Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Motown is Joe-Town!

A consequence of cucumbers

This fight is for everything.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

This really is a full service blog.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Cole, when it comes to calico cats, restraint is overrated.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

I really should read my own blog.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

We still have time to mess this up!

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Reader Interactions

272Comments

  2. 2.

    WaterGirl

    Cole, on any other day this would be fun, or funny, or something. After everything Gex is going through, I cringed when I saw the words “dead girlfriend” so prominently displayed – in blue, in a link.

    Not sure what is happening with Gex and Kate today, there didn’t seem to be anything in any of the threads.

    Good thoughts for you, Gex, if you’re reading.

  4. 4.

    Comrade Jake

    The Manti Te’o story is unreal. I thought the national championship was embarrassing enough for Notre Dame.

  5. 5.

    Villago Delenda Est

    This guy at Notre Dame is playing the victim card now that the hoax has been exposed.

    I’m not buying this for a second. The kid has serious problems with the truth. He’s probably looking to get hired by Bain Capital or something.

  9. 9.

    aimai

    Wow. That’s all I have to say. A whole lot of people are fabulists but how on earth did this kid think no one would ever notice?

  10. 10.

    Violet

    Mentioned in the thread below, but was just at the gym and ESPN ran a very long segment on this story with an interview with the the guy who interviewed Te’o in October. This story isn’t going away.

    Lance Armstrong can thank Manti Te’o for taking the top spot in sports world scandal news.

    Edit: The guy who did the October interview is Gene Wojciechowski, in case anyone is looking for the interview. He said he was naive to believe everything Teo said and not to look into the girlfriend story more.

  11. 11.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Violet:

    Lance also owes a big thank you to Chip Kelley, who’s leaving the Fighting Fashion Nightmares for the Iggles.

  14. 14.

    cathyx

    Why would he invent a girlfriend? I would think that girls would be throwing themselves at him.

  15. 15.

    Raven

    Teo wouldn’t have been in the running for the Heisman without this weeper. Should have been Jarvis.

  18. 18.

    eemom

    I’m playing a little game with myself trying to guess what this story is about without clicking on any of the links.

    FB dude made up some shit about a dead gf who turned out not to be real, I s’pose. Motive?

  19. 19.

    Elizabelle

    Raymond Burr had a dead long ago wife too, if memory serves.

    Kept folks from asking too many questions about his marital status in an era when that was inconvenient.

  23. 23.

    Peregrinus

    @Baud:

    I thought about it when it became clear that there was a person running around managing these fake accounts. That could be in there, especially as an LDS player for a Catholic school, but I still think the main reason is wanting a story to grease the Heisman/career wheels.

  24. 24.

    ranchandsyrup

    Teo is trying to play it that he only had an emotional relationship online and over the phone but never met someone that he consistently called his “girlfriend”. Smell test fail.

  28. 28.

    Roger Moore

    @cathyx:

    So you have to have a gripping personal story to win the award?

    There are more good players than there are nominations. The only way to win is to get attention from the voters somehow, and a compelling personal story is one way to separate yourself from the herd.

  32. 32.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud:

    Re Raymond Burr:

    Oh, I’m so glad.

    Thought I just put up a comment that said “look at me — I’m 100 years old.”

  34. 34.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud:

    At this point, can we even be sure Notre Dame is a real university?

    I know somebody personally who got a degree from Notre Dame, so the place does actually exist away from the football field. Whether the degree was worth the paper it was printed on is another question.

  35. 35.

    MikeJ

    Thank God Notre Dame has enough integrity to fight against health care for women. Notre Dame sues over Obamacare, hoping real women will die instead of fake women.

  37. 37.

    FridayNext

    @cathyx:

    But try to find one that will die of cancer right before the Michigan game. Real girls just won’t. Selfish brats.

  38. 38.

    RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    A former colleague of mine was single and said he had a son in California from a long ago marriage. When the colleague suddenly died, his sister contacted his co-workers and made sure we knew he was closeted gay and had no son.

    I have no idea why she did that.

  40. 40.

    KG

    couple of things:

    1. i can’t see the “it helps with career prospects” making any sense – he was a multiple time All-American, had 100+ tackles in 3 seasons playing for Notre Dame. He was going to the NFL.

