A shot of emotions with a rationalization chaser

This was all too predictable:

Again and again, Eric’s explanation of various predicaments sounded plausible to Debby as well as to her parents, who were helping her run the family’s business.

“The story was so compelling that you would never, ever think it was fake,” said her father, Jack Butz, a retired dentist. “She’s not the kind of girl you could slip things over on.”

Online, Eric introduced Debby to his 10-year-old son, Kenny, who lived with his widowed sister, Mary, in England.

“There were times when I would have three online conversations going on at once,” said Debby. “I started to think of Kenny as my fourth son. Mary and I became like sisters.”

Packages she sent to Mary and Kenny in the UK came back “addressee unknown,” but Eric’s explanations always sounded reasonable.

Psychologists call it confirmation bias, a tendency to look for reasons to believe the people we love.
Debby had to justify the money she’d sent by staunchly believing everything Eric told her.

Rosenberg, who is married to a police officer, became worried.

“One time, Eric and Debby were going to meet, but he couldn’t come because his son had an accident. It was the third or fourth excuse. I said, ‘Debby, open your eyes, there’s something wrong here.’ She clammed up immediately. She sent an email saying, ‘I’m done with this friendship if you’re going to be on me about this.’ It almost broke my heart,” said Rosenberg.

When Debby’s son, Charlie, questioned Eric heatedly online, Debbie asked him to leave the house.
If a bank balked at sending a large amount of money overseas, she went to another bank.

All along, she kept meticulous records of the wire transfers. $70,000. $10,000. $105,000. She wired the money to Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Kowloon, London.

She and Lou had been comfortable, but not even remotely wealthy.

“I emptied our retirement accounts,” she said, and paid crippling penalties.

She sold her gold jewelry to send Eric $5,000. She took loans on diamond rings. She sold stocks. She juggled business accounts. Eventually, she borrowed $100,000 from her parents to help the man with whom she expected to spend the rest of her life.

She was nearly broke in September 2012, when “Eric” finally confessed that Eric Cole was nothing more than pixels and a stolen photograph.


Most people do not think rationally. Instead, they let their emotions decide for them, then rationalize their emotional decision.

Women are particularly prone to rationalizing. Share facts they don't like and they'll explode. It's not the facts - it's how they feel about the facts - but, by golly, they'll tell you they've "thought long and hard about it."

They'll also hate other women who don't nod along. A few years ago my wife shared some facts on homeschooling with a woman who was planning to send her children to public school. The facts had no impact. The other mother was a selfish, smug, lazy, self-satisfied nascent SJW and just wanted her children out of the house. When she claimed they'd found a "good" public school, my wife told her there were no good public schools, then started citing facts and sharing Scripture with her. This woman also claimed to be a Christian, but the verses didn't get through to her.

During the conversation her face went as hard and cold as stone and she quit talking with my wife. And ignored the facts and sent her kids to public school. And they're screwed up and she's posting anti-male and anti-white posts on Instagram while she stays home during the day.

SJWs liberals generally act the same way. You cannot argue with some people. They will not listen and they'll follow their destructive path right into hell.

The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.

Sometimes it's also 1,000,000 bucks worth of stupid.