# Relationships as a game



## rdonovan1 (Jul 12, 2009)

*Re: Craigslist Crime Becoming Common*

Those were some very interesting articles as I have tried to use Craigslist myself to sell things and to ask questions relating to business.

For whatever reason they shut down my account with them and although I would like to get my account with them reinstated it is not at the moment my primary concern.

My primary concern is with Paypal and in doing what I can to prevent myself from getting caught up in another online romance scam and to prevent myself from being conned in person as well by professional con artists.

Because of my interest in the dating, mating and relating game I inadvertantly got caught up with some of the online romance scams in 2006 and 2007.

Initially it started with a dating website called love-town.com in 2006, but after losing a lot of money to those scams in which women that I met on there would tell me that they were originally from the United States and that they had gone to Nigeria on business and gotten stuck there I decided that I would try Myspace instead. 

I met a couple of women on Myspace. One was supposedly from Albuquerque while the other one claimed to be initially from Ireland then had moved to Albuquerque. The first one was a doozey to say the least. At first I thought that she was okay and I gave her my phone number. After that things went down hill fast as the first time that I talked to her she told me that she had genital herpes and that she wanted to come over to my house and have sex with me. 

I don't know about anyone else, but I personally found that very offensive. After that she would constantly call me and more often than not when I would answer the phone and start talking with her it would go silent halfway through the call and then someone else would pick up the phone and start accusing me of calling them.

To say the least that was nothing but a big nightmare and that is why I am studying abnormal psychology and psychology as I am hoping to be able to pick up on stuff like that sooner and to prevent it from happening again.

The other girl that I met seemed ok, but because of my interaction with her and some of her friends Paypal is now trying to get me for over $812.36 and I personally think that is a nothing more than a crock on their part because from what I have read they had a duty to protect me under federal law.

When I first met her I did not believe her at all and as a result I tried to use things that I could find around Albuquerque that only someone from Albuquerque would know and that was not available on the internet at all.

She gave me some information and I did what I could to follow up on it to try to verify her claims and because of what I found and due to the fact that at that time I had not been in Albuquerque for more than about a year I believed that she was telling me the truth. As a result I helped her out with her hotel bill that she said she needed help with and after that things started to go down hill from there.

She told me that she had a client that was going to reimburse me what I had spent to help her out, but after months of her friend telling me that the money was being delayed by his attorney I started to get suspicious of things.

In Janurary of 2008 he came back and told me that he had a friend that owed him money and that they wanted to send me $7,000.00 dollars. Out of that I was supposed to recover what I had spent and the rest was supposed to go towards helping this girl out and in helping me to start some businesses that I have been trying to start for a long time.

Things however got ugly as initially the guy tried to deposit a check at Bank of America in person and it was accepted by the teller, but after about 2 weeks the check bounced because supposedly there was not enough funds in the guys account to cover the check. 

After that they tried to do it via wire transfer and that failed as well. After that I simply told them that if they wanted to send me any money then they would have to use Paypal as I was not about to take the risk of them playing with my bank account at all. 

Things were quiet for a few months until this guy's friend popped up and said that he would help me to start my businesses and that he would help me with my friend, but only on the condition that I helped him with a girl that he supposedly met in person and that he knew. He was supposedly married and had kids and because of the jealousy factor that often occurs between women I agreed to help him because he was afraid that his wife would find out and leave him.

He had money sent to me through Paypal and Paypal cleared the funds thereby leading me to think that the funds were legitimate and real. It was not until a few weeks later after I had completed my end of the bargain that I found out that the money that was sent to me was stolen money.

Prior to that I had no idea at all because Paypal lead me to believe that the money was real and legitimate and it is because of that incident that I am currently having problems with Paypal and at the moment I am trying to find ways of fighting that legally so that I can get my account reactivated.

I have tried to tell Paypal that it was a scam, but at the moment they are not believing me and are trying to get me for the whole thing and that is something that I don't agree with as I believe that they had a legal obligation to protect me.