    2. i can’t believe he’d actually be this naive. Not in this world.

    3. then again, i have some Mormon friends who probably were/are this naive when it comes to stuff like this, so maybe

    4. i can’t believe there wasn’t more inquiry into this by the media and/or ND PR. when a college football player achieves a certain amount of notoriety, we learn everything about them.

    5. i can’t believe a college football player would go through all this. at all, i mean, it just doesn’t make sense when there’s no discernible motive.

    6. if he’s the victim of a hoax, i still don’t get the motive.

    none of this makes any sense to me at all.

  43. 43.

    MCA1

    Holy schnikes! I can’t believe that no one at Stanford figured out this supposed classmate of theirs didn’t exist, especially considered they played Notre Dame this year.

    I have a very difficult time believing that a high profile athlete who can date anyone he wants actually got duped here, and wasn’t a part of this. [Qualifying note: he was at Notre Dame, I guess, so that lowers the on campus talent pool, but if he’s the goodie-two-shoes he’s described as, he’d be perfectly happy with his pick of the litter amongst the nice Midwestern Domer females]. The media reports while the hoax continued, and indeed Te’o’s own father’s description of the relationship, allege that they actually met in person on several occasions. Including their initial interaction at Stanford in 2009. Who was the actual girl he met there? Are we to believe that that person flew to Hawaii multiple times (or that Te’o lied to his parents about going out to meet her; or, more disturbingly, that his dad was in on the thing). They talked on the phone every night? Who on the other end of this scam was that dedicated to the ruse, and to what end?

    This is unbelievably embarrassing for Notre Dame either way. And this story will not be going away any time soon, I’m sure of that.

  44. 44.

    ? Martin

    @Baud:

    At this point, can we even be sure Notre Dame is a real university?

    People have been wondering that for a long time.

  45. 45.

    Thoughtcrime

    When someone once asked legendary Marquette basketball coach Al McGuire about what he thought of Notre Dame, he said, “A Notre Dame grad will pick his nose just to show you his class ring.”

  46. 46.

    WaterGirl

    @Elizabelle: Damn you for making me google “raymond burr dead wife”! :-)

    I am a huge raymond burr /perry mason fan and I had never heard any of that before. I knew he was gay and about his long-time partner but had heard nothing about the dead wives, etc. Different times, then.

    But that still doesn’t seem creepy to me like this amazingly intricate fabrication of a real-time on-going fake relationship. This story makes me go “ick”.

  48. 48.

    Eric U.

    I remember one player that got so much promotion that many voters admitted that they refused to vote for him because of the promotion. I never think much of the heisman winner, but the difference between the top 5 is mostly horseshit. The dead girlfriend story probably is the kind of thing that would help unless everyone starts doing it.

  52. 52.

    Comrade Jake

    The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a fake girlfriend is a good guy with a fake girlfriend.

    Courtesy of Yglesias.

  53. 53.

    KG

    @Thoughtcrime: ok, Mormon from a small town at a Catholic school in a small town, playing football… ok, I can see that, but seems like a lot of work when there’s always the alternative of just having a lot of different girls around. nobody is going to question that in the context

  57. 57.

    RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Raymond Burr was gay? Never knew that.

    Ray Burr was a really interesting guy, in a good way. Worth reading a bit about. I was amazed and pleased.

  58. 58.

    Mnemosyne

    @KG:

    Yes, but eventually those local girls are going to get together and realize that none of them ever got any action from him. Better to have a fake dead girlfriend who lives 2,000 miles away. Until she died. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

  59. 59.

    ? Martin

    @KG:

    none of this makes any sense to me at all.

    21 year olds make bad life decisions all the time. Don’t look for any broad reasoning there, this will only make sense in some limited context that should be obvious would blow up. You stick teenagers and young adults on a national stage like this and this is going to happen with some regularity.

    He wanted some kind of recognition he couldn’t otherwise earn, he gamed the system in a way he thought would work, it blew up on him. Happens every day. Don’t be too hard on him – it’s not like every other person here didn’t fuck up something just as badly in college. We just never had it blow up on ESPN, so it was easier for us to mend up.

