because he made another strange comment that,

291
00:14:23,685 --> 00:14:26,285
Speaker 3: in hindsight, I should have taken us another red flag.

292
00:14:26,805 --> 00:14:29,405
Speaker 3: We were discussing which restaurant we should go to, and

293
00:14:29,605 --> 00:14:31,645
Speaker 3: I said, do you want me to book and he said, yeah,

294
00:14:31,645 --> 00:14:33,365
Speaker 3: that'd be good. You know, it'll be interesting to see

295
00:14:33,365 --> 00:14:35,405
Speaker 3: how the waiters react to you if they recognize you.

296
00:14:36,165 --> 00:14:38,885
Speaker 3: And again it was because I was a food critic,

297
00:14:39,365 --> 00:14:41,045
Speaker 3: but I'd mostly been a food critic when I lived

298
00:14:41,045 --> 00:14:43,405
Speaker 3: in Melbourne. I hadn't done so much in Sydney, so

299
00:14:43,445 --> 00:14:46,845
Speaker 3: I wasn't that well known here and that suited me. Fine.

300
00:14:47,285 --> 00:14:49,685
Speaker 3: If you've ever been recognized by my waiter or a

301
00:14:49,725 --> 00:14:51,805
Speaker 3: chef and a restaurant who thinks they're going to get

302
00:14:51,805 --> 00:14:54,285
Speaker 3: a good review or they can get some benefit out

303
00:14:54,285 --> 00:14:55,125
Speaker 3: of it, it's awful.

304
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Speaker 1: It's awkward.

305
00:14:55,885 --> 00:14:58,805
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's horrible, and I don't like that. And I

306
00:14:58,885 --> 00:15:01,165
Speaker 3: got really crossed with him and I just slammed. We

307
00:15:01,165 --> 00:15:02,885
Speaker 3: were emailing at that stage. We hadn't got to the

308
00:15:02,885 --> 00:15:05,805
Speaker 3: point of having comfortable phone calls. Of course, email opens

309
00:15:05,885 --> 00:15:11,045
Speaker 3: up all sorts of ways of both disemb and manipulating

310
00:15:11,165 --> 00:15:14,605
Speaker 3: the conversation, and if we'd been talking on the phone,

311
00:15:14,685 --> 00:15:17,365
Speaker 3: I might have perhaps picked up things better, but I

312
00:15:18,125 --> 00:15:20,765
Speaker 3: just flung an angry response at him and said, you know,

313
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Speaker 3: you've misunderstood me. That's not who I am at all.

314
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Speaker 3: And then he somehow in another email a few days later,

315
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Speaker 3: I said, so, I suppose we're not going out Saturday

316
00:15:28,645 --> 00:15:31,325
Speaker 3: night then, and I said, no, I'm going away actually now,

317
00:15:31,765 --> 00:15:33,685
Speaker 3: and he said, I really stuffed up. That wasn't what

318
00:15:33,725 --> 00:15:35,925
Speaker 3: I meant at all. And now, damn it, I can't

319
00:15:35,965 --> 00:15:37,925
Speaker 3: find an email he sent me because I've kept most

320
00:15:37,965 --> 00:15:39,925
Speaker 3: of them, but it was like, damn, I wanted to

321
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Speaker 3: remember what he'd said, but he convinced me yet again

322
00:15:42,725 --> 00:15:46,605
Speaker 3: that I'd misunderstood what his intentions were about that now

323
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Speaker 3: or his interest in the waiters recognition. And so we

324
00:15:50,205 --> 00:15:53,605
Speaker 3: eventually had a third date, and I think again it

325
00:15:53,685 --> 00:15:56,245
Speaker 3: was the fact he was interested in me was making

326
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Speaker 3: my bells ring.

327
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Speaker 1: How soon did you go away for the weekend?

328
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Speaker 3: That was after our fourth date. So we had fourth

329
00:16:01,725 --> 00:16:03,965
Speaker 3: date where we kissed, and then he said, you know

330
00:16:03,965 --> 00:16:05,725
Speaker 3: it takes message that night, I'd like to go away

331
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Speaker 3: with you for the weekend.

332
00:16:06,925 --> 00:16:07,725
Speaker 1: To seal the deal.

333
00:16:08,085 --> 00:16:10,685
Speaker 3: Yeah, to seal the deal as it is as it was.

334
00:16:10,925 --> 00:16:12,685
Speaker 1: I don't want to cry about that, but I do

335
00:16:12,765 --> 00:16:14,685
Speaker 1: want to ask was the sex great?

336
00:16:15,525 --> 00:16:17,805
Speaker 3: Oh God, no one's asking me that yet, And it's like,

337
00:16:18,005 --> 00:16:20,365
Speaker 3: I don't want to talk about this. It was great

338
00:16:20,405 --> 00:16:23,645
Speaker 3: because I hadn't had it for so long. I don't

339
00:16:23,645 --> 00:16:25,805
Speaker 3: think guys get this that women just don't go on

340
00:16:26,525 --> 00:16:29,805
Speaker 3: single Women aren't out there every night having casual sex,

341
00:16:30,205 --> 00:16:33,845
Speaker 3: certainly not the ones I know. He was warm and

342
00:16:33,965 --> 00:16:37,245
Speaker 3: loving in hindsight, very selfish. I won't say more than that,

343
00:16:37,845 --> 00:16:39,045
Speaker 3: but at the time I was loving it.

344
00:16:39,205 --> 00:16:43,445
Speaker 2: And I ask that not just because I'm voyeuristic and strange,

345
00:16:43,525 --> 00:16:47,045
Speaker 2: but because when the sex is good in a relationship

346
00:16:47,325 --> 00:16:49,085
Speaker 2: or that hadn't been sex for a while, that can

347
00:16:49,125 --> 00:16:51,845
Speaker 2: be confusing as well for a woman. Yeah, that hard

348
00:16:52,085 --> 00:16:54,845
Speaker 2: experience where that can change my brain chemistry and think,

349
00:16:55,325 --> 00:16:55,725
Speaker 2: oh I.

350
00:16:55,725 --> 00:16:57,365
Speaker 1: Really like you, And it's like, yeah, no, that was

351
00:16:57,405 --> 00:16:59,525
Speaker 1: just good sex. It's doesn't mean you're a good.

352
00:16:59,365 --> 00:17:01,965
Speaker 3: Person, or doesn't mean it was good enough that I

353
00:17:02,005 --> 00:17:05,445
Speaker 3: think it was turning my head and altering my chemistry.

354
00:17:05,445 --> 00:17:08,005
Speaker 3: And in fact, as I write in Fake, our brain

355
00:17:08,085 --> 00:17:10,925
Speaker 3: chemistry when we're in completely changes.

356
00:17:11,485 --> 00:17:13,885
Speaker 1: You use a norweg is it a noruig model?

357
00:17:13,925 --> 00:17:16,125
Speaker 3: Skept and I don't pronounce that properly, I know, but

358
00:17:16,245 --> 00:17:20,365
Speaker 3: it's the heady period of love where you're completely tied

359
00:17:20,405 --> 00:17:23,205
Speaker 3: in knots with love and besides yourself and can't think straight.

360
00:17:23,405 --> 00:17:25,005
Speaker 1: Quite bonkers, quite nuts.

361
00:17:25,205 --> 00:17:29,165
Speaker 3: And there are scientific it's just almost a pop culture

362
00:17:29,165 --> 00:17:33,005
Speaker 3: words as I understand it in Norway, there are scientific

363
00:17:33,045 --> 00:17:35,805
Speaker 3: reasons for it. The ancient part of our brain, the

364
00:17:35,925 --> 00:17:40,845
Speaker 3: limits system, is surging with neurotransmitters and hormones because this

365
00:17:40,965 --> 00:17:43,805
Speaker 3: is fundamental to our biology. Isn't it to mate and

366
00:17:43,845 --> 00:17:48,485
Speaker 3: to reproduce. It's so fundamental. And also it's fundamental to

367
00:17:48,525 --> 00:17:50,845
Speaker 3: want to attach to somebody because that's how we survive

368
00:17:50,885 --> 00:17:55,125
Speaker 3: in the wild, you know, in primitive primal, it's very primal.

369
00:17:55,205 --> 00:17:57,885
Speaker 1: How much time did you spend together in those early times.

370
00:17:58,445 --> 00:18:00,085
Speaker 3: I would see in probably two or three days or

371
00:18:00,605 --> 00:18:04,125
Speaker 3: every fortnight, which of course is not much. But I

372
00:18:04,245 --> 00:18:05,845
Speaker 3: was under the impression you had the children on the

373
00:18:05,885 --> 00:18:07,805
Speaker 3: other week. I felt as if I was in the

374
00:18:07,925 --> 00:18:11,005
Speaker 3: very delicate situation that he'd talked about the children being

375
00:18:11,125 --> 00:18:14,845
Speaker 3: very fragile and him being very fragile as a result

376
00:18:14,885 --> 00:18:18,205
Speaker 3: of the divorce, And I thought, you know, I can't

377
00:18:18,245 --> 00:18:20,165
Speaker 3: go in like a bullet at gate here. I can't

378
00:18:20,165 --> 00:18:23,165
Speaker 3: demand to meet the children. That's not right. You know,

379
00:18:23,205 --> 00:18:27,285
Speaker 3: I've got to be sympathetic to this situation. And if

380
00:18:27,325 --> 00:18:29,565
Speaker 3: I do get demanding and so I must meet your

381
00:18:29,645 --> 00:18:32,085
Speaker 3: children and I must see your house, I could just

382
00:18:32,165 --> 00:18:32,805
Speaker 3: ruin everything.

383
00:18:32,965 --> 00:18:34,485
Speaker 1: Had you dated a guy with kids before?

384
00:18:34,605 --> 00:18:39,045
Speaker 3: No? Never, never. I mean my instinct was go gently,

385
00:18:39,925 --> 00:18:40,925
Speaker 3: go very very gently.

386
00:18:41,685 --> 00:18:43,285
Speaker 1: So you didn't meet his kids at first? Did you

387
00:18:43,325 --> 00:18:44,365
Speaker 1: meet each other's friends?

