EP53~ Easy Targets

In this episode, I talk about how we (single people) are often easy targets for married people to hit on, hit up on social media, to proposition or entangle in an affair.
I begin by sharing my own personal examples of being hit on by married men. I talk about my reaction to being hit on and how I handled those situations.
Many years ago after my first divorce,  I first created my Facebook account. I was immediately contacted by a guy I had grown up with. He was married but asked me to keep in touch via messaging with him while he was deployed by the military. Shortly after that, I received a message from a guy I had dated when I was young. He was married but asked me to go to dinner with him while he visited Kansas City for work travel. Since then, I've received a couple of invitations from men I once dated who are now married. 
Then, I share two separate stories from two female friends of mine. 
One was approached on Facebook by an old friend. They met up for a platonic dinner but the next evening, he gave her a booty call. She felt as though he must've believed she was ready and willing to have an affair with him which ultimately made her feel bad about herself. In a conversation with her, I told I believe he was actually more to blame as he is the married one. He had teed up their reunion as friends but had ulterior motives. I believe she was the victim in this situation and deemed an easy target because she is single.
My other friend has been receiving ridiculous sexual messages for years now from a married man in her social circles. Their children are friends and my friend knows his wife. My friend's boyfriend also is aware of the messages. She has chosen to ignore the propositions, porn, and explicit stuff he sends because it's just not worth it to disrupt his marriage and family. He obviously has issues.
I believe the common link in all of these scenarios is that we are easy targets because we are unmarried. While we all are capable of being bated, enticed, or enjoy simply enjoy attention from the opposite sex, we singles would prefer it to be with other singles! 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to man shopping with Stacy, where I share my real transparent dating and life experiences for your amusement and inspiration. You're listening to episode 53 easy targets. In this episode, I'm going to talk about how we as single people are often easy targets for married people to hit on, to hit up online to proposition, to try to entangle into an affair I'll begin. Like I usually do with my own personal stories, examples of how I've been hit on by married men and how I handled it and how I felt throughout it and all of that. But then I'm going to get to the really pertinent stuff. The reason that I'm recording this episode is that I've had two different female friends reach out to me with their stories of being easy targets. Their stories are very unique. And aside from just sharing with you, what they've been through and experienced, I really want to be able to convey how they handled everything emotionally, or are still kind of, um, cycling through their emotions and dealing with the fallout of their individual experiences. I'm just gonna go ahead and start by saying, I really blame Facebook<laugh> I would like to blame mark Zuckerberg and Facebook personally, for so much of this behavior. I'm joking, but I'm not. I mean, my first story is so ironic. Um, my first marriage ended for a lot of legitimate reasons, but the final nail in the coffin was this emotional affair, uh, that existed throughout my marriage. And, um, ironically after I was separated and going through my divorce, I created my very first, you know, Facebook account. And I hadn't been on Facebook for very long before a high school friend of mine reached out and, you know, we hadn't spoken in 10 years, 10 plus years. I was, um, about 30 years old and he reached out, oh my gosh, you know, so great to see you on here. Kind of brought me up to speed on his life. It looked to me as though he was married and he was in the military and he told me that he was getting ready to, um, go overseas for some amount of time. And, um, you know, what, what started off with just a couple of old, like high school friends, um, you know, catching up, ended up being this proposition by him asking me if I would basically be his, um, pen P<laugh>, which cracked me up first of all, because I hadn't even spoken to him for 10 years. Um, but secondly, I was like, dude, you're married. Like what, what do you need me for? Uh, no. So I distinctly remember messaging him back and being like, I just got out of a marriage because behavior like this was going on, emotional affairs hurt just as deeply as sexual affairs. And I did not want to have anything to do with that. So that was kind of my, I mean, talk about like being thrown to the wolves you get on Facebook and that's immediately what starts happening. Um, nothing really has changed over the years. I had another guy that I had dated when I was young. He reached out to me, uh, after, again, being on Facebook, not for very long. And he lived outta state, he lived in the south and he reached out and was like, oh, I traveled to Kansas city a lot. We should definitely go to dinner and catch up. And I was like, you, I would love to go to dinner with you, but you are married with three children.