I sometimes think about online dating and what a true leap of faith it is to trust that the great someone you've met through a dating site is actually the person he or she claims to be. In one conversation I've had I mentioned that for all you knew, that guy could be just like Clark Rockefeller, looking the part, sounding the part, acting the part -- embracing the part so well, how could he be anyone else?
I just finished reading The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Impostor by Mark Seal. It is a remarkably researched and well-told story that peels back all the layers of that question.
Truth is stranger than fiction, and it is hard to believe that this man, often referred to, in hindsight, as a psychopath in the book, duped so many people. But it was pre-Internet, and without those resources at one's fingertips I think it would have been incredibly hard to fact check all the information he spun at people. Then again, he had his details correct and his facts straight, so who knows if the vast amount of online information available would have been helpful in detecting him more quickly, or if it would have just helped him become more armed and dangerous.
It is a fascinating story of how one man was driven to become the somebody he always wanted to be and the price that so many other people paid for it.
xoxo,
bex
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