388
00:18:45,445 --> 00:18:49,045
Speaker 3: He met a few of my friends, but not for

389
00:18:49,085 --> 00:18:51,045
Speaker 3: a while. A couple of times he stood me out

390
00:18:51,085 --> 00:18:54,925
Speaker 3: when there were events. I was going to a Christmas

391
00:18:54,925 --> 00:18:57,725
Speaker 3: party at a journalist friend's home and he was meant

392
00:18:57,725 --> 00:19:00,525
Speaker 3: to join me. Funny thing he didn't come. He didn't

393
00:19:00,565 --> 00:19:03,685
Speaker 3: there was an excuse. And this pattern started very early,

394
00:19:03,805 --> 00:19:09,965
Speaker 3: the cancelations early, probably within oh three months. I mean

395
00:19:10,005 --> 00:19:11,965
Speaker 3: there was a period there where I actually went to

396
00:19:12,005 --> 00:19:14,925
Speaker 3: the States for five weeks for work, and so it

397
00:19:15,005 --> 00:19:19,125
Speaker 3: was all a bit truncated and remote distance relationship for

398
00:19:19,125 --> 00:19:22,085
Speaker 3: a little while while I was away. But we sort

399
00:19:22,085 --> 00:19:24,405
Speaker 3: of started to go out seriously, probably end of August

400
00:19:24,445 --> 00:19:27,725
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen. But by November he was starting to cancel

401
00:19:27,765 --> 00:19:28,005
Speaker 3: on me.

402
00:19:28,285 --> 00:19:30,205
Speaker 1: What sort of reasons would he get, Oh, the.

403
00:19:30,125 --> 00:19:34,485
Speaker 3: Most insane reasons. He'd been poisoned by sheep drench. He

404
00:19:34,565 --> 00:19:38,165
Speaker 3: was in his loo, his duney on a hill on

405
00:19:38,205 --> 00:19:40,325
Speaker 3: the farm where he just had a shack, which is

406
00:19:40,485 --> 00:19:44,005
Speaker 3: apparently why I never got to see it, vomiting, he

407
00:19:44,085 --> 00:19:46,965
Speaker 3: was terribly ill. He had a tooth infection. These are

408
00:19:47,005 --> 00:19:48,725
Speaker 3: all not in chronological order. These are the sort of

409
00:19:48,765 --> 00:19:52,365
Speaker 3: excuses that unfolded over the sort of fifteen month period

410
00:19:52,445 --> 00:19:55,405
Speaker 3: we were together. A truck carrying his sheep had tipped

411
00:19:55,405 --> 00:19:58,485
Speaker 3: over and there was chaos and carnage. His dog had

412
00:19:58,525 --> 00:20:01,965
Speaker 3: been bitten by snake. His son had been running around

413
00:20:01,965 --> 00:20:05,245
Speaker 3: a friend's pool and fallen over and been concussed. His

414
00:20:05,325 --> 00:20:07,205
Speaker 3: daughter had asked me his daughter had fallen out of

415
00:20:07,205 --> 00:20:08,525
Speaker 3: a tree and damage to collar.

416
00:20:08,565 --> 00:20:08,685
Speaker 2: Bo.

417
00:20:09,685 --> 00:20:10,685
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of bad luck.

418
00:20:10,765 --> 00:20:13,325
Speaker 3: He had a lot of bad luck. I mean, I

419
00:20:13,485 --> 00:20:16,125
Speaker 3: started to get incredibly at my suffer anxiety, as so

420
00:20:16,245 --> 00:20:21,365
Speaker 3: many people do. This made me so anxious it was

421
00:20:21,365 --> 00:20:23,685
Speaker 3: hard to separate whether there was instinct about something not

422
00:20:23,725 --> 00:20:25,965
Speaker 3: being right or it was just my anxiety. You know,

423
00:20:25,965 --> 00:20:28,285
Speaker 3: people say, oh, you should follow your instinct, but when

424
00:20:28,325 --> 00:20:32,085
Speaker 3: you're anxious, so true, what's instinct? What's anxiety. I couldn't tell.

425
00:20:32,805 --> 00:20:34,725
Speaker 3: I was so keen to try and make it work.

426
00:20:34,965 --> 00:20:37,005
Speaker 3: At some point in the relationship, maybe six months, and

427
00:20:37,125 --> 00:20:39,325
Speaker 3: he'd said it sold the little farm with the shack,

428
00:20:40,125 --> 00:20:42,205
Speaker 3: and he was now looking to invest in a much

429
00:20:42,285 --> 00:20:45,165
Speaker 3: much larger property, and he started to talk about this

430
00:20:45,365 --> 00:20:49,405
Speaker 3: specific property. I think what happens in relationships is it's

431
00:20:49,405 --> 00:20:51,085
Speaker 3: not just the person that you're in love with, it's

432
00:20:51,085 --> 00:20:53,045
Speaker 3: the idea of the future that you're going to have

433
00:20:53,125 --> 00:20:55,965
Speaker 3: together that you fall in love with. A love affair

434
00:20:56,085 --> 00:20:58,205
Speaker 3: is about not just the person that you're in love with,

435
00:20:58,245 --> 00:21:00,285
Speaker 3: but about the future that you've fallen in love with,

436
00:21:00,605 --> 00:21:02,685
Speaker 3: or the idea of this future you might have together.

437
00:21:03,205 --> 00:21:05,845
Speaker 3: And so he was looking at investing in this big property.

438
00:21:06,325 --> 00:21:08,565
Speaker 3: It was such a spread, such a pile that it

439
00:21:08,605 --> 00:21:11,885
Speaker 3: was on sotherby is real estate website. So it existed. Oh,

440
00:21:11,925 --> 00:21:16,365
Speaker 3: it totally valid, absolute existed. I mean the detail that

441
00:21:16,405 --> 00:21:19,885
Speaker 3: he talked about, the sale, the negotiations, the neighbors, the

442
00:21:19,885 --> 00:21:22,765
Speaker 3: people he was vying with to get it. He talked

443
00:21:22,805 --> 00:21:25,325
Speaker 3: about constantly going down there and having meetings with the

444
00:21:25,325 --> 00:21:28,285
Speaker 3: owner to discuss what would be included in the sale

445
00:21:28,285 --> 00:21:32,085
Speaker 3: and what wouldn't. There were council problems, and there were

446
00:21:32,205 --> 00:21:36,005
Speaker 3: water rights. The detail was immense, and eventually he took

447
00:21:36,045 --> 00:21:38,245
Speaker 3: me to see it. And it was not the sort

448
00:21:38,245 --> 00:21:40,445
Speaker 3: of place that you arrive at on a Saturday morning

449
00:21:40,565 --> 00:21:43,525
Speaker 3: and wander around and then leave, you know, without an invitation.

450
00:21:43,605 --> 00:21:48,725
Speaker 3: It was an appointment only style, large multi bedroom, multi

451
00:21:48,765 --> 00:21:52,525
Speaker 3: living area, a huge estate, and we went there and

452
00:21:52,525 --> 00:21:54,725
Speaker 3: met the owners and we walked around and the wife

453
00:21:54,765 --> 00:21:56,365
Speaker 3: took me on this tour and said, oh, I do

454
00:21:56,485 --> 00:21:58,765
Speaker 3: hope he gets it. I do hope Joe gets it.

455
00:21:59,165 --> 00:22:00,685
Speaker 3: I don't know what's going on, but I hope he

456
00:22:00,725 --> 00:22:01,205
Speaker 3: gets it.

457
00:22:01,685 --> 00:22:02,645
Speaker 1: So is he wealthy?

458
00:22:02,925 --> 00:22:05,085
Speaker 3: Well, that's what I had been. He'd led me to believe.

459
00:22:05,685 --> 00:22:08,645
Speaker 3: We never did anything lavish. But I also, I mean,

460
00:22:08,685 --> 00:22:11,445
Speaker 3: I'm not design a handbag kind of person. And so

461
00:22:12,565 --> 00:22:15,805
Speaker 3: he drove a beat up old land Rover Defender. He

462
00:22:15,925 --> 00:22:19,285
Speaker 3: didn't wear particularly special clothes, and I just took that

463
00:22:19,325 --> 00:22:21,525
Speaker 3: to be someone who had money but was understated and

464
00:22:21,845 --> 00:22:24,885
Speaker 3: didn't care about the trappings of wealth, which I really

465
00:22:24,965 --> 00:22:28,685
Speaker 3: liked that approach. He'd pay for meals, and with my

466
00:22:28,765 --> 00:22:31,285
Speaker 3: restaurant habit, we went out for dinner quite often, and

467
00:22:31,365 --> 00:22:34,245
Speaker 3: sometimes I'd pay, but I think probably he paid more

468
00:22:34,285 --> 00:22:37,765
Speaker 3: than I did. He tipped taxi drivers, we'd go it

469
00:22:37,845 --> 00:22:41,965
Speaker 3: for breakfast. He took me away three times to country cottages.

470
00:22:42,325 --> 00:22:45,605
Speaker 3: Again nothing lavish, but he paid. I'd say he spent

471
00:22:46,005 --> 00:22:48,565
Speaker 3: at least three, four or five thousand dollars through the

472
00:22:48,565 --> 00:22:49,925
Speaker 3: course of the relationship on me.

473
00:22:50,245 --> 00:22:52,045
Speaker 1: Did he ever ask you for money? Never?

474
00:22:52,405 --> 00:22:52,645
Speaker 2: Never?

475
00:22:53,445 --> 00:22:56,365
Speaker 3: And he gave me presents. He gave me pearls, He

476
00:22:56,445 --> 00:23:00,925
Speaker 3: gave me opals. I make jewelry, and he gave me

477
00:23:00,965 --> 00:23:04,565
Speaker 3: these opals. He gave me these little Victorian antique silver,

478
00:23:05,125 --> 00:23:08,925
Speaker 3: beautifully engraved trinkets. There were never signs of great wealth.

479
00:23:08,965 --> 00:23:12,205
Speaker 3: But he told me he was very sheepishly one day,

480
00:23:12,365 --> 00:23:14,245
Speaker 3: as though he were almost embarrassed by it. He said,

481
00:23:14,245 --> 00:23:16,045
Speaker 3: I've got a lot of money. I've got a disgusting

482
00:23:16,085 --> 00:23:18,165
Speaker 3: amount of money, he said, And he sounded as though

483
00:23:18,205 --> 00:23:20,885
Speaker 3: he was really embarrassed about it, and as though he

484
00:23:20,925 --> 00:23:24,445
Speaker 3: were letting me into that secret slowly because it'd come

485
00:23:24,525 --> 00:23:28,405
Speaker 3: to start to trust me. The idea of an understated

486
00:23:28,645 --> 00:23:32,725
Speaker 3: multimillionaire is kind of nice. Yeah, yeah, I like that.

487
00:23:32,845 --> 00:23:35,805
Speaker 3: I thought that was a really nice quality, that the

488
00:23:35,845 --> 00:23:38,245
Speaker 3: money didn't really matter that much. It was. There were

489
00:23:38,285 --> 00:23:40,005
Speaker 3: other things that were more important.

