Every single human has the desire to fall in love. In this day and age, it’s not unusual to find the love of your life online. While you want to believe the person that you spend countless hours pouring your heart out to is telling the truth about themselves, too often it ends up being one big lie. This woman became prey to a catfish, but unlike most people this happens to, her story has a twist.Because of her crazy work hours, it became hard for Emma to meet a man. So she turned to the dating app, Zoosk, to look for romance.
Ronnie could be described as the perfect man: tall, dark, and handsome. He was half Italian, exactly the same age as Emma, and was raised in the West Midlands.
Every morning Emma would check her phone to see if Ronnie had messaged her, and he usually did. They spoke about their lives, their hopes, and their dreams. Emma was falling in love with this man.
“That’s just for teenagers,” he would say. So Emma would just have to be content with only speaking on the phone for the time being.
But Ronnie made the excuses that his job had him traveling all over Europe, and when he did have free time, he spent it at his parents’ home in Spain. He offered for Emma to join him there, but of course, nothing came out of it. Emma held on to the dream though. After all, they were saying “I love you” to one another.
The people in Emma’s life became concerned for her. “Maybe he’s not who he says he is. He could be an old man. Or he could be a psycho,” said one of Emma’s coworkers. “I didn’t want to listen to them, or believe for one moment that this lovely man I’d fallen for wasn’t who he said he was,” remembered Emma.
She downloaded an app called Reverse Image Search and uploaded Ronnie’s picture. Instantly, pictures of a Turkish model named Adam Guzel popped up. Emma began searching for Adam Guzel on the Internet. “Seeing images of this man I thought I was in love with, leading a life I knew nothing about in a different country, was so shocking I felt winded,” said Emma
When she asked “Ronnie” who Adam Guzel was, he insisted that it was a name that he used to go by when he was a model. She demanded that they video chat, but he refused. Not too long after that, “Ronnie” sent Emma a picture that revealed that everything “Ronnie” told her was a lie.
The search brought Emma to a TripAdvisor review written by Alan Stanley. After that, Emma was able to find his Twitter account. Instead of the young Italian man Emma thought she was speaking to, she was, in fact, talking to a 50-something-year-old balding man. The next time the man called her, Emma asked him if he was Alan Stanley. He denied it and told her that she had some serious trust issues.
She was devastated and heartbroken. But she didn’t want this to happen to another person, so she decided to contact the real man, Adam Guzel, to let him know what this man was doing with his photographs. Adam had something like this happen to him in the past, but this time was different.
After a bit of talking, Emma asked Adam to video chat with her. As soon as Emma saw him, she began crying. “You’re so real. You actually exist,” Emma said through tears.
The pair decided that it was time for them to meet, so Adam flew to meet Emma in London. But before they met, Emma sent Alan a text message. “I’m finally going to meet my Ronnie. I’m not sure if I should thank you or detest you for that,” she wrote. Finally, it was time for them to meet each other for the first time.
“We hugged and then, as we were waiting for a taxi, Adam turned and kissed me and it felt amazing, like coming home,” said Emma. Seeing the real “Ronnie” was a bit confusing for Emma at first. “I almost slipped up a couple of times in the beginning and called him Ronnie, but now he’s just Adam to me.”
“He’s so kind, loving and gentle — everyone who meets him is smitten. It’s hard to believe that such a terrible experience could have led me to something, and someone, so wonderful,” explained Emma.
“For now, we’re just enjoying our time together, but I’m sure this is just the beginning of our story,” said Emma. When she was asked about Alan she confessed, “I’m a great believer in destiny, so a little part of me is grateful to Alan, because, if he hadn’t put me through what he did I’d never have met Adam, who I really believe is the love of my life.’