<laugh> you're like, no, that is such a horrible idea. Horrible idea. Because we had dated, we, I mean like no Uhuh, those, those feelings, although, you know, they were long in the past would most certainly I thought creep back up in the presence of one another because we had that chemistry and, and history. So absolutely freaking not, no turned him down. So I'm sure those are a couple of very relatable examples that a lot of you have dealt with. It does beg the question. If I was married, my husband was in my profile picture with me. Would those two guys have felt, um, so eager to like meet me out to dinner? I, I just can't imagine like my, the guy that I had dated, you know, saying, oh, I come to Kansas city because of work travel. Let's go to dinner. Would you really done that? If I was married? My guess is no, I'm an easy target because I was a young single mom living in a city that, you know, he could escape his regular life and come see me, but Hey, guess what? That's my real life.<laugh> in Kansas city is a single woman and no, I'm not down to have an affair. Thank you very much. Um, a recent, more recent example since my second divorce, I had a guy that I had dated, um, before my second marriage and we, we hadn't dated much. It was a pretty casual little dating relationship. We had never had sex or anything. We just dated a little bit. And there was always this like decent level of interest that we both had for one another. So again, on Facebook, he reached out to me and said, you know, we should go to coffee and catch up. He complimented how great I looked, uh, gave me his phone number. And I was like, uh, I have to ask. I mean, I can see your post. I, and it was a little ambiguous. Like, it can be hard to tell when, especially when men don't post for, or people in general, don't post that often. Um, I was like, Hey, I've learned that I need to ask this. Like, are you married? And he basically said, yeah, but yeah, but we've been struggling for a long time going through a lot of hard stuff, you know, considering separation, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, no, no, we can't go to coffee. Like figure your life out. Don't why are you messing with me? Like go to coffee with your wife and figure out if you wanna be married or not like, no, come on people. And he was super persistent. Like I'm a polite person, probably too much. So in situations like that, and I messaged back and forth with him, like turning him down like four different times. Like, um, again, no, I'm not gonna see you. This is what I think. And he'd be like, well, what about no? Um, and so again, just another Facebook example of how this stuff happens. My last little share for you is also more recent and it was on Instagram. I mean, look how we've evolved. Now we get DMed on Instagram too. So we have multiple platforms. I mean, I've been, I've been approached on LinkedIn several times as well, but you know, that's not quite the norm. So on Instagram, I actually messaged the married guy first.<laugh> my bad. I didn't think he was married. So it was somebody I didn't know very well again, from my past it, it felt comfortable. He was like posting, liking, watching all my stories. Oh, giving me all the signs that he was pretty into me. And I mean, I, I can be aggressive sometimes. So I reached out to him, oh my gosh, haven't seen you for so long, blah, blah, blah. And, um, he responded right away, like cute little message back and forth a couple times, um, told me, you know, he also lived lives out of state and was like, Hey, if you ever come to my city, like let's grab drinks. It would be so fun. And I was like, oh my gosh, like, I would love that. And then I did my due diligence and I said, Hey, to do this, but I just ha like, you know, a girl can't be too sure. Like you're not married. Right. Like you you're divorced. Right. Kind of asked it like that. And he was like, oh, Ooh, no, not so much. Like, you know, again kind of gave me the whole, the whole, uh, song and dance of like, Ooh, we've, you know, things have not been good for some time, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, um, yeah, I, so you're not even separated. And he said, probably this was this, this quote will never leave my mind. Probably not. As far as, along as you would like me to be. And I was like, that means you are married and sleeping in bed next to your wife every night. Uh, yeah, just frustrating. Right? Just annoying. Frustrating. That one was my fault. I mean, I kind of walked right into it, but, um, but shut it down. I shut it down, you know, but I'm like, how would his wife be if she was like, Hm. Like, we're not getting along very well. So now I'm gonna Snoop on your Instagram and read your DMS and who the, who is this chick in Kansas city. And, oh, we're not doing well news to me. I mean, you know how this goes so easy to get caught. So easy to misbehave, so easy, like easy targets. That's what we're talking about people. So that's about as exciting as my married guy situations get, um, because I would have to do a whole nother episode, which maybe I will one day about dating while we're separated. Um, cause that's not what we're talking about here. We are talking about married, married, married, people, getting involved with us, single people, divorces, finalized. That's what we're talking about. Okay. So I am going to now tell a story of a friend. Um, she shared some, some pretty explicit details with me and asked me to share them with all of you. So here we go. So to kind of set the stage, I have to tell you, this friend of mine has been, um, divorced a couple of times. She had been in a really toxic dating relationship that had just ended. So she's a little vulnerable, right? Have to admit that little vulnerable, just getting out of a really bad toxic, um, unhealthy relationship. And guess what she received a Facebook message. Mm-hmm<affirmative> see a theme here, mark Zuckerberg. Uh huh. Um, so she received a Facebook message from a guy that she grew up going to school with and, you know, go figure. She had always had a really big crush on him, lifelong crush, and actually had not seen him since they were teenagers because I don't remember one or both of them had moved to