490
00:23:39,725 --> 00:23:42,805
Speaker 1: Like you well as the future. Together in the future

491
00:23:42,925 --> 00:23:44,765
Speaker 1: was like I imagine.

492
00:23:44,405 --> 00:23:47,405
Speaker 3: You in the kitchen of the of Happy Valley, and

493
00:23:48,125 --> 00:23:50,245
Speaker 3: which study would you like? The one down the corridor

494
00:23:50,285 --> 00:23:54,405
Speaker 3: from mine or the one next to mine? Very sexy, enticing,

495
00:23:54,605 --> 00:23:57,605
Speaker 3: kind of hints at what the future might be.

496
00:23:57,725 --> 00:23:59,925
Speaker 1: That's very seductive for women.

497
00:24:00,605 --> 00:24:04,285
Speaker 2: It's like that talking about the future, even perhaps before

498
00:24:04,325 --> 00:24:06,085
Speaker 2: you're thinking of it or allowing it.

499
00:24:06,165 --> 00:24:08,085
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wouldn't have allowed. He was the one to

500
00:24:08,085 --> 00:24:12,005
Speaker 3: introduce the future, not me, because I was too cautious

501
00:24:12,005 --> 00:24:13,805
Speaker 3: to do so. I probably was the first to say

502
00:24:13,845 --> 00:24:16,485
Speaker 3: I love you and he said no, no, too soon,

503
00:24:16,645 --> 00:24:19,645
Speaker 3: and then I pulled right back. But he was starting

504
00:24:19,685 --> 00:24:22,565
Speaker 3: to paint these pictures that I embedded in my own

505
00:24:22,605 --> 00:24:25,445
Speaker 3: brain and started to fantasize over. We all do that,

506
00:24:25,485 --> 00:24:28,685
Speaker 3: don't we. You know, we start to imagine that beautiful,

507
00:24:28,685 --> 00:24:32,245
Speaker 3: glorious thing lying ahead. I'm going to be lying, I said.

508
00:24:32,285 --> 00:24:34,045
Speaker 3: If I said that the money didn't matter, I'm a

509
00:24:34,125 --> 00:24:37,965
Speaker 3: journalist in an industry that is absolutely going down the toilet.

510
00:24:38,485 --> 00:24:41,325
Speaker 3: I took a redundancy from Fairfax Media two years ago

511
00:24:41,485 --> 00:24:44,165
Speaker 3: and quite frankly, I will probably never have another staff

512
00:24:44,205 --> 00:24:47,765
Speaker 3: position and never get the benefits of superinnuation or any

513
00:24:47,805 --> 00:24:50,005
Speaker 3: of the things that a staff position brings. And I

514
00:24:50,045 --> 00:24:53,485
Speaker 3: don't honestly know how. You know, as a journalist you

515
00:24:53,485 --> 00:24:55,805
Speaker 3: make your living these days particular, j Young is sort

516
00:24:55,805 --> 00:24:57,245
Speaker 3: of writing I like to do, which takes a lot

517
00:24:57,285 --> 00:25:00,405
Speaker 3: of time and is dense and research heavy. So yeah,

518
00:25:00,965 --> 00:25:05,165
Speaker 3: it was this relationship promises me him and I'm in

519
00:25:05,205 --> 00:25:08,005
Speaker 3: love with him. It promises me a farming future, which

520
00:25:08,005 --> 00:25:11,125
Speaker 3: I'd always found appealing idea of, you know, growing vegetables

521
00:25:11,165 --> 00:25:14,405
Speaker 3: and having animals, and I'll be able to write and

522
00:25:14,445 --> 00:25:17,565
Speaker 3: not worry about how much I pay my way through life.

523
00:25:17,805 --> 00:25:20,885
Speaker 3: So the money was important in that way for me.

524
00:25:21,805 --> 00:25:29,005
Speaker 2: More of my conversation with Stephanie after this shortbreak tell

525
00:25:29,045 --> 00:25:30,565
Speaker 2: me about him meeting your family.

526
00:25:31,205 --> 00:25:33,565
Speaker 3: He stood me up for the first time. He was

527
00:25:33,605 --> 00:25:35,605
Speaker 3: meant to come for a family barbecue at my place

528
00:25:35,645 --> 00:25:39,165
Speaker 3: and just didn't show up. And it was only it

529
00:25:39,205 --> 00:25:41,525
Speaker 3: was my mother and my brother and his family, so.

530
00:25:42,245 --> 00:25:43,085
Speaker 1: He didn't show up.

531
00:25:43,125 --> 00:25:47,485
Speaker 3: I know, and I should have been, well, you, I'm

532
00:25:47,525 --> 00:25:49,765
Speaker 3: so close to my family that I didn't feel embarrassed,

533
00:25:49,765 --> 00:25:52,365
Speaker 3: and we're close. I didn't feel embarrassed, but I was.

534
00:25:52,485 --> 00:25:54,765
Speaker 3: I went into a complete state of anxiety and just

535
00:25:54,805 --> 00:25:55,725
Speaker 3: bulled up on the couch.

536
00:25:55,845 --> 00:25:56,965
Speaker 1: What reason did he give?

537
00:25:57,165 --> 00:25:59,165
Speaker 3: He didn't. I couldn't get him, I couldn't find him.

538
00:25:59,445 --> 00:26:03,245
Speaker 3: It was just before Christmas twenty fourteen. And I should

539
00:26:03,245 --> 00:26:05,165
Speaker 3: have left him then. I should have said no, no

540
00:26:05,205 --> 00:26:07,325
Speaker 3: one treats me like that. But I didn't have enough

541
00:26:07,365 --> 00:26:11,125
Speaker 3: self esteem. I didn't have the resources to do that.

542
00:26:11,285 --> 00:26:15,605
Speaker 3: I felt so immersed and entrenched in the relationship by

543
00:26:15,685 --> 00:26:19,085
Speaker 3: that stage, and in love. And the next day I

544
00:26:19,205 --> 00:26:21,925
Speaker 3: rang him or texted him, and he made some He said, oh,

545
00:26:21,965 --> 00:26:24,245
Speaker 3: his daughter had asthma, and oh, yeah, that was a

546
00:26:24,245 --> 00:26:27,085
Speaker 3: really bad thing to do. I'm sorry, and I sort

547
00:26:27,085 --> 00:26:30,725
Speaker 3: of Over Christmas, I went to Queensland to my mom's.

548
00:26:31,285 --> 00:26:34,165
Speaker 3: I started to prepare myself for the relationship beang over.

549
00:26:34,805 --> 00:26:36,165
Speaker 3: I actually did a really good job of it. I

550
00:26:36,205 --> 00:26:39,325
Speaker 3: stopped thinking about him, I stopped you clutching my phone

551
00:26:39,365 --> 00:26:42,685
Speaker 3: looking for messages. But he kept texting me. He drew

552
00:26:42,725 --> 00:26:44,445
Speaker 3: he drew you back in, he drew me back in,

553
00:26:44,645 --> 00:26:46,605
Speaker 3: and so when I got back and then he arrived

554
00:26:46,645 --> 00:26:49,685
Speaker 3: at my place with a string of pearls, and I

555
00:26:49,725 --> 00:26:53,365
Speaker 3: was forgiven. Yeah, I was forgiven. Stupidly in hindsight, But

556
00:26:53,405 --> 00:26:57,725
Speaker 3: what about meeting his kids. That happened maybe six seven

557
00:26:57,765 --> 00:27:01,645
Speaker 3: months after I'd first met him, and it felt like

558
00:27:01,725 --> 00:27:04,365
Speaker 3: a huge milestone in the relationship. I mean, I think,

559
00:27:04,485 --> 00:27:07,485
Speaker 3: you know, if he's willing to introduce he talked about

560
00:27:07,525 --> 00:27:09,725
Speaker 3: breaking the bubble. I want to break the bubble between

561
00:27:09,845 --> 00:27:12,125
Speaker 3: my life and your life, you know, I want you

562
00:27:12,165 --> 00:27:14,605
Speaker 3: to meet my kids. And I just felt like soaring.

563
00:27:15,365 --> 00:27:17,725
Speaker 3: I was jubilant. And I met them one night at

564
00:27:17,765 --> 00:27:21,325
Speaker 3: a Thaire restaurant. It was excruciating. They were very quiet

565
00:27:21,365 --> 00:27:24,565
Speaker 3: and shy. God knows how many other women he'd introduced

566
00:27:24,565 --> 00:27:26,125
Speaker 3: them to and they had to go through this or

567
00:27:26,165 --> 00:27:29,085
Speaker 3: deal with I was nervous trying to make conversation with

568
00:27:30,285 --> 00:27:34,445
Speaker 3: just becoming a teenage girl and her younger brother, and

569
00:27:34,485 --> 00:27:38,125
Speaker 3: it was very difficult. At one stage, I think, I mean,

570
00:27:38,165 --> 00:27:42,125
Speaker 3: I was blundering around with the conversation and I think

571
00:27:42,125 --> 00:27:44,645
Speaker 3: I said to the girl, is it hard to remember

572
00:27:44,685 --> 00:27:46,285
Speaker 3: to pack all the things that you need when you

573
00:27:46,365 --> 00:27:50,325
Speaker 3: move between mum and Dad's place? I mean, terrible question,

574
00:27:50,485 --> 00:27:55,765
Speaker 3: awful question. What was I thinking? But I felt like

575
00:27:55,805 --> 00:27:59,965
Speaker 3: it was blundering around. But he very quickly wrapped up

576
00:27:59,965 --> 00:28:02,925
Speaker 3: the night after that. My suspicion now is that he

577
00:28:03,005 --> 00:28:07,645
Speaker 3: felt that we were getting into dangerous territory, where as

578
00:28:07,645 --> 00:28:11,045
Speaker 3: I discovered much later kids had spent for a little

579
00:28:11,085 --> 00:28:13,885
Speaker 3: time with him. This is here's the spoiler alert. He

580
00:28:13,965 --> 00:28:15,845
Speaker 3: didn't live in the house on the harbor. His ex

581
00:28:15,845 --> 00:28:16,325
Speaker 3: wife did.

582
00:28:16,365 --> 00:28:18,285
Speaker 1: Still, well, I was going to ask you, did you

583
00:28:18,325 --> 00:28:19,245
Speaker 1: ever go to his house?

