It’s good and correct to care and show that care to complete stangers, and more so if you’ve met that person IRL but in general if you’re giving money to someone in internet land that you’ve never met and have no idea are genuine or not, you’ve gone above simply caring and being interested in the outcome of someone’s journey to something nearing unhealthy interest.

That’s why, however sad it is to say and however mean it may sound, I think money/donations and blogging should be kept separate for so many reasons.

There are other always to donate to the cause but in general paying for holidays and treatments doesn’t sound necessary when you think that WE ALL could do with financial aid for ART treatments and a good holiday to de-stress during, yet we don’t ask for it and even if we didn’t ask for it, those people shouldn’t accept it.

I didn’t much like the question in the first place.

We don’t need an excuse to re-think who is being really honest or not and whether the person is a fake or not.

Why put mistrust in bloggers against other bloggers?

It’s turning into one big cat fight full of mistrust and questioning and whoever asked this question in the first place really shouldn’t have, sorry but you shouldn’t have.

So LADIES, can we all get that old loving back PLEASE!

AND if someone out of thousands turns out to suffer from some sort of munchens thingy, too bad, there are plenty of genuine bloggers needing support and I don’t see why a handful of fakes should spoil all that.

One day folks showed up to her blog and there was a post from her “sister” stating the blogger had died the previous night. The “sister” wrote about how sweet her niece was and that she knew she’d face challenges being her guardian blah, blah, blah.

Turns out some folks’ spidey senses went off because the writing style was the same and there was a word mispelled by the “sister” that the blogger often mispelled as well.

Long story short…after some checking around and serious internet investigating…it was all found to be a lie. It ROCKED the blogosphere I’m a part of.

I couldn’t believe someone would do that. Who would fake having cancer and who would fake their death? And then…who would pretend they were their own grieving sister so they could continue blogging?????

It was really weird. I said all that to say, however, that I didn’t let that experience make my cynical of everyone thereafter and I’m a much better person because of it. I don’t have a problem giving or feeling if my heart leads me in that direction.

Don’t you change either. Who wants more cynical buttholes to deal with instead of positive, happy people?

NOT.ME.

I hate that.

Melissa

It’s only been recently that I’ve gotten over my fear of commenting (thank you ICLW), and I’m grateful for the relationships I’ve started forming with other bloggers. I am also grateful for the parts of themselves that they share so openly; I have found support and encouragement and hope in their stories. I think of, pray for, and email with some of them frequently. To find out that any of their stories are less than the truth would be devastating.

I guess it’s good to be aware that emotional fraud happens, but I have to agree that I hope it doesn’t lead us all to be more guarded. The level of caring and support that I’ve found so far in this community is not something that most of us have in real life. (At least, it’s not something I have.) It’s special and unique, and I hope that doesn’t change.

I have never been scammed since being a part of this community, but if I were, I would feel like this person was not only mocking the whole community but me personally. They would be taking away from the pain me or anyone else had actually experienced.

I don’t know that any good done in the beginning wouldn’t be destroyed by the fallout in the end. From that point on, if the public was confronted with a ~real~ IVF/IF case, there would always be that suspicion in the back of their minds. “She’s probably just crazy like that X . . .”

Another whacko to add to the list (people would still associate her with infertiles, even though s/he clearly wasn’t). And a lot more suspicion which would ultimately add barriers.

I have sympathy for people who are doing this because they are using it to express another type of pain that is too confronting for others to look at and offer support.(as suggested by anon commentor on Niobes blog) Although I suspect this is not often the case. No matter the reason, a person doing this has some serious needs.

Some stories, you know, ARE incredibly awful (I am thinking of my best internet friend, Cathy’s situation right now). It seems as if it can’t be, must not be, how COULD it be??? Yet…I have been with Cathy since the begining and I have no doubt that it IS what she says it is. And while we might question this person or that person….usually I believe people are truthful. So, in my mind, it’s better to support and love with that in mind, and let the liars be liars and just hope no one gets hurt.

You could have asked that Ms. FameSeeker to enlist in ICLW….atleast everybody hits the list or most of it , every month…but yeah, there sure is one thing, if she cannot return the favour, she should not ask for it…