Catfished:

I don't know who suggested it, or how I actually got started, but I should go and shoot that person! Words With Friends App on my phone has ruined my life. In a big way. You won't believe it.

My Ex of 10 years is still in my life. We are friendly, cordial really, but mostly because of our three children. I was lucky enough to keep the house. ( with a reasonable pay off to him) To supplement my income, I rented out some rooms. That's a whole other story in itself. My two grown children lived with me as well. It was a young crowd. I notice they would be huddled around the kitchen island on their phones, laughing and talking about the game they were playing with each other. So I asked about it. My first big mistake! I can see that now. It was a scrabble game and they were all playing each other. Well, I wanted in. My next big mistake! It was a fun game and I was pretty good at it. I could usually beat these your bucks and they slowly dropped out and stopped playing me. They even left games unfinished! So, I decided to play other strangers in this cyber world. Next big mistake!

On a rare visit to my Ex's, at his house, I mentioned that I was playing this game on-line and he told me that he had also been playing it for many months already! So we exchanged game names and began to play each other. I could never, and I do not use that word casually, never beat him! Ever!

One day, he sent me a chat through the game app. What? I didn't know about chats. That was my second mistake. Probably the biggest but I'll leave it up to you to decide. He is really the one I should kill!

So, chatting means talking to other strangers I play with. I have t tell you one important thing. My profile picture was my dog, Amanda. I never received any chats from the strangers I was playing. Until I did.

It happened as soon as I changed my profile picture to one of my favorite selfies. I really never take pictures or selfies. That was going to change in a big way.

Almost instantly, I was getting chats from men, go figure. It was very strange to actually respond. Is this dating? I was getting compliments, invites to talk on Hangouts, another app mistake!

One in particular, who I will call Rig Guy, interested me, a lot! You could say he swept me off my virtual feet. He said he lived in San Diego and was flying out to the UK for a rig job. So we began to talk on Hangouts. He even called me! I will never forget how strange it was to hear his voice for the first time. I was so timid to respond. That voice was so sexy with an accent. It was so awesome to listen to. I just wanted him to talk to me. I didn't care what he would say. That accent, wow! He was Brazilian and Portuguese. We chatted by texting everyday, morning, afternoon and evenings. It was tricky because of the time difference. He was ahead by eight hours. My sleep patterns changed. I'd be up in an instant in the middle of the night as soon as I heard the ping of a new text on my phone. I napped to get extra sleep and was ready to chat anytime. I kept my phone by my side. Took it everywhere, even the bathroom. I didn't want to miss a thing. I was captivated. I thrived on all the compliments and being treated like a queen. Very soon, too soon actually, he told me he loved me. That should have been a warning. But I ate all the attention up like candy.

To be continued....