584
00:28:19,325 --> 00:28:21,045
Speaker 3: No? I didn't ever go to his house. And that

585
00:28:21,085 --> 00:28:23,765
Speaker 3: was eventually what made me leave the relationship, because he

586
00:28:23,845 --> 00:28:25,965
Speaker 3: canceled two nights in a row on me when I

587
00:28:26,045 --> 00:28:27,565
Speaker 3: was meant to be going to the house, and I thought,

588
00:28:28,525 --> 00:28:30,525
Speaker 3: this is I can't do this anymore. I was in

589
00:28:30,605 --> 00:28:33,645
Speaker 3: such a mess by that stage. The excuses for not

590
00:28:33,685 --> 00:28:36,725
Speaker 3: going to the house were They kept evolving. So initially

591
00:28:36,765 --> 00:28:38,725
Speaker 3: it was I mean for the first say, five months,

592
00:28:38,765 --> 00:28:41,325
Speaker 3: I didn't even ask because I thought too soon, too soon,

593
00:28:42,005 --> 00:28:42,605
Speaker 3: And I was.

594
00:28:42,605 --> 00:28:43,805
Speaker 1: One we spent time at your house?

595
00:28:43,845 --> 00:28:45,685
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, we spent time in my apartment. I think

596
00:28:45,725 --> 00:28:48,525
Speaker 3: my biggest fears were he may not be that into me,

597
00:28:48,885 --> 00:28:51,805
Speaker 3: maybe there's another woman. Like the scale of what I

598
00:28:51,845 --> 00:28:54,405
Speaker 3: discovered about him afterwards, I could never have imagined. I

599
00:28:54,405 --> 00:28:56,765
Speaker 3: didn't know that these people really existed.

600
00:28:57,245 --> 00:28:59,685
Speaker 2: You're an investigative journalist. The first thing I would have

601
00:28:59,685 --> 00:29:01,605
Speaker 2: thought you would have done is google him.

602
00:29:02,045 --> 00:29:04,245
Speaker 3: Well I did. I did google him, and I found

603
00:29:04,245 --> 00:29:07,765
Speaker 3: that certain planks of his story were very true. He

604
00:29:07,965 --> 00:29:12,285
Speaker 3: was the grandson of a very well known Sydney businessman

605
00:29:12,405 --> 00:29:14,965
Speaker 3: who'd started a major Australian company, and there's no question

606
00:29:15,045 --> 00:29:17,685
Speaker 3: about that. As a fact, he had lived in this

607
00:29:17,765 --> 00:29:20,725
Speaker 3: I saw his driver's license with the address of this house,

608
00:29:20,965 --> 00:29:24,445
Speaker 3: this harb Aside address. I saw it. When I researched

609
00:29:24,525 --> 00:29:27,845
Speaker 3: the book, I came to discover some really interesting cognitive science,

610
00:29:28,365 --> 00:29:31,925
Speaker 3: some work that well well not on cognitive science principles,

611
00:29:31,925 --> 00:29:34,645
Speaker 3: and one of them is thing called anchoring, whereby you

612
00:29:34,725 --> 00:29:38,725
Speaker 3: place importance in some facts at the expense of other facts.

613
00:29:38,765 --> 00:29:42,485
Speaker 3: So I anchored my beliefs about him and my belief

614
00:29:42,485 --> 00:29:44,285
Speaker 3: in him, the fact his story was true, in the

615
00:29:44,285 --> 00:29:46,525
Speaker 3: fact that while his grandfather is X. I've seen his

616
00:29:46,645 --> 00:29:49,365
Speaker 3: driver's license, so he must live there and let other

617
00:29:49,445 --> 00:29:50,765
Speaker 3: things slip on by.

618
00:29:51,205 --> 00:29:52,405
Speaker 1: You wrote lists, didn't you?

619
00:29:52,605 --> 00:29:52,725
Speaker 3: Oh?

620
00:29:52,805 --> 00:29:53,005
Speaker 2: Yeah?

621
00:29:53,005 --> 00:29:55,045
Speaker 3: I wrote list to try and calm myself down.

622
00:29:55,005 --> 00:29:56,245
Speaker 1: Like what would you write down?

623
00:29:56,525 --> 00:29:58,405
Speaker 3: I was trying to steal my anxiety, and I thought

624
00:29:58,485 --> 00:30:01,565
Speaker 3: maybe if I could rationally put things down in writing.

625
00:30:01,605 --> 00:30:06,485
Speaker 3: I'd calm myself down. I'd write reasons why he's not

626
00:30:06,565 --> 00:30:09,765
Speaker 3: lying to me, reasons why I shouldn't be worried, reasons

627
00:30:09,805 --> 00:30:12,125
Speaker 3: why the fact he didn't turn up on the weekend

628
00:30:12,685 --> 00:30:15,405
Speaker 3: shouldn't bother me. And when I look back at those lists,

629
00:30:15,405 --> 00:30:17,925
Speaker 3: they are all things he said to me. I'm envisiting

630
00:30:17,925 --> 00:30:22,725
Speaker 3: you with gray hair, I love you completely, I et cet.

631
00:30:22,725 --> 00:30:24,845
Speaker 3: There were all things he said. They were not actions.

632
00:30:24,885 --> 00:30:27,405
Speaker 1: They had seen a dog that he said was them.

633
00:30:27,485 --> 00:30:30,165
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I knew the dog existed.

634
00:30:30,645 --> 00:30:34,125
Speaker 2: And there was such detail in his excuses exactly, and

635
00:30:34,165 --> 00:30:36,645
Speaker 2: they were quite elaborate, weren't they was never just like

636
00:30:37,045 --> 00:30:39,085
Speaker 2: I can't come. It's sort of you talk about it

637
00:30:39,165 --> 00:30:40,685
Speaker 2: them unfolding in three acts.

638
00:30:40,765 --> 00:30:43,725
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, in the most incredibly detailed way.

639
00:30:44,005 --> 00:30:45,125
Speaker 1: Would they so well?

640
00:30:45,125 --> 00:30:47,565
Speaker 3: For example, this weekend that he said he was his

641
00:30:47,645 --> 00:30:50,405
Speaker 3: dog had been bitten by a snake. He was meant

642
00:30:50,405 --> 00:30:52,565
Speaker 3: to come to my apartment on a Friday night and

643
00:30:52,725 --> 00:30:54,445
Speaker 3: have dinner with me. Come up. He was down at

644
00:30:54,445 --> 00:30:55,845
Speaker 3: the farm and he was meant to be coming up.

645
00:30:56,245 --> 00:30:58,285
Speaker 3: And around about four in the afternoon, I got the

646
00:30:58,325 --> 00:31:01,405
Speaker 3: text saying I can't find my dog, then another, and

647
00:31:01,485 --> 00:31:03,885
Speaker 3: I replied to each of them with concern or questions,

648
00:31:03,925 --> 00:31:07,125
Speaker 3: and then another one an hour or two later. Founder

649
00:31:07,165 --> 00:31:09,285
Speaker 3: were at the vet. I'm not sure she's going to

650
00:31:09,485 --> 00:31:11,805
Speaker 3: make it. She's been bitten by a snake with the vet, thinks.

651
00:31:12,765 --> 00:31:14,765
Speaker 3: Then silence for the rest of the night, nothing till

652
00:31:14,805 --> 00:31:17,125
Speaker 3: the next morning, but then a text very early the

653
00:31:17,165 --> 00:31:19,765
Speaker 3: next morning saying, I think I'll be able to come

654
00:31:19,845 --> 00:31:21,885
Speaker 3: up to town. We think, well, she'll make it now,

655
00:31:21,965 --> 00:31:23,645
Speaker 3: there won't be any point in mess staying here with her.

656
00:31:23,645 --> 00:31:25,405
Speaker 3: I'll come up, you know, I'll be there for lunch.

657
00:31:25,725 --> 00:31:27,965
Speaker 3: Then a few hours later, I've actually got a friend

658
00:31:28,005 --> 00:31:30,045
Speaker 3: who's a vet in another town and he's coming to

659
00:31:30,085 --> 00:31:33,085
Speaker 3: look at her. And there were slight contradictions, but I

660
00:31:33,125 --> 00:31:35,845
Speaker 3: wasn't seeing the contradictions because in the morning you're saying

661
00:31:35,965 --> 00:31:37,765
Speaker 3: we think she's going to make it. Well, then if

662
00:31:37,805 --> 00:31:38,925
Speaker 3: she's going to make it, why do you need to

663
00:31:38,925 --> 00:31:40,845
Speaker 3: bring another vet? Like I can see all of these

664
00:31:41,645 --> 00:31:45,325
Speaker 3: contradictions now. The text went on all weekend with updates

665
00:31:45,405 --> 00:31:46,205
Speaker 3: and no, I'm not.

666
00:31:46,125 --> 00:31:50,405
Speaker 2: Going to come confusing like being bombarded with details and bombarded.

667
00:31:50,485 --> 00:31:52,965
Speaker 3: I think the effect the details had was simply to

668
00:31:53,045 --> 00:31:55,805
Speaker 3: reassure me of the truth of the story. Why would you?

669
00:31:57,005 --> 00:31:59,725
Speaker 3: It just seems so real. The vet friend arrived, they

670
00:31:59,725 --> 00:32:03,165
Speaker 3: went back to his town with the dog. They had

671
00:32:03,165 --> 00:32:05,605
Speaker 3: not seen each other for a long time. Their friendship

672
00:32:05,645 --> 00:32:08,805
Speaker 3: had been a casualty of the divorce. Now they were

673
00:32:08,805 --> 00:32:10,725
Speaker 3: catching up, and it was really good that they were

674
00:32:10,765 --> 00:32:13,885
Speaker 3: catching up becoming friends again. So he's going to stay

675
00:32:13,925 --> 00:32:16,325
Speaker 3: there the night, see tomorrow, I see you tomorrow morning.

676
00:32:16,325 --> 00:32:18,885
Speaker 3: And then finally I saw him late on the Sunday.

677
00:32:19,005 --> 00:32:21,925
Speaker 3: But the text went all weekend and kept putting off

678
00:32:21,925 --> 00:32:22,845
Speaker 3: his arrival time.

679
00:32:23,005 --> 00:32:24,525
Speaker 1: You must have thought you were going crazy.

680
00:32:24,565 --> 00:32:25,605
Speaker 3: Oh I did, I did.

681
00:32:26,245 --> 00:32:27,685
Speaker 1: Did you know the term gas lighting?

682
00:32:27,965 --> 00:32:28,045
Speaker 2: No?

683
00:32:28,485 --> 00:32:31,525
Speaker 3: Well, no, I didn't believe it or not, But I mean,

684
00:32:31,925 --> 00:32:35,605
Speaker 3: I think that's This conversation about gas lighting is really

685
00:32:35,645 --> 00:32:38,005
Speaker 3: only maybe I'm dreaming. I don't know. Maybe it was

686
00:32:38,045 --> 00:32:41,645
Speaker 3: out there, but I don't think we talked about relationships

687
00:32:41,725 --> 00:32:42,045
Speaker 3: like this.

