"Barry" Was a Fraud

This is probably the most shocking e-mail I have received since I started my blog, so I wish I felt shocked.

Instead, I guess I feel numb.

My first response was that I should feel stupid, or taken advantage of--but I'm not feeling that. And then I thought that this may change the way that I make friends online, or change how much of myself I am willing to give to people who I meet only through my keyboard--but I'm not feeling that either.

I'm not going to go back over the whole history of my online friendship with Barry, who started posting on my blog back in the fall, September, I think, and then told me in October that his daughter Rose had died of sarcoma. Later, he told me he had lung cancer, but was not going to seek treatment.

The weird thing is that he had a whole blog for Rose, with posts on it from people who I thought knew Rose in the real world, but I guess they only "knew" her from the blog and another site for cancer patients that he had been posting on.

I might have been suspicious if he had asked for anything, but he never did--just my attention and my emotional involvement, of course.

Anyway, here's the e-mail I received this morning, from an anonymous e-mail account. I'm not going to comment on it any further, except to say that I don't think "Barry" learned anything from this. I think he's still trying to play with me, and that is not going to happen.

I need to admit to something huge, Jeanne, but I am going to ask you to appreciate how hard this is for me to admit and request that you don\'t follow this up in anyway way.

I even considered never admitting to this because I thought you might have been happier not knowing, but I owe you honesty.

I invented Rose and Barry. I guess they became characters in my sick and twisted game. Please rest assured I have ended it and learned from my mistake. If you feel like I took advantage of you in any way then I can\'t tell you how sorry I really am.

I didn\'t know how to confess this earlier because of the public nature of your blog, and I just dug myself deeper and deeper into a hole.

Nothing I can say could possibly justify my behaviour but please know that I am incredibly sorry, guilt-ridden, and that I truly did care about you.