different schools. So this was a very like young, early crush because they did not even complete high school together. So he messaged her her and said that he had been, he was at his parents' house, um, here in Kansas city. He lives, um, in the south, married with a couple of kids he's in, at his parents' house and going through some of his old stuff and ran across some photos of the two of them together. And he basically just said, I gotten also sentimental. I haven't been here for so long. It would be so cool to hang out with you. Like, would you wanna grab a bite to eat while I'm in town sometime she's like, uh, yeah, I would harmless, um, you know, just very polite, very platonic invite. Um, she didn't get any strange vibes or anything and she was just, you know, like so many of us just very curious to, to see what he's up to. Right? So they went on a platonic dinner date where everything was above board, so much fun, catching up reminiscing about life. Um, and it went great with nothing weird happening at all. They exchanged phone numbers because he was gonna be in town for a while and maybe they would catch up with some of their other friends. Um, the next, the next night she was hanging out at a bar with some friends watching a football game and he texted her and guess how his text started out. We have all been here. We've I I've been guilty of this. I've received these types of messages. He was basically like, oh dude, this is such a bad idea. I have had a few drinks and I know better. I should not be texting you, but I can't help myself. You know, Hey, are you out? Basically was what he sent. And she's like, oh you. I am. I'm also having drinks with my friends. You see how this works? We, I, I totally get it. I totally feel I, he reached out to her for a reason. Obviously he's interested. She accepted because ouch, there's just this little like crush that never went away and getting attention from someone after a bad breakup, it's hard to avoid, you know? And so they text back and forth and he basically is like, I want you, like, we should get together. And because they're both fueled up with liquor, you know, things got a little sexy in the messages. And then my friend pulled the plug and was like, you know what, no, you're married. This is not happening. I am going home alone tonight. Thank you very much. And the next day she woke up and was just, just utterly disgusted by the whole situation she felt as though this friend of hers that she had always adored and crushed on. She felt like he must think like she was so easy. You know, all he has to do is fly into town, call her up, go out to dinner once. And then like, she would just, you know, be so enamored with him that she would go to bed with him. So this situation made her feel really bad about herself. She didn't even follow through you guys. She didn't even sleep with him. She didn't even say yes, but it made her feel really low and made her doubt, her own like moral compass and made her just feel real. And so she called me that day and I just listened and I'm like, oh my gosh, but it's, it's not you. It's not your fault. Like we all have had these types of situations occur throughout our lives, or most of us have. And, I just hated it for that are made her feel bad. And that's when I started thinking and I told her dude, you're just an easy target. First of all, you're hot. Like she's really beautiful, really attractive. She has a great job. She has a great life. She's, you know, putting it all out there on social media because she's this married, but lonely shell of a guy, you know, sees her brightness, you know, on social media and whatever, and is attracted to it. Like you can't blame the poor schmuck for wanting a piece of you. Right. But don't make that. Don't let that, let him make you feel bad about yourself. You're an easy target. That's what I told her. I'm like, you're, you're single. Like if you were married, the odds of him reaching out to you in the same way are so low. Like it's just so much riskier reaching out online to another married person. I know it happens. I talked to several of my married friends before recording this episode. I'm gonna avoid all of those stories. Like maybe I'll do another, like, I don't know why I would do another podcast just about married people, cheating with other married people that doesn't make a lot of sense for this platform. I know it happens. I know it's rampant. I've seen it go down. It's so many sales meetings, um, for work over the course of time. Um, just as one little, you know, example, but I it's just, it's not, I feel like although that happens and plenty of coworkers and plenty of neighbors and plenty of parents, of children who are friends, plenty of those people have affairs. I get it. That happens every day. But I feel like we as single people, my whole point in this episode, we are easier targets because we're unattached and, uh, just makes us easy pray by, by married people. And she was a victim of this. And I guess what I want to convey to all of you is, I mean, she made the right decision, right. At the end of the day, she was tempted, but she made the right decision. And I, I just don't think that she should feel shame and guilt, um, because he was attracted to her or as she was obviously attracted back. Right. But there's no reason to carry shame and guilt. Um, and again, I'm just gonna use this old excuse. We're easy targets, cuz we just are. And you know, that conversation ended up evolving into, you know, this is hard. It's hard being single later in life. It's hard that such a big percentage of the population are married. You know, this was a guy that if he was single, like really, oh I mean they, they totally would, would make a great couple, you know, but he's, but he's just not. And so the struggle