688
00:32:42,925 --> 00:32:44,685
Speaker 1: No, gas lighting is quite new.

689
00:32:44,685 --> 00:32:47,245
Speaker 2: When I was in an emotionally abusive relationship, I didn't

690
00:32:47,245 --> 00:32:50,205
Speaker 2: know that term until many years later, when I looked

691
00:32:50,205 --> 00:32:51,725
Speaker 2: back and I went, oh, that's what it was.

692
00:32:51,725 --> 00:32:54,085
Speaker 1: I wish i'd have read an article about that, because yes,

693
00:32:54,245 --> 00:32:55,885
Speaker 1: you think, oh, this is just me.

694
00:32:57,245 --> 00:33:00,405
Speaker 2: This is just the very specific dynamics of this relationship.

695
00:33:00,845 --> 00:33:03,725
Speaker 2: And what you describe is so familiar to anyone who's

696
00:33:04,045 --> 00:33:06,485
Speaker 2: been involved with a guy who's either a liar or

697
00:33:06,525 --> 00:33:09,245
Speaker 2: a psychopath or an emotionally abusive.

698
00:33:09,685 --> 00:33:11,245
Speaker 1: You start doubting yourself.

699
00:33:11,645 --> 00:33:14,285
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't think, oh, this guy's a dick and

700
00:33:14,645 --> 00:33:17,405
Speaker 2: cut them loose, because even though it's from the outside,

701
00:33:17,525 --> 00:33:19,525
Speaker 2: people look at you and go, what are you doing?

702
00:33:19,925 --> 00:33:22,285
Speaker 3: But no one on my outside was saying that. On

703
00:33:22,325 --> 00:33:26,965
Speaker 3: my outside, even your therapist, even my therapist who I love,

704
00:33:27,045 --> 00:33:29,245
Speaker 3: and I do not blame her for this for a moment,

705
00:33:29,285 --> 00:33:31,285
Speaker 3: because she wasn't in the middle of the relationship. I

706
00:33:31,325 --> 00:33:33,405
Speaker 3: could in an hour session every couple of weeks or

707
00:33:33,405 --> 00:33:35,965
Speaker 3: every week. I couldn't tell her everything that was going on.

708
00:33:36,085 --> 00:33:38,885
Speaker 3: I can't remember what I missed to tell her. She

709
00:33:38,925 --> 00:33:40,845
Speaker 3: wasn't seeing red flag. She kept on saying, a man

710
00:33:40,885 --> 00:33:44,965
Speaker 3: with a difficult ex wife, two children, a farm, business interests,

711
00:33:45,005 --> 00:33:48,885
Speaker 3: property development is going to have a complex, complex life,

712
00:33:48,965 --> 00:33:51,605
Speaker 3: and it's so different from your life. I'm not seeing

713
00:33:51,605 --> 00:33:52,405
Speaker 3: red flags.

714
00:33:52,605 --> 00:33:52,925
Speaker 1: Steph.

715
00:33:52,925 --> 00:33:57,285
Speaker 2: Did you find yourself protecting his image from other people

716
00:33:57,365 --> 00:34:02,165
Speaker 2: by not telling people everything about how many times you cancel.

717
00:34:02,045 --> 00:34:05,245
Speaker 3: Or I'm pretty open. So I was probably telling my

718
00:34:05,325 --> 00:34:06,165
Speaker 3: friends the truth.

719
00:34:06,245 --> 00:34:08,005
Speaker 1: At what point did they say the.

720
00:34:08,525 --> 00:34:11,765
Speaker 3: Only one did? Most of my friends would go One

721
00:34:11,805 --> 00:34:15,525
Speaker 3: friend said, stop being a weirdo, you know, until you've

722
00:34:15,525 --> 00:34:18,845
Speaker 3: got a concrete evidence that he's lying, Stop being a weirdo.

723
00:34:19,485 --> 00:34:21,205
Speaker 3: And my brother and sister in LAWA would say, you're

724
00:34:21,205 --> 00:34:23,205
Speaker 3: going to ruin it. Relax, you're going to ruin it.

725
00:34:23,565 --> 00:34:27,645
Speaker 3: There was one heterosexual friend, a guy who was then

726
00:34:27,805 --> 00:34:31,205
Speaker 3: he's another phenomena for women of a certain age, my

727
00:34:31,285 --> 00:34:33,925
Speaker 3: age and even younger. By this stage, I was in

728
00:34:33,925 --> 00:34:36,165
Speaker 3: my late forties and he was in his mid forties,

729
00:34:36,205 --> 00:34:39,085
Speaker 3: but he was seeing women who were in their early thirties. So,

730
00:34:39,445 --> 00:34:40,765
Speaker 3: you know, even though it's only about two or three

731
00:34:40,805 --> 00:34:43,765
Speaker 3: younger years younger than me, I was never, you know,

732
00:34:43,805 --> 00:34:46,045
Speaker 3: a rare single man in his mid forties. He was

733
00:34:46,085 --> 00:34:48,805
Speaker 3: separated with a young daughter as well. But I don't

734
00:34:48,805 --> 00:34:50,405
Speaker 3: think he ever looked at, you know, would look at

735
00:34:50,405 --> 00:34:53,965
Speaker 3: a woman my age with an eye to thinking I was,

736
00:34:54,245 --> 00:34:56,245
Speaker 3: because there is you know, he's going out with thirty

737
00:34:56,365 --> 00:34:56,805
Speaker 3: year olds.

738
00:34:57,085 --> 00:34:59,925
Speaker 2: That's important to understand because that's the context for which

739
00:35:00,165 --> 00:35:02,885
Speaker 2: someone who does show an interest in you and not

740
00:35:02,925 --> 00:35:07,245
Speaker 2: a twenty eight year old. That's really flattering, and there

741
00:35:07,365 --> 00:35:10,445
Speaker 2: is a level of gratitude for that appreciation of that.

742
00:35:10,605 --> 00:35:12,525
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and that's very real.

743
00:35:12,605 --> 00:35:15,565
Speaker 3: Absolutely. But this one heterosexual friend, I think he knew

744
00:35:15,645 --> 00:35:19,805
Speaker 3: me just from a very few things I said. He said,

745
00:35:19,845 --> 00:35:22,165
Speaker 3: he was cynical. He didn't even need to ask me

746
00:35:22,205 --> 00:35:24,805
Speaker 3: many questions. He didn't really. We sat in one night

747
00:35:24,805 --> 00:35:27,005
Speaker 3: at a sushi bar when I was and I pulled

748
00:35:27,085 --> 00:35:30,525
Speaker 3: my anxieties out to him and he said, yeah, yeah,

749
00:35:30,565 --> 00:35:31,925
Speaker 3: when are you going to let this finish? When are

750
00:35:31,925 --> 00:35:32,605
Speaker 3: you going to finish this?

751
00:35:32,925 --> 00:35:33,765
Speaker 1: How long had it been?

752
00:35:34,005 --> 00:35:37,205
Speaker 3: Oh? That was probably a seven months or so into

753
00:35:37,205 --> 00:35:39,285
Speaker 3: the relationship. And he was ultimately the one that said

754
00:35:39,325 --> 00:35:40,765
Speaker 3: you've got to end this. And he was the one

755
00:35:40,765 --> 00:35:43,165
Speaker 3: that sort of picked me up and fed me I

756
00:35:43,205 --> 00:35:46,925
Speaker 3: hadn't been eating at the very end, and said, you've

757
00:35:46,925 --> 00:35:48,365
Speaker 3: got to end this. This is ridiculous.

758
00:35:48,525 --> 00:35:49,405
Speaker 1: How did you end it?

759
00:35:50,285 --> 00:35:53,085
Speaker 3: I email my ex and said, I don't know what

760
00:35:53,125 --> 00:35:55,885
Speaker 3: sort of hollow man you are, but you're a hollow man.

761
00:35:55,925 --> 00:35:58,285
Speaker 3: And I put my finger on it because now I

762
00:35:58,285 --> 00:36:01,005
Speaker 3: can understand the psychology of what I was, what I'd

763
00:36:01,005 --> 00:36:04,565
Speaker 3: been dealing with, which I didn't until I left the relationship.

764
00:36:05,565 --> 00:36:07,245
Speaker 3: Oh he's a hollow man and I put my finger

765
00:36:07,325 --> 00:36:08,765
Speaker 3: on it, and that email when I broke up with

766
00:36:08,845 --> 00:36:09,925
Speaker 3: him before knew anything.

767
00:36:10,285 --> 00:36:12,845
Speaker 1: So what happened after you decided to end it?

768
00:36:12,925 --> 00:36:16,085
Speaker 2: Because you worked at Fairfax at the time, you were

769
00:36:16,085 --> 00:36:19,445
Speaker 2: sitting next to one of Australia's leading investigative journalists, the

770
00:36:19,525 --> 00:36:23,365
Speaker 2: extraordinary Kate mcclearmon, who said, who's brought down entire state

771
00:36:23,405 --> 00:36:26,765
Speaker 2: governments through her investigative reporting? That would have been like

772
00:36:27,205 --> 00:36:30,565
Speaker 2: just something she could have done before breakfast, exactly one

773
00:36:30,605 --> 00:36:31,085
Speaker 2: of my tea.

774
00:36:31,205 --> 00:36:33,925
Speaker 3: No, it was actually another colleague and another great colleague

775
00:36:33,965 --> 00:36:36,085
Speaker 3: and Davies who now works the Guardian, who said to me,

776
00:36:36,165 --> 00:36:38,245
Speaker 3: let's do some searches on him. And this is probably

777
00:36:39,245 --> 00:36:41,365
Speaker 3: around seven months into the relationship, and I was expressing

778
00:36:41,405 --> 00:36:44,925
Speaker 3: anxieties to her about it and I said, oh, no, no, no, no,

779
00:36:45,005 --> 00:36:47,165
Speaker 3: this is a love affair. This isn't I mean, I've

780
00:36:47,205 --> 00:36:50,125
Speaker 3: done my preliminary googles, and I knew the sort of

781
00:36:50,125 --> 00:36:53,325
Speaker 3: searches that we could do, title deed searches to see

782
00:36:53,325 --> 00:36:56,725
Speaker 3: what he owned, if he indeed was this multimillionaire, whether

783
00:36:56,765 --> 00:36:59,205
Speaker 3: he owned the house that he lived in, bankruptcy searches,

784
00:36:59,325 --> 00:37:01,805
Speaker 3: and about social media. He didn't have a very big

785
00:37:01,805 --> 00:37:04,605
Speaker 3: social media. He had a Twitter account. It was pretty.