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## rdonovan1 (Jul 12, 2009)

*Re: Craigslist Crime Becoming Common*



Daniel said:


> BTW, you can still open a new PayPal account with a new/different credit card number.   I have done so after having a dispute with PayPal over a single Ebay transaction.



That's interesting. I did not know that was even possible. Please tell me what happened with you and Paypal as I am very interested in knowing.

How do you handle the address thing with them? I'm not sure but I think that they also ask for your SSN. I can't remember because it has been so long since I have been able to log in to the account that I had with them. 

I don't know about you, but they are giving me the whole user agreement thing as their excuse. Personally I can't find a single thing in their user agreement to indicate that I did anything wrong or that I am liable. 

I have found out that they are legally considered a money service business and they are regulated by the Department of the Treasury and apparently by Fincen.

I am planning on calling Fincen tomorrow morning and talking to them about this so that  can try to get this issue reported to the proper law enforcement and government agencies as I believe that will help my case.

I may be a player, a Don Juan, or even a Casanova, but I am definitely not a criminal like they are trying to claim that I am and that is what really ****es me off the most with them as I don't like to be associated with that kind of crap.


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## rdonovan1 (Jul 12, 2009)

*Re: Craigslist Crime Becoming Common*

I'll have to check that out because if I can get that and my Craigslist account resolved then that will greatly help me out. 

Outside of that I would just need to be able to find a job somewhere and to be able to get some help from the church that I have been attempting to go to.

I don't know if people can or will understand this at all, but I spent over 5 years as an over the road truck driver. Two of those years I spent living in a truck and as a result I am kind of on the anxious side to just get out and to play the game with the chicks.

I don't know about you, but I tend to find that game fun and exciting. When it comes to the dating, mating, and relatig scene between men and women it is a lot like war as basically anything goes when it comes to the sexes. Both tend to want the same things, but neither side really wants to give in to the other and that is why both sides tend to do a lot of scheming trying to figure out as to how they are going to get the better end of the deal.

Women tend to want romance whereas men tend to want sex. Both think about sex, but both sides tend to have different strategies for getting it and that is why we tend to have so many problems when it comes to the dating, mating, and relating scene and to relationships between men and women as neither side really seems to understand the other and even when they do they are both still very competitive about it all.


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## David Baxter PhD (Jul 12, 2009)

*Re: Craigslist Crime Becoming Common*

1. It's not a game. Asw long as you continue to insist on viewing it that way, you are going to be disappointed. And your partners are perhaps going to be even more disappointed.

2. Generalizations about what women think or want and what men think or want are almost always more wrong than right.

3. Relationships may be difficult at times but they are nothing like war. I really don't know where you are getting some of your ideas but they are incredibly distorted. And some are quite offensive, frankly.


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## rdonovan1 (Jul 13, 2009)

*Re: Craigslist Crime Becoming Common*



David Baxter said:


> 1. It's not a game. Asw long as you continue to insist on viewing it that way, you are going to be disappointed. And your partners are perhaps going to be even more disappointed.
> 
> 2. Generalizations about what women think or want and what men think or want are almost always more wrong than right.
> 
> 3. Relationships may be difficult at times but they are nothing like war. I really don't know where you are getting some of your ideas but they are incredibly distorted. And some are quite offensive, frankly.



No offense is meant to you or to anyone else at all, but if you believe that it is not a game then you are very, very mistaken as I have personally seen it and experienced it and so would you if you were to visit places like Los Angeles or Florida.

One of the things that I have learned from studying seduction and attraction as well about women is that women can and will test you to see as what kind of boundaries you have. If you have very poor boundaries then many American women can and will take advantage of that because they know that the dating scene basically teaches men to supplicate to women and that is not good as that can and often does lead to stalking and that is something that most women do not want. 

What they want instead is a man that is not afraid of being a man and that has good boundaries in his life. If he is too nice then he is considered to be a wus and I have already been told by women that they do not like a guy that is too nice. If you come across like Clark Kent to women then all they are going to do is to consider you to be nothing more than a friend.

If on the other hand you do not have good observing ego then you will come across as being anal retentive and a jerk to them. 