is real. And we went on to talk about that. You know, we wanna be made to feel desired and sexy and wanted, but not by married men. Okay. So this next situation that I'm gonna share with you is all about being wanted lust, sex porn, dirty messages, O M G my friend has, um, been through it all with this guy. So my friend is friends with another lady, another mom, their children go to school together, hang out together. They're part of the same social circles. Back when my friend was married, um, her other married mom friend was like, oh my gosh, you're gonna be in Boston at a conference at the same time as my husband. Right. They're all friends, they're all married. People hanging out together. You guys should totally hang out. And so this woman like facilitated my friend, getting together with her own husband in another city. Okay. So, so they do they're at the same place at the same time. My friend is, um, in town at this, at, at this conference. And her first interaction with this guy away from his wife was her coworker. My friend's coworker told her that he was taking pictures of her when she was turned away from him. I'm not kidding. So that was her first inkling that maybe this guy's kind of, uh, kind of into, uh, into her. So that's how this got started. And this was several years ago, my friend is now divorced and she told me ever since then, and up until like yesterday, not joking about once a month, she gets messages from this guy, text messages, emails. He sends her porn. He sends her links to stuff. He tells her that he's hungry for her. He, um, he's something, he is something. So my friend is single getting all these messages. This loser is still married, still married to this. Um, nice woman sharing all the children and all of that. She's also pretty well aware that this stuff has happened with my friend and other women through the years. And I don't know how you keep a straight face around somebody like that, but my friend somehow manages to do it. I'm like, do you ever want to just like blow that up? Like come on, stop. But there's just, the guy obviously has a lot of issues and it's probably just not worth, you know, disrupting life over something that can just easily be ignored, but talk about crazy. And again, you know what, actually, as I think about it in this instance, I don't know that this guy would care if my friend was married or not. He, uh, he, he knows, I don't know who he's friends with, but he definitely knows our ex-husband. And I guess what he was taking pictures of her, she was married to him. So yeah, I don't, I don't know that this guy fits that same easy target maybe because, um, I don't, I think he's so oblivious and so in his own little world and, um, just caught up in, uh, his lust for my friend. I don't really think he cares if she's an easy target or not. He just, he is just obsessed. I mean, my friends has a boyfriend now and he even knows about it and it's just like so ridiculous. And so not worth wasting effort on that. They, they just ignore it and that's, that's their choice. And I can't say I blame'em um, I mean, you could have all sorts of fun with that. We talked about that too. Like, I mean, what would it be like just to send him some random back, but then yeah, I guess you run that risk of his wife thinking that you're perpetuating it and that's probs, not a good idea, but I mean, how messed up people are, people are just really weird. So I mean, what are we to make of all of this nonsense? A lot of it is just nonsense. I mean, I, I think my biggest takeaway for myself and for all of you, single people listening is try not to take this stuff personal, right? Like I do really believe there is an element to this, that we are easy targets simply because we are unattached. We are not married, makes us a little bit, um, less complicated, um, and maybe more alluring in some way to married people. If you are listening as a newly single person and are looking for a little takeaway or a little piece of advice, um, it, it would be this just be aware, this is rampant. Like I said, this is very normal. This is, uh, very common stuff to go through that you will get approached by an old boyfriend or a girlfriend. Someone you went to school with a coworker, someone in your life will take heed that you are single and, uh, will undoubtedly reach out to you in one way or another. And, um, it, it has less to do with you and the vibe that you're putting out and your character and your morals as it, as it has about them. Right. So don't feel bad about it. Just, uh, just shut it down, man. That's my advice. And then if, or I guess to all my married friends listening,<laugh>, if you are in an unhealthy and unhappy marriage are considering separation or divorce, just wait, just wait to reach out to that single person that you've had your eye on. I mean, in all, honestly, they'll probably still be there.<laugh> a few months, maybe a few years from now. It's tough out here. It's tough. And, uh, and yeah, better to do things right. And wait it out than to make things more messy and more complicated for everyone at the end of your marriage. So there you go. There's my, there's my little tips and advice. Thanks so much for listening to episode 53, easy targets. I so appreciate each and every one of you. And as always, if you are looking for a way to support the show, I would just ask that you share it with a friend and, uh, keep the podcast growing. So up next on episode 54, I am going to do something kind of creative. This episode's been on my mind for a long time. I am going to use some lyrics from some country songs that are on a playlist of Laney's that I listen to with her and, uh, relate them to how I, I wish that I felt in a dating relationship. Hope that makes sense. It, it will. I promise it'll come together.