786
00:37:04,285 --> 00:37:05,085
Speaker 1: Typical for a man.

787
00:37:05,125 --> 00:37:07,165
Speaker 3: That's not a red flag. Oh that's not a red

788
00:37:07,165 --> 00:37:10,325
Speaker 3: flag at all, and very little online about him. But

789
00:37:10,885 --> 00:37:13,125
Speaker 3: just as I said before, you know enough to reassure

790
00:37:13,165 --> 00:37:16,045
Speaker 3: me that his grandfather was who he said, and that

791
00:37:16,085 --> 00:37:18,325
Speaker 3: he had had an architectural practice at one point. But

792
00:37:18,765 --> 00:37:20,845
Speaker 3: I said to Anne Davies, I said, no, this isn't

793
00:37:20,885 --> 00:37:22,685
Speaker 3: this is not a story. This is a love affair.

794
00:37:23,325 --> 00:37:26,405
Speaker 3: And of course that wasn't really the real reason. I mean,

795
00:37:26,405 --> 00:37:27,645
Speaker 3: it was part of it. I didn't want to be

796
00:37:27,685 --> 00:37:30,365
Speaker 3: a snoop, but I couldn't better look at what the

797
00:37:30,405 --> 00:37:34,565
Speaker 3: truth was. And that's not uncommon. It's called wilful blindness

798
00:37:34,605 --> 00:37:38,445
Speaker 3: in psychological terms. And it's the same phenomena as the

799
00:37:38,445 --> 00:37:41,605
Speaker 3: person that goes to tan on sun beds whose doctor

800
00:37:41,645 --> 00:37:44,485
Speaker 3: says you shouldn't do that, that's going to give you cancer,

801
00:37:44,725 --> 00:37:48,045
Speaker 3: or smokers, and it's the same phenomena. You turn your

802
00:37:48,645 --> 00:37:52,885
Speaker 3: eyes away from what you fear, what you don't want

803
00:37:52,885 --> 00:37:55,365
Speaker 3: to know about. It's not it's not convenient and convenient

804
00:37:55,925 --> 00:37:59,445
Speaker 3: to look at it, and I was being wilfully blind. Sure,

805
00:37:59,445 --> 00:38:00,805
Speaker 3: there was a part of me that didn't want to

806
00:38:00,845 --> 00:38:03,165
Speaker 3: snoop and felt that was a betrayal, But it was

807
00:38:03,205 --> 00:38:05,045
Speaker 3: more about I don't want to look, I can't look.

808
00:38:05,085 --> 00:38:05,645
Speaker 3: I can't look.

809
00:38:06,005 --> 00:38:07,885
Speaker 1: What made you decide to start looking a little?

810
00:38:07,885 --> 00:38:10,605
Speaker 3: Well, after I dumped him. After I dumped him, and

811
00:38:10,605 --> 00:38:13,125
Speaker 3: then my curiosity was like insatiable. I had to know

812
00:38:13,245 --> 00:38:17,085
Speaker 3: what I'd encountered and can I keep some of the secrets.

813
00:38:17,325 --> 00:38:19,605
Speaker 3: From what I discovered, I discovered that he wasn't who

814
00:38:19,685 --> 00:38:22,885
Speaker 3: he said he was at all, that he was bankrupt,

815
00:38:23,405 --> 00:38:25,685
Speaker 3: that he didn't live in the house that his ex

816
00:38:25,685 --> 00:38:29,005
Speaker 3: wife did. That in fact, I think he had no

817
00:38:29,045 --> 00:38:33,205
Speaker 3: fixed address. I think he moved, possibly between women. I

818
00:38:33,245 --> 00:38:36,125
Speaker 3: think there was some suggestion that he squatted on boats

819
00:38:36,165 --> 00:38:39,445
Speaker 3: on the harbor. Apparently there are any number of empty

820
00:38:39,925 --> 00:38:43,245
Speaker 3: boats on the Sydney Harbor. Owners don't visit very often.

821
00:38:44,125 --> 00:38:46,765
Speaker 3: I discovered he'd been with another woman from the very

822
00:38:46,765 --> 00:38:49,685
Speaker 3: first day of our relationship. I discovered that he didn't

823
00:38:49,685 --> 00:38:51,805
Speaker 3: have the custody of the children that he claimed he had,

824
00:38:52,845 --> 00:38:56,445
Speaker 3: that there was no farm, and ultimately I discovered that

825
00:38:57,005 --> 00:39:00,325
Speaker 3: he had been just simply a meddler in the Happy

826
00:39:00,405 --> 00:39:03,725
Speaker 3: Valley purchase. Had presented himself as a buyer, but he

827
00:39:03,765 --> 00:39:06,045
Speaker 3: had no money to buy it. And I eventually heard

828
00:39:06,085 --> 00:39:09,925
Speaker 3: from the person that did buy it, who says he

829
00:39:09,965 --> 00:39:13,485
Speaker 3: spent much much more money on the property than he

830
00:39:13,485 --> 00:39:16,885
Speaker 3: should have because of Joe's meddling in the sale. So

831
00:39:16,965 --> 00:39:19,125
Speaker 3: he fooled lots of other people as well, in business

832
00:39:19,125 --> 00:39:21,085
Speaker 3: as well. It wasn't just me. He's a very clever

833
00:39:21,245 --> 00:39:24,125
Speaker 3: con artist, really, But the thing is about it, it's

834
00:39:24,165 --> 00:39:27,405
Speaker 3: so weird. The benefits were so few for him. Really,

835
00:39:27,445 --> 00:39:29,845
Speaker 3: he didn't get I don't think he's got money out

836
00:39:29,885 --> 00:39:32,605
Speaker 3: of his corn artistry. And I think what he got

837
00:39:32,605 --> 00:39:34,205
Speaker 3: out of me and the other women that he's been

838
00:39:34,205 --> 00:39:37,525
Speaker 3: involved with is an audience for his grand stories, which

839
00:39:37,525 --> 00:39:40,085
Speaker 3: at the time I didn't see were grand stories. I

840
00:39:40,165 --> 00:39:41,925
Speaker 3: just thought he's a busy man trying to buy a

841
00:39:41,925 --> 00:39:45,045
Speaker 3: property and he wants to talk all about it. Now

842
00:39:45,085 --> 00:39:47,165
Speaker 3: I can see it was just self grandizement. It was

843
00:39:47,245 --> 00:39:50,165
Speaker 3: him going, look at me, look at me, I'm so successful.

844
00:39:50,765 --> 00:39:53,685
Speaker 3: And I allowed him to help build his facade around

845
00:39:53,685 --> 00:39:57,045
Speaker 3: the hollow shell by listening to him, and I suppose clapping,

846
00:39:57,165 --> 00:39:58,285
Speaker 3: you know, I was the audience.

847
00:39:58,605 --> 00:40:01,205
Speaker 1: Did you reach out to the woman he'd been with

848
00:40:01,485 --> 00:40:03,565
Speaker 1: through your relationship? How did you find her?

849
00:40:03,925 --> 00:40:06,005
Speaker 3: So her social media? I found evidence of her on

850
00:40:06,045 --> 00:40:08,965
Speaker 3: social media, and eventually, long time, long time afterwards, I

851
00:40:08,965 --> 00:40:09,925
Speaker 3: did reach chat to her.

852
00:40:10,245 --> 00:40:13,525
Speaker 1: How did you discover that they'd been together through that time?

853
00:40:13,525 --> 00:40:18,725
Speaker 3: That her social media revealed just endless photographs and on

854
00:40:19,445 --> 00:40:23,085
Speaker 3: both Facebook and Instagram that all the dog the day

855
00:40:23,125 --> 00:40:25,005
Speaker 3: that his dog had been bitten by a snake, he

856
00:40:25,205 --> 00:40:27,845
Speaker 3: was in fact at a resort in the Hunter Valley

857
00:40:27,925 --> 00:40:31,885
Speaker 3: with her, playing board games and drinking wine at various

858
00:40:31,885 --> 00:40:35,525
Speaker 3: wineries and swimming in a swimming pool in between sending

859
00:40:35,525 --> 00:40:38,485
Speaker 3: me text messages telling me about his dying dog, which

860
00:40:38,605 --> 00:40:42,605
Speaker 3: presumably was it a vet hotel or a pet hotel somewhere.

861
00:40:43,725 --> 00:40:45,805
Speaker 3: Her Facebook and Instagram gave me all the evidence I

862
00:40:45,845 --> 00:40:48,405
Speaker 3: needed to see the pattern of lies. And once I

863
00:40:48,485 --> 00:40:50,685
Speaker 3: knew the pattern of lies in that he had been

864
00:40:50,725 --> 00:40:54,725
Speaker 3: lying to me at that level about her, about about

865
00:40:55,045 --> 00:40:57,245
Speaker 3: what he'd been doing, I could see that clearly the

866
00:40:57,285 --> 00:41:01,885
Speaker 3: lies didn't stop there, that this was a much bigger scale.

867
00:41:02,805 --> 00:41:04,085
Speaker 1: I must have been devastating.

868
00:41:06,365 --> 00:41:08,685
Speaker 3: It's funny, you know, I think it helped me start

869
00:41:08,685 --> 00:41:11,205
Speaker 3: it began, and my recovery, it was like, how can

870
00:41:11,245 --> 00:41:13,685
Speaker 3: I be surprised by it? That's the like I know that.

871
00:41:13,765 --> 00:41:15,205
Speaker 3: The night that I sat there, I was on the

872
00:41:15,205 --> 00:41:17,125
Speaker 3: phone to a girlfriend in Melbourne as I went through

873
00:41:17,165 --> 00:41:21,685
Speaker 3: his Facebook, her Facebook, this woman's, other woman's Facebook, and Instagram.

874
00:41:22,325 --> 00:41:26,165
Speaker 3: It was devastating and stunning, but not surprising. And I

875
00:41:26,205 --> 00:41:29,165
Speaker 3: can't explain why I wasn't like something had to be

876
00:41:29,285 --> 00:41:31,325
Speaker 3: up and I came to see that by the end.

877
00:41:31,525 --> 00:41:34,365
Speaker 1: But was there a relief in learning that you weren't crazy?

878
00:41:35,125 --> 00:41:38,845
Speaker 3: The relief came mostly not so long after that, when

879
00:41:38,885 --> 00:41:43,205
Speaker 3: I started to google the words pathological liar and boyfriend.