  60. 60.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Comrade Jake: To be fair, this has happened on the internet a number of times.

    My wife’s favorite group on ravelry just had a blowup where it was revealed that a long-time poster was keeping several sock puppet accounts going. (The mods didn’t know b/c they can’t see IP’s–the owners got involved. I think mods should see last # on IPs and be able to flag suspicious activity–like multiple posters apparently posting from same IP–to the owners to prevent situations from going this far.) Okay, so one of the socks was the poster’s supposed boyfriend, who discussed in gruesome detail his alleged rape at a young age with other rape survivors.

    Needless to say, people on the group are now FURIOUS.

    Methinks this is a case of Munchhausen by proxy.

    The poster got kicked out of the group I think and the socks were flushed and she did apologize but is now going around saying she has multiple personality syndrome.

    Uh, more like borderline personality syndrome, sunshine.

    eta: fixed reference

  61. 61.

    WaterGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yep. They were together for decades. He seemed like a really good guy when I saw the interview with him. Perry Mason is my guy. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer because of him. Loved that twinkle in his eye in the show intro from one of the early years.

  62. 62.

    JoyfulA

    @Baud: I was there personally in 1979, so yes, there are lots of stone buildings and signs that say “Notre Dame.” It’s in South Bend, Indiana, and it looks like Villanova except about 4 X bigger.

  63. 63.

    Mnemosyne

    @Violet:

    I think it probably developed into that, but I suspect the original motive was to explain why he wasn’t interested in any of the willing female companionship opportunities that are available to top football players.

    Also known as the “My Girlfriend, Who Lives In Canada” ploy (the link should be available when I’m released from moderation at #50-ish.

  65. 65.

    WaterGirl

    @RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist: Completely agree! I recall something about having his own vineyard. He and his partner seemed really well matched.

    I wonder if the interview I saw with the partner after Perry (as I like to call him) died would be on the internet anywhere.

    Edit: so do you guys think Perry and Della were a couple?

  67. 67.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    @Elizabelle: Hollywood always arranged marriages to accommodate lesbian and gay movie stars back in the day. One of the reason the studio moguls used the threat of exposure if any of the stars got too uppity, and had control of the scandal rags.

  68. 68.

    Tonal Crow

    Q: Are the President’s kids more important than your kids?

    A: Hell yes. If the President’s kids are taken hostage, America’s government is taken hostage. If you don’t understand that, you have the mental illness of severe retardation, which makes you ineligible to own a gun.

  69. 69.

    Mnemosyne

    @Another Halocene Human:

    One of the worst places for it in my experience is wedding boards. Seriously, there seemed to be a blowup every few weeks where it turned out that one of the “brides” with a really sad story was a complete fake.

  72. 72.

    Elizabelle

    @WaterGirl:

    Now you got me googling about Raymond Burr.

    And it’s getting insane. From a “Find a Grave” entry:

    That same year, his English wife Annette was killed in the same plane crash that took the life of actor Leslie Howard when their plane was shot down by the Luftwaffe off the coast of Portugal. Distraught after the death of his wife, Burr joined the U.S. Navy.

    Not only dead, but dead in a plane crash with a movie star. Audacious.

  73. 73.

    JPL

    Sorta OT.. Has anyone seen Mars and the real girl.
    It’s a nice story about an imaginary friend.

  75. 75.

    DFS

    @Mnemosyne: All that’d prove is that he was actually serious about the Mormonism, though. If he just needed an excuse for not being all that interested in girls, using his religion would have been way easier than inventing a fake internet girlfriend.

  76. 76.

    Another Halocene Human

    There was a really famous case in the early days of Usenet when a woman’s brother (I think it was) accessed her account during the holidays and told the internet that she had died.

    Needless to say she was not amused.

    The worst part is that the “news” that she was dead seemed to be immortal, even after the take-backs and the posts by the family member explaining that it was a dumb prank that got out of hand. (The Orson Welles’s.)

    I’m not sure why Manti Te’o is being blamed for this, except for being young and gullible.

    I’m two degrees removed from a schoolteacher who was lonely and thought she was going to go on a trip with this man who loved her but instead he was a scammer who was taking her for all she was worth. Yeah, she fucked up, but shouldn’t more moral blame be on the scammer? Being stupid and naive and gullible is one thing, being evil is another.