A good balance between the two is to be the Alpha male by knowing when to stand your ground, when to negotiate, and of course when to be sensitive to them and their feelings. They also tend to want a man to be romantic and creative as well. 

If you ever go to some place like Los Angeles or Florida and you were to attempt pick up a woman that most men would tend to call a 9 or a 10 then you can and will be shot down and embarrased and that is not to mention being taken advantage of by them.

More often than not women like that are approached all the time by guys with stupid lines like 'Did it hurt when you fell from heaven', 'What's your sign', and other stupid lines that they tend to think will work on them.

Most women however are smarter than that and can usually see right past all of that and that is why none of that stuff really works at all.

What's more important is as to how to think and feel about yourself and as to how you present yourself as first impressions can and do mean everything and whether people believe it or not you will never get a second chance to make a first impression.

I don't know if you have ever seen the movie 50 first dates, but if you get a chance to see that movie I would suggest that you watch it as most women tend to find the creativity that Adam Sandler's character shows in the movie to meet Drew Barrymore's character and to make her fall in love with him every day very, very romantic and exciting.

One of the biggest killers of relationships between men and women is complacency and that is why there is such a high rate of divorce in the United States and as to why men and women are finding it necessary to cheat on one another. 

The key to both life and to relationships is balance in your life and according to Shihan Richard Van Donk who is a 10th degree black belt in Togakure Ryu Ninjutsu and is licensed under Dr. Massaki Hatsumi who is the 34th generation grandmaster of Togakure Ryu Ninjutsu most people tend to be out of balance in their lives and that is something that I believe is true.

Dr. Richard Bandler once recounted in his book 'Using your brain for a change' a case in which a group of healthy, happy college students had checked themselves into a psychiatric hospital just as an experiment. All were diagnosed as having severe psychological problems and had difficulty getting out. 

I don't know about you, but that tends to say something about the system. 

I am not against psychology at all. I just tend to think that like so many other people psychologists and psychiatrists tend to be more apt to say that you have severe psychological problem then they are to admit the truth.

A lot of that is because they are not willing to go and find out what they don't know. More often than not they just sit in their offices and theorize about a lot of things which they basically cannot support.

I don't know if you remember your science at all, but the very first thing that science tends to say is to always double check your work and then when you think that you do have the answer, try to disprove it. Only then will you find the answer that you are seeking. 

Unlike a lot of people I don't believe everything that see and hear nor do I believe everything that I read. Unless I can prove it to myself or if I can find a verifiable pattern then I am more apt to believe it.

Basically what I have learned to do is to take most things with a grain of salt and to never assume anything. I can and do hypothosize about things that I see, hear and read, but that does not mean that all all of it is true as people's version of things can and is usually very subjective and according to NLP most of us tend to distort or delete things in our minds. 

NLP has taught me that the brain is a lot like a computer and that is something that I do believe because I do have a background with computers and I have done computer programming so as a result I tend to be able to understand that concept. 

If you have never done any programming in languages like C, C++, or even Visual Basic then you will have a difficult time understanding that concept.

Not everything relates to that though as we are also controlled by our emotions and by our instincts and whether we like it or not none of us can or will ever be able to hide from our instincts at all as that is all inborn and is the result of millions of years of evolution and that is something that is documented by both psychology and by science itself. 

If you ever get a chance to do so, I would like to suggest that you check out the works of people like B.F. Skinner or Pavlov as their experiments are proven both in theory and in practice.

---------- Post added at 11:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:57 PM ----------




Daniel said:


> I used the same address.
> 
> 
> From what I remember, no SSN was required to setup a new personal PayPal account.




Daniel, 

I would like to thank you for that information as that is something that I never thought about before and that I am going to have to explore to see if it is something that I can do to help solve my problem.

When I started with all of it my idea was to sell on eBay and then to eventually work my way up through selling until I eventually had enough money to get into real estate investing and Import/Export, but because of all these scams and my currentl financial situation that is currently on the back burner.