880
00:41:43,965 --> 00:41:46,445
Speaker 3: And once I'd done that, this whole world opened up

881
00:41:46,445 --> 00:41:50,605
Speaker 3: to me, and it was pop psychology rather than medical psychiatry,

882
00:41:51,245 --> 00:41:55,125
Speaker 3: but it revealed so much to me about who he

883
00:41:55,325 --> 00:41:57,165
Speaker 3: was and why he was the way he was, and

884
00:41:57,285 --> 00:42:00,845
Speaker 3: the existence of these sorts of people out there, narcissistic

885
00:42:01,725 --> 00:42:05,725
Speaker 3: people with personality disorders most likely. And the Internet, if

886
00:42:05,765 --> 00:42:08,125
Speaker 3: you've ever been, once you've started to google, it's like

887
00:42:08,165 --> 00:42:11,045
Speaker 3: a rabbit hole. There's so much out there too, so

888
00:42:11,165 --> 00:42:14,285
Speaker 3: many people telling their stories about these people. There are

889
00:42:14,325 --> 00:42:16,685
Speaker 3: so many of them out there. It's terrifying. And after

890
00:42:16,725 --> 00:42:19,445
Speaker 3: my original Good Weekend article, I got so many emails

891
00:42:19,485 --> 00:42:23,005
Speaker 3: from people saying that happened to me, similar story, and

892
00:42:22,725 --> 00:42:26,725
Speaker 3: they're just gobsmacking, like women who've tried to commit suicide

893
00:42:26,725 --> 00:42:30,525
Speaker 3: after these relationships have ended and losing every scaic of

894
00:42:30,565 --> 00:42:33,445
Speaker 3: money that they've ever earned, and that the husband somehow

895
00:42:33,565 --> 00:42:37,445
Speaker 3: or the ex boyfriend or partner taking everything, turning children

896
00:42:37,445 --> 00:42:40,645
Speaker 3: against them, and I should also women are capable of

897
00:42:40,645 --> 00:42:43,965
Speaker 3: this behavior too. It's not just men. I've certainly heard

898
00:42:43,965 --> 00:42:47,565
Speaker 3: from many more women than men, which is probably a

899
00:42:47,565 --> 00:42:49,965
Speaker 3: symptom of the fact that women tell their stories more

900
00:42:50,005 --> 00:42:52,525
Speaker 3: readily than men do. But I've heard from men to

901
00:42:53,085 --> 00:42:56,845
Speaker 3: and one woman who I interviewed for my book who

902
00:42:57,165 --> 00:42:59,685
Speaker 3: had a bad relation She's an American woman lives in Florida.

903
00:42:59,765 --> 00:43:02,605
Speaker 3: She had a bad relationship with, funnily enough, an Australian

904
00:43:03,045 --> 00:43:07,365
Speaker 3: sports person who'd gone to Florida to play in his sport.

905
00:43:08,085 --> 00:43:10,285
Speaker 3: She now has this sort of account lean life coaching

906
00:43:10,405 --> 00:43:14,365
Speaker 3: kind of service that she promotes through Instagram. Mainly, she

907
00:43:14,525 --> 00:43:18,885
Speaker 3: says she gets fifty percent men contacting her about bad

908
00:43:18,925 --> 00:43:22,245
Speaker 3: women in their lives. That's the only stat I can

909
00:43:22,885 --> 00:43:26,085
Speaker 3: really offer, because this is not researched, and I don't

910
00:43:26,085 --> 00:43:29,125
Speaker 3: know how you would ever actually research it. Because I've

911
00:43:29,125 --> 00:43:31,405
Speaker 3: also got to be aware that a proportion of the

912
00:43:31,445 --> 00:43:33,965
Speaker 3: people who contacted me after the original article and also

913
00:43:34,005 --> 00:43:35,685
Speaker 3: after the book in the last couple of weeks, I've

914
00:43:35,685 --> 00:43:38,525
Speaker 3: got dozens more. I think you've got to be aware

915
00:43:38,525 --> 00:43:41,325
Speaker 3: that some of them might just be aggrieved. They might

916
00:43:41,685 --> 00:43:45,405
Speaker 3: have blown out of proportion what their claims about their

917
00:43:45,405 --> 00:43:48,005
Speaker 3: ex are. They're pissed off, they're unhappy, they've broken up.

918
00:43:48,565 --> 00:43:50,365
Speaker 3: So I think you've got to set aside a few

919
00:43:50,405 --> 00:43:52,485
Speaker 3: of those and go, that's a fair point. You know,

920
00:43:52,525 --> 00:43:56,045
Speaker 3: you can't take everyone as fact. And I don't know

921
00:43:56,085 --> 00:43:58,125
Speaker 3: how you to ever research the troop without going into

922
00:43:58,125 --> 00:44:00,565
Speaker 3: these relationships in such detail. How do you ever prove

923
00:44:00,605 --> 00:44:01,325
Speaker 3: the truth of them?

924
00:44:01,645 --> 00:44:04,165
Speaker 1: People feel so stupid, yep.

925
00:44:04,205 --> 00:44:06,445
Speaker 3: And if they tell one line that doesn't work, they

926
00:44:06,445 --> 00:44:08,325
Speaker 3: move on to the next line. Yeah, and they can.

927
00:44:08,925 --> 00:44:12,045
Speaker 3: They the most incredibly intricate stories, and they tell one

928
00:44:12,085 --> 00:44:15,685
Speaker 3: lie after another, and you can see there are contradictions.

929
00:44:15,725 --> 00:44:19,165
Speaker 3: But well I could see there were contradictions in his stories,

930
00:44:19,405 --> 00:44:22,285
Speaker 3: and that bothered me. But yeah, I was just immersed

931
00:44:22,285 --> 00:44:24,045
Speaker 3: in it, and I so much wanted it to work.

932
00:44:25,045 --> 00:44:27,805
Speaker 2: More of my conversation with the real life Bertie Bell

933
00:44:28,085 --> 00:44:33,685
Speaker 2: Stephanie Wood after this break, when your original Good Weekend

934
00:44:33,845 --> 00:44:36,765
Speaker 2: piece came out, our mutual friend of Meilily Lester, was

935
00:44:36,805 --> 00:44:41,445
Speaker 2: your editor on that story, and it was absolutely stunning

936
00:44:42,005 --> 00:44:43,925
Speaker 2: and so powerful.

937
00:44:44,125 --> 00:44:45,725
Speaker 1: And everybody was talking about it.

938
00:44:45,765 --> 00:44:47,725
Speaker 2: I can see the cover of The Good Weekend in

939
00:44:47,725 --> 00:44:50,365
Speaker 2: my mind's eye when I think about it. It came

940
00:44:50,365 --> 00:44:51,965
Speaker 2: out on the Saturday, and on the Sunday I had

941
00:44:52,085 --> 00:44:56,005
Speaker 2: lunch actually with a number of journalist girlfriends, and.

942
00:44:56,005 --> 00:44:58,645
Speaker 1: We were all saying, who is this guy?

943
00:44:59,205 --> 00:45:01,965
Speaker 2: We need to find out who this guy is? I

944
00:45:01,965 --> 00:45:04,725
Speaker 2: imagine because you gave a lot a number of details,

945
00:45:04,765 --> 00:45:07,725
Speaker 2: you were careful you didn't use his name. But did

946
00:45:07,765 --> 00:45:09,685
Speaker 2: people recognize him and contact.

947
00:45:09,525 --> 00:45:11,725
Speaker 3: You family members? Some of his family did.

948
00:45:11,805 --> 00:45:12,445
Speaker 1: What did they say?

949
00:45:13,445 --> 00:45:18,125
Speaker 3: They made comments about the fact it wasn't the first

950
00:45:18,165 --> 00:45:19,365
Speaker 3: time they'd heard these stories.

951
00:45:19,805 --> 00:45:23,925
Speaker 2: Did they feel bad? Yeah, they did, I suppose reaching

952
00:45:23,925 --> 00:45:26,245
Speaker 2: out to you. They weren't defending him. Put it that way,

953
00:45:26,285 --> 00:45:28,245
Speaker 2: they weren't defending What about Joe himself.

954
00:45:28,925 --> 00:45:31,805
Speaker 3: I heard from him. Yes, after that original Good Weekend article,

955
00:45:31,965 --> 00:45:34,525
Speaker 3: I got a couple of very odd messages that were

956
00:45:34,565 --> 00:45:39,725
Speaker 3: really disconnected from reality. He talked about how he was

957
00:45:39,765 --> 00:45:42,045
Speaker 3: with an inner new relationship there. It was sort of

958
00:45:42,045 --> 00:45:45,605
Speaker 3: an apology, but it wasn't an apology. It's very difficult

959
00:45:45,645 --> 00:45:49,885
Speaker 3: to describe just how weird the emails are. They're literate,

960
00:45:50,005 --> 00:45:55,045
Speaker 3: the punctuation and grammar is right, but there's a nonsequential

961
00:45:55,165 --> 00:45:57,965
Speaker 3: nature to them as sort of a discombobulating kind of

962
00:45:57,965 --> 00:46:00,645
Speaker 3: effect to them. And as I talk about in the book,

963
00:46:00,765 --> 00:46:04,045
Speaker 3: it's it was really disturbing for a while, but then

964
00:46:04,525 --> 00:46:07,445
Speaker 3: I started to laugh and I heard things that he

965
00:46:07,485 --> 00:46:10,325
Speaker 3: was saying about me, which were, I'm if I don't

966
00:46:10,325 --> 00:46:13,805
Speaker 3: take my medication, I do some strange things. Last night,

967
00:46:14,605 --> 00:46:19,525
Speaker 3: I stole money from my mother to buy my apartment.

968
00:46:20,885 --> 00:46:25,365
Speaker 3: I am a lesbian. It just doesn't tell this to

969
00:46:25,725 --> 00:46:27,605
Speaker 3: I hear it through a guy through a sauce.

970
00:46:27,645 --> 00:46:29,765
Speaker 2: Yet, And have you stayed or did you when you

971
00:46:29,845 --> 00:46:32,325
Speaker 2: reached out to the woman he was having their relationship with,

972
00:46:33,245 --> 00:46:36,725
Speaker 2: was she angry? Was she still with him at the time?

973
00:46:36,805 --> 00:46:38,485
Speaker 2: How did that conversation unfold?

