The Price of Love

 Whilst we Celebrate the People we Love on Valentine’s Day, we should Also Remember the Most Important Person to Love is the One We See in the Mirror

Now that I don’t have restaurant work, I thought I would try and bash out some thoughts on this day that celebrates love and lovers. Ironically, the best inspiration for my Valentine’s Day came over the weekend when I watched “Tinder Swindler” with the Evil Young Woman.

As has been publicized, Tinder Swindler is a documentary centred around three women who were conned by Mr. Shimon Hayut, or Mr. Simon Leviev as he called himself when he was running his scam.

The story of his scam is simple. He presented himself as a “glamorous” and romantic person. His social media was “exciting,” showing that he lived the type of “fairytale” life that most of us can only dream of. In the initial stages, he was charming and sensitive. Then, when the women in question had “feelings” for him, he would find a story to explain why he couldn’t use his money and needed theirs.

Whilst the back story of Mr. Shimon Hayut or Mr. Simon Leviev, has a fascinating story (or the type where most of us are asking – how the heck did he pull it off), the more interesting story actually belongs to his victims. The first thing that one notices about all these women is that they are fairly attractive. When you look at them, your instant question is “Babe – with your looks, you shouldn’t have a problem getting guys.” Then, as they recount their story, you’ll notice that they are inevitably intelligent professionals. They have everything that most heterosexual men would want in a woman.

https://www.salon.com/2022/02/09/tinder-swindler-gofundme-page/

 

 Copyright Salon.com

Then, there’s the fact that they are women. It’s generally accepted that women are smarter than men for certain things. Reproduction strategies for the sexes are different. For men, its about fertilizing as many eggs as possible. Women are generally programmed to be more selective in their mates since they have to carry the child and raise the child once its out of the womb. A woman is far less likely to do stupid things for a bit d*** than a man is to get a bit of p***. The standard joke is that men tick far less boxes when choosing a companion as can be seen below:

 

 So, how did three attractive women, blessed with the best that nature and nurture could provide, end up being conned by him?

On one hand you could say that the con-man was good. Mr. Hayut (to use his birth name) is good looking and somehow appeared to have lots of money. By all accounts he’s charming and had a way of making women feel good about themselves.

 

 Copyright – The Mirror

However, there were signs. He talked a lot about his various enemies who might do harm to him. You could argue that this provided him with an element of excitement and danger, which made him more attractive. On the other hand, it should have been a sign that besides the private jets, there was baggage.

The Evil Young Woman made the point that all the women were “Ang Moh.” She said that an Asian girl would probably not go for a man who had an insatiable appetite for using her money to live a high life for himself (sure, you might give once but would you take high interest bank loans because he needs money on a weekly basis?)

All three women were from “nice” places (two Scandinavians and a Dutch girl). The swindler grew up in a rougher place (Israel). There is an argument that when you grow up in a place where people are generally honest, you’re bound to trust people more because all you’ve ever been exposed to is people who have no reason to screw you. People who grow up in rough places tend to be more guarded because they’ve had to be so.

Just take a look at attitudes towards Covid as an example. The people on my social media who are against vaccines, mask mandates and social distancing are inevitably white and from the USA, UK and Australia. These are countries where nasty diseases are confined to movies or labs and even people around them are dying, they argue that they have the freedom to clog hospital beds. By contrast, the Vietnamese that I live with are insistent on sanitizing everything when they get home and they insist on getting whatever vaccinations they can. They grew up in a place where nasty diseases happen to the people they know and doctors are few and far between. In that context ignoring the doctor in favour for a slobby actor isn’t about personal freedom but life or death.

However, culture alone only explains a generalization. What made three individual women with everything so trusting? I’m not a psychiatrist but I wouldn’t be afraid to make a guess and argue that there was something about these women that needed to be loved by this man and culture is fault here because plenty of women are conditioned to think that true love involves sacrificing themselves. Both Scandinavian women for example, kept talking about how they were worried that the swindler would be harmed by his proverbial enemies and only realized that he was their enemy once they had been bled dry.

Its not a bad thing to encourage things like sacrifice and helping people. However, as my mother once said to me during my first marriage – “Love yourself.”

Sounds unromantic to talk about loving yourself but if you think about it carefully, its actually the basis of a healthy relationship. A relationship cannot be about one party taking everything and the other party sacrificing everything. That’s not a relationship – that’s an abuse. We tell our kids too many fairytales about how you need to love people until you will die for them. What we never explain to our kids is that real love should be when one party will not allow the other party to die for them.