My priority is in finding a job and in dealing with my immediate concerns right now.


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## David Baxter PhD (Jul 13, 2009)

*Re: Craigslist Crime Becoming Common*



> I would like to suggest that you check out the works of people like B.F. Skinner or Pavlov as their experiments are proven both in theory and in practice.



I already have. Thoroughly. 

They have nothing to do with the cynical and distorted view of relationships you are describing here.


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## rdonovan1 (Jul 13, 2009)

*Re: Craigslist Crime Becoming Common*



David Baxter said:


> I already have. Thoroughly.
> 
> They have nothing to do with the cynical and distorted view of relationships you are describing here.



They are not cynical or distorted at all. It is merely reality.

If you were to see much of what I have seen in person then you would understand it a lot better.

I personally have seen and met not only women, but other people as well that tend to have a 'Me First' mentality.

I have learned not only through personal experience, but also from NLP that a lot of people tend to be very negative in their thinking. 

Look at it from the perspective of training a child. If you tell a child that the are not supposed to do something what normally happens? 

9 times out of 10 they can and will do it regardless of what you say. This is expecially true of kids that are in junior high school as most of them tend to believe that they know everything and that they are invincible. That kind of thinking tends to get them in trouble.

Simple common sense will tell most reasonable and rational people that you cannot jump off a 10 story building and fly like Superman. That kind of thinking is crazy. It is also crazy to think that if you mess with a rattlesnake and do not respect the fact that they are venomous and dangerous then you can and will get bitten by them.

Whether we like it or not people are in many ways like animals driven by their instincts. 

Unfortunately, due to poor parenting and other problems within society we have as a society have come to the belief that we do not need to respect the law or one another at all nor do we need to act the way that nature and God made us to be.

In your article you talked about how boys have been shamed into being less than boys because that is how their fathers have taught them. I believe that what you said in that article is on more cue than you realize.

Because of our totally screwed up society we have come to treat boys as if they are criminals for acting like boys and that is something that I believe is totally inappropriate. 

When I was growing up girls were taught to be girls and boys were taught and encouraged to be boys.

Basically what we have here is a complete lack of decent morals and values in our society and I personally think that is something that we need to correct because I believe that it is stupid for children to be bringing guns and knives to school.

Why you have a problem understanding the concept of boundaries is beyond me.

Normally I am a very pleasant and personable person, but if threatend for example by someone on the street who intends to kill or hurt me then I am going to fight back and defend myself. 

It's all about having good morals and values, and knowing when to stand up for yourself and when not to. It's also about having social and emotional intelligence.

If you have not studied any of Daniel Goleman's books, then you will not know what I am talking about. Another person that is rather well known is Dr. Paul Eckman.


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## white page (Jul 13, 2009)

*Re: Craigslist Crime Becoming Common*

rdonovan1, 
with all due respect to your perception of the world, there are many different realities, 
I find it rather inappropriate that you question Dr Baxters capacity to understand what you are talking about, not agreeing with your vision and philosophy of the world doesn't mean that there is a lack of understanding.  I understand what you are talking about but I do not agree with you.


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## rdonovan1 (Jul 13, 2009)

*Re: Craigslist Crime Becoming Common*



white page said:


> rdonovan1,
> with all due respect to your perception of the world, there are many different realities,
> I find it rather inappropriate that you question Dr Baxters capacity to understand what you are talking about, not agreeing with your vision and philosophy of the world doesn't mean that there is a lack of understanding.  I understand what you are talking about but I do not agree with you.



This is not a contest to see who is right and who is wrong and I will not allow myself to get sucked into such a contest. 

This is about simple facts and common sense. I respect Dr. Baxter's education and his experience and I respect everyone else's education and experience and I expect that people will respect my education and experience just as I will respect everyone else's education and experience.


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## David Baxter PhD (Jul 13, 2009)

*Re: Craigslist Crime Becoming Common*

As I stated earlier, rdonovan, you have a jaded and quite distorted view of human relationships. Obviously it has brought you success in relationships, though, so I'll leave you to your views and move on.


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