Who Is Your Partner Really?

I'm sitting here staring at the cursor blink, wondering where to start.

If you know me on Facebook, you might have noticed a change in my relationship status from "In A Relationship" to "Single". I would like to thank everyone for their words of support on FB.

This is probably the hardest post I will ever have to write but I need to get it out there. The reason for the change in my relationship status was because I found out that the person who was supposed to be my boyfriend was not all he claimed to be.

He was kind, caring, intelligent, sensitive, manipulative and deceitful. Several days ago I discovered, with the help of friends, that the man I was spending time with, chatting with every day, watching movies with and confiding in, is not what he claimed to be.

I have had friends say "Brandy, you are not a gullible person." Which I believe to be a fair assessment. I am intelligent, well spoken, a professional business woman and well known in the Second Life live music community.

Meeting someone online is always a risk that they will not be what they propose to be. According to http://www.theweddingreport.com one in six couples meet online. So, meeting online is very common place these days.

Second Life is not a dating service but people to meet and pair off in Second Life. We invest real time and emotions into these relationships. I would just like to caution you to make sure you know who you are dating. Use voice or webcam to verify gender and get a real name and do some searching online. A simple Google search can come up with a lot.

If your relationship will never leave the confines of Second Life, you may not feel the need to take as many precautions, but how would you like to find out that the man you were dating for the past however long isn't even male?

In the very least, VOICE VERIFY!!! You can voice verify in a matter of just a couple minutes... is a couple minutes worth peace of mind?

At some point the whole story of my relationship will come out I'm sure and my close friends already know. For now, however, this is the part that I choose to share. If you take nothing else from this post, please just use caution, I was never in danger but the emotional scars are just as painful.