974
00:46:39,325 --> 00:46:42,845
Speaker 3: It was a really really terrifying moment when I reached

975
00:46:42,845 --> 00:46:44,765
Speaker 3: out to her, because I didn't know whether they were

976
00:46:44,765 --> 00:46:47,565
Speaker 3: in a relationship or not. And as I detail on

977
00:46:47,605 --> 00:46:49,005
Speaker 3: the book, it was there were a lot of light

978
00:46:49,045 --> 00:46:51,645
Speaker 3: bulb moments as we talked about was she open to

979
00:46:51,725 --> 00:46:53,645
Speaker 3: talking to you? It's very open to talking to Had

980
00:46:53,685 --> 00:46:54,765
Speaker 3: she ended the relationship?

981
00:46:54,805 --> 00:46:57,605
Speaker 1: Maybe she had. She made a funny comment about a whiteboard.

982
00:46:58,605 --> 00:47:02,125
Speaker 3: Yeah, when we started to compare stories, she said, you know,

983
00:47:02,285 --> 00:47:04,285
Speaker 3: he must have had a whiteboard. And I got a

984
00:47:04,285 --> 00:47:06,925
Speaker 3: picture in my head of him with different colored market

985
00:47:06,925 --> 00:47:09,045
Speaker 3: pens and biting his lip and looking at his whiteboard

986
00:47:09,085 --> 00:47:11,845
Speaker 3: and different columns. And I was blue when she was red.

987
00:47:11,885 --> 00:47:15,245
Speaker 3: And he'd compared the stories of how he was lying

988
00:47:15,285 --> 00:47:17,525
Speaker 3: to each of us, and he lied to us differently.

989
00:47:17,605 --> 00:47:19,965
Speaker 3: There were different lies. There were things that he said

990
00:47:19,965 --> 00:47:21,805
Speaker 3: to me that he never said to her. He had

991
00:47:21,805 --> 00:47:23,805
Speaker 3: a different name for his ex wife, for her that

992
00:47:23,845 --> 00:47:26,125
Speaker 3: he told to her to me out like and who

993
00:47:26,165 --> 00:47:27,365
Speaker 3: knows why? Who knows why?

994
00:47:27,485 --> 00:47:29,205
Speaker 1: A lot of stuff to keep straight.

995
00:47:29,165 --> 00:47:30,765
Speaker 3: A lot of cut stuff to keep straight. And as

996
00:47:30,765 --> 00:47:32,885
Speaker 3: a lot of people said to me, why why would

997
00:47:32,885 --> 00:47:35,805
Speaker 3: you put yourself through that? The exhausting nature of that

998
00:47:35,885 --> 00:47:39,085
Speaker 3: juggling act. It's just insane. Stephanie, how do you date

999
00:47:39,125 --> 00:47:43,805
Speaker 3: again after Joe? I don't know me I really don't know.

1000
00:47:45,605 --> 00:47:47,405
Speaker 3: Will anyone want to date me? I don't know.

1001
00:47:47,485 --> 00:47:51,045
Speaker 2: Shut up, look at you gorgeous and smart and oh well,

1002
00:47:51,125 --> 00:47:52,885
Speaker 2: I mean kind and brilliant.

1003
00:47:53,365 --> 00:47:57,605
Speaker 3: You're very sweet. People might be scared that I might

1004
00:47:57,645 --> 00:48:01,845
Speaker 3: write about them, and I don't think anyone's ever going to,

1005
00:48:01,965 --> 00:48:04,125
Speaker 3: you know, come up to the standard of Joe in

1006
00:48:04,205 --> 00:48:06,165
Speaker 3: terms I think. And I think I'm done with writing

1007
00:48:06,165 --> 00:48:08,405
Speaker 3: about my personal life. I'd never wanted to write about

1008
00:48:08,445 --> 00:48:12,365
Speaker 3: my personal life, and it's just unfolded that I have,

1009
00:48:12,725 --> 00:48:17,005
Speaker 3: and it's ridiculous. They're the stories that get the most traction,

1010
00:48:17,285 --> 00:48:19,485
Speaker 3: and I right now want to pull away from doing

1011
00:48:19,525 --> 00:48:22,325
Speaker 3: personal stories completely. I never want to write another one.

1012
00:48:23,125 --> 00:48:25,165
Speaker 3: But as I say that, I know that they're the

1013
00:48:25,165 --> 00:48:27,885
Speaker 3: stories that make a difference in people's lives. I feel

1014
00:48:27,925 --> 00:48:30,765
Speaker 3: I get so many people saying, thank you, your book

1015
00:48:30,805 --> 00:48:34,165
Speaker 3: is my bible. Now you've saved my life. I understand

1016
00:48:34,165 --> 00:48:37,325
Speaker 3: what happened now, and that's enormously gratifying. You know, we

1017
00:48:37,325 --> 00:48:39,565
Speaker 3: don't live long in this world, and not many of

1018
00:48:39,645 --> 00:48:42,805
Speaker 3: us can actually make a difference. And so as I

1019
00:48:42,845 --> 00:48:45,125
Speaker 3: say I don't want to write more personal essays, I

1020
00:48:45,165 --> 00:48:47,765
Speaker 3: can see their power and how important they can be.

1021
00:48:48,365 --> 00:48:51,565
Speaker 3: But as for dating, I don't know. I just don't know, Like,

1022
00:48:51,925 --> 00:48:53,925
Speaker 3: how do you have an online date with someone? Now?

1023
00:48:54,045 --> 00:48:56,805
Speaker 3: Even if you're optimistic enough to think that there's someone

1024
00:48:57,245 --> 00:48:59,645
Speaker 3: online that might be half decent, what do you say

1025
00:48:59,645 --> 00:49:00,885
Speaker 3: to them when they ask? What do you do?

1026
00:49:01,325 --> 00:49:01,485
Speaker 2: Yeah?

1027
00:49:01,525 --> 00:49:04,845
Speaker 3: I write books about fakes that I meet online? What

1028
00:49:04,925 --> 00:49:06,205
Speaker 3: do I say?

1029
00:49:06,565 --> 00:49:07,925
Speaker 1: And I think they'd be fascinating?

1030
00:49:07,925 --> 00:49:10,845
Speaker 3: And also I think, and I don't want to make

1031
00:49:10,885 --> 00:49:13,965
Speaker 3: a big deal about this, but I feel a bit

1032
00:49:14,005 --> 00:49:15,805
Speaker 3: awkward about it. You know, once you have some sort

1033
00:49:15,805 --> 00:49:20,285
Speaker 3: of profile, I don't know, dating online it feels weird

1034
00:49:20,285 --> 00:49:20,485
Speaker 3: to me.

1035
00:49:20,725 --> 00:49:24,045
Speaker 2: I've got a friend who is who writes about sex.

1036
00:49:24,125 --> 00:49:27,565
Speaker 2: She's a sex kind of advice giver. But that would

1037
00:49:27,605 --> 00:49:28,325
Speaker 2: be hard to date.

1038
00:49:28,485 --> 00:49:30,965
Speaker 1: That would be really hard to date. Imagine taking that

1039
00:49:31,085 --> 00:49:31,525
Speaker 1: on board.

1040
00:49:32,005 --> 00:49:35,045
Speaker 2: And she's just got married recently in her what would

1041
00:49:35,085 --> 00:49:39,285
Speaker 2: she be, late fifties probably yeah her. Thank you for

1042
00:49:39,325 --> 00:49:41,605
Speaker 2: writing this book. I wish I could have read it

1043
00:49:41,725 --> 00:49:44,565
Speaker 2: a lot of years ago. I hope that a lot

1044
00:49:44,565 --> 00:49:45,525
Speaker 2: of women do read it.

1045
00:49:45,645 --> 00:49:48,245
Speaker 3: I hope a lot of young women do yes to

1046
00:49:48,365 --> 00:49:52,165
Speaker 3: stop them before they start a pattern of bad relationships,

1047
00:49:52,565 --> 00:49:55,845
Speaker 3: and to show them that they're worthy of great love

1048
00:49:56,045 --> 00:49:57,885
Speaker 3: from the beginning, and if someone's not giving it to them,

1049
00:49:57,925 --> 00:50:00,405
Speaker 3: you walk away, and that to be single is often

1050
00:50:00,685 --> 00:50:02,925
Speaker 3: almost always better than being in a bad relationship.

1051
00:50:03,285 --> 00:50:05,125
Speaker 2: You can see why this story was just crying out

1052
00:50:05,205 --> 00:50:09,725
Speaker 2: to be an on screen thriller. And what's really wild

1053
00:50:09,925 --> 00:50:11,885
Speaker 2: is that this happened to Stephanie quite a few years

1054
00:50:11,885 --> 00:50:15,405
Speaker 2: ago when online dating was actually online, that is, before

1055
00:50:15,445 --> 00:50:18,005
Speaker 2: the apps even and as you heard, she never even

1056
00:50:18,005 --> 00:50:20,125
Speaker 2: got into the Tinder and the bumbles and the hinges.

1057
00:50:20,605 --> 00:50:22,925
Speaker 2: So it's crazy to think about the cat fishing and

1058
00:50:22,965 --> 00:50:25,685
Speaker 2: the fraud that can go on now when there's AI

1059
00:50:25,925 --> 00:50:29,605
Speaker 2: in so many new ways that liars can manipulate and

1060
00:50:29,685 --> 00:50:32,885
Speaker 2: cover their tracks. And really that's why this story and

1061
00:50:32,925 --> 00:50:36,285
Speaker 2: now this series is really important, because this could have

1062
00:50:36,405 --> 00:50:39,405
Speaker 2: ended up in a much worse situation for Stephanie than

1063
00:50:39,445 --> 00:50:42,965
Speaker 2: it did. Women get hurt by men they meet online

1064
00:50:43,325 --> 00:50:45,525
Speaker 2: or on the apps. They get hurt emotionally, they get

1065
00:50:45,565 --> 00:50:50,005
Speaker 2: hurt financially, and sometimes tragically, they get hurt physically. And

1066
00:50:50,045 --> 00:50:52,645
Speaker 2: that's why Stephanie really wanted to tell her story.

1067
00:50:52,925 --> 00:50:53,885
Speaker 1: So if you're out there.

1068
00:50:53,805 --> 00:50:57,365
Speaker 2: Dating now, navigating the world of the apps, stay safe,

1069
00:50:57,565 --> 00:51:01,325
Speaker 2: follow your instincts, research your dates like you're a journalist

1070
00:51:01,605 --> 00:51:05,565
Speaker 2: or a detective, and if something in you says this

1071
00:51:05,725 --> 00:51:09,085
Speaker 2: guy seems too good to be true, maybe he is.

1072
00:51:11,005 --> 00:51:12,245
Speaker 3: The didn't

1073
00:51:14,285 --> 00:51:14,565
Speaker 1: Say