Dennis F.

I am an older male from the upper Midwest United States. I used TheTopTens site as a visitor for a few months initially in the summer of 2017, trying it on, so to speak, as I had zero experience with any social media sites. I worked and lived a second shift lifestyle, so I was up, during the work week, largely overnights.
I struck up some online relationships with some folks who seemed genuine enough, and in particular a woman closer to my age from London England. I did notice that many of the users were quite young (maybe even being under the 12 year old minimum age requirement) both by their comments and by their submitted lists. I wondered about this, but still opened an account to more readily access the accounts of the people I had already enjoyed chatting with. I did also strike up an online relationship with a younger male user, who seemed to seek advice to navigate through some of the life lessons we all must go through in our early teens. I found him very advanced in math, well beyond his years, and in fact, in some areas, well beyond me. We also shared a love of science, and the collecting of facts to clearer see likely outcomes. I've found it a rare thing in my life to cross paths with like-minded people. He showed, and continues to show, great promise, I believe.

As for the woman, I did mention to my 2 social media savvy daughters that I had struck up an online relationship with her and found we had some similarities, particularly when it came to music. My daughters (I am no longer with either of their mothers) both warned me of "catfish". I heeded their warning, but felt confident I would see through anyone trying to swindle me. Indeed, the woman was single, but also provided me with proof she was an aspiring author, and lead me to a site where I could read some of her short stories. For a short time, we chatted for a few hours each day. I found her engaging, and we even flirted a little bit. She then alerted me to the fact that she had pretended to be much younger and had a relationship with a much younger user. She said she was ashamed and told me she had to tell me to relieve that shame before we continued. Needless to say, I was shocked, I had never heard of such a thing, but at the same time, I didn't want to immediately blast her, given what appeared to be an honest admission of a past transgression. I won't deny I was very confused and needed some time to sort through that, why a person would do that? In the short term I decided to tell her that if she didn't try to deceive me, that I would do the same for her. When I had some time to think it over, I just couldn't get past that she had pretended to be much younger to be in an online relationship with someone on the site before I ever even got on the site. I pulled back from the relationship and she immediately started sending me messages both in the open list section and in our personal message board that were obviously jealous in nature. I really pulled back from her then, and the jealous type messages were even more prevalent. I had to address it because there were still others I chatted with on the site. I asked her if we could be just friends again and then she would post things suggesting their were others vying for her attention. Honestly, I hadn't seen this type of behavior from girls since I was in my teens, and it made me extremely uncomfortable. I also wondered why a middle aged woman was always so readily available, never went to a job, never seemed to do much of anything else except be on that site. I started seeing no other way to continue on the site, and decided I would take steps to end my account there.
Around that time, I also had a difficult situation to work through with the young guy I chatted with. He was being bullied on the site by a group of late teen to early twenties users that called themselves "the Wranglers", and I exposed a few of them in defense of my young friend. He also said his father had a heart attack, and I told him immediately he needed to support his father and be by his side. He chose not to and continued to spend many hours on that site. He also mentioned to me he was autistic. I noticed there was a large number of users, particularly young ones claiming to be autistic. I felt bad for the kid but knew in our case, I had to stop chatting with him so he might spend more time with his recovering father. I dumped my account there.
After maybe 4 months I went back to the site as a visitor to check on a few folks and a couple more had left, but soon let the remaining know I was still around if they wanted to chat. They were as happy to talk with me as I was them. I started a new account. I believe folks compose in a manner that you can recognize the same patterns in their prose, and sure enough, some people I didn't really want to know I was back, did recognize this new account as being mine.
The woman I chatted so frequently with at one point reconnected with me, or so I thought. It became obvious very quickly that this was not the person I was chatting with prior. The person knew nothing of our previous chats and even knew less about the personal stuff the gal had told me about previously. I thought how could it be that another person was using her account? The sad truth is, no one could use that account unless it was under the direct manipulation of the sites administration itself. My old friends were slowly fading away and dumping their accounts, and as of right now, they're all gone.
I have not reconnected with the young guy, but I do enjoy seeing that he has toughened up to the bullies and is doing fine.
The site has rejected many of my list submissions on the most ridiculous of claims, rules that change at the flip of a switch, a "floating criteria". I played along for a while, to see just how far out of whack that site is. I have no idea what their motivation could be, be it's a slam dunk that that site is chock full of phony user accounts created by a handful of individuals who spend their entire waking hours on that site, and pretend to hold conversations amongst their phony user accounts. That's right, they're writing both sides of the conversation. Who on earth would get any satisfaction from that? The mentally unstable perhaps. Whenever they say something that directly contradicts something stated earlier, and they're called out on it, they simply dump that account and resubmit another. It's a bizarre situation that the sites administration has to be clearly aware of, yet seems to foster, instead of correct.
I'm not vindictive, or feel the need to have to get back at anyone associated with that site, as I don't have an emotional involvement with anyone there anymore. In fact, I've had a little bit of fun with them along the way
If this type of interaction appeals to you, you'll find it at TheTopTens ad nauseam. If it sounds ridiculous and even childish, stay clear.