  78. 78.

    cathyx

    @Baud: No, we’re part of an elaborate hoax to fool you. Hahaha. I guess it worked. Don’t you love the name ‘Balloon Juice’? It was John Cole’s idea.

  79. 79.

    Mnemosyne

    Also, if you’d really like to have your mind blown by secret gayness: William Frawley was gay. Yes, Fred Mertz, of “I Love Lucy” fame, lived with his male “nurse” for many years.

  80. 80.

    Rommie

    I’ve been on the ND campus, so it’s really there. If it was just a holodeck construct, it was a damn fine one. Also, we have holodeck tech, woohoo!

    T’eo and his NFL career need to heed the “This business” quote from Red October.

  81. 81.

    MattR

    So, nobody has seen the documentary Catfish? (Or the MTV series inspired by the movie) It is amazing what people will pretend to be on the Internet.

  84. 84.

    mere mortal

    Can we at least entertain the idea of an innocent Mormon kid falling prey to people who were trying to get their hooks into a sure thing NFL prospect?

    Does anyone remember being young and stupid, hopeful and hopeless in love?

    Anyone?

  86. 86.

    ranchandsyrup

    @scav: I was thinking it was a mythological piece about the Roman god of war and his earthly conquests.

    But Lars and the Real Girl was a weird movie. Sweet, but weird. “Hey, not real girl……”

  87. 87.

    Mnemosyne

    @DFS:

    You must not have gone to college with any young Mormons. A hornier bunch has never been seen on Earth. Even the gay ones got (hetero) married young just so they could get some kind of sex that wasn’t going to send them to Hell.

    (This was at USC in the late 80s/early 90s, for reference.)

  88. 88.

    Comrade Jake

    @mere mortal: given what’s been reported by Deadspin, I’d put Manti’s current story as possible, but not very plausible. I mean, he claimed to have met the young lady in person.

  91. 91.

    Mnemosyne

    @mere mortal:

    It’s possible, but it looks like he told detailed stories about how they met in person after a football game that he is now backing down from.

    I’m still of the opinion that it was a relatively innocent ruse that ended up blowing up much bigger than he ever expected, not a deliberate attempt to win a Heisman.

  95. 95.

    Tripod

    The two keys to success as a sportswriter are 1) a blind willingness to believe anything you’re told by the coaches, flacks, hustlers and other “official spokesmen” for the team-owners who provide the free booze… and: 2) a Roget’s Thesaurus, in order to avoid using the same verbs and adjectives twice in the same paragraph.”

  98. 98.

    SmallAxe

    @mere mortal:

    Nope sorry, not buying the gullible Mormon routine, how does that explain his supposed F2F meetings with her that his father confirmed? He was in on it.

    The question is why? For the Heisman hype or the stay in the closet motive? This one is interesting and Lance the douche is very thankful for these developments.

  99. 99.

    dr. bloor

    @aimai: He goes to a University grounded in a story about a mythical dead guy. A dead girlfriend story must have seemed like small potatoes.

  102. 102.

    Elizabelle

    @Mnemosyne:

    What’s really tragic is that “Inside Daisy Clover” was the last movie William Frawley ever saw.

    Have you ever seen that thing?

    Arf.

  104. 104.

    bmcchgo

    This comment was in the Deadspin thread and it wins the Internet today:

    I also don’t think he should have been using the term “girlfriend” if he never met her.

    You don’t really know a girl until you have to rip her used tampons out of your dogs mouth.

  106. 106.

    Another Halocene Human

    @KG: 1. i can’t see the “it helps with career prospects” making any sense – he was a multiple time All-American, had 100+ tackles in 3 seasons playing for Notre Dame. He was going to the NFL.

    It sounds like post hoc rationalization to me. I think his story is more believable than the conspiracy theory, unless there’s evidence that Te’o or a confederate created the accounts, etc.

    2. i can’t believe he’d actually be this naive. Not in this world.

    Er, young people can often be quite naive. I believed any number of untrue things at that age. Depends on his background/life experience.

    And how much looking up on someone is reasonable? Sure, we might search someone’s name on Facebook. But:

    Before I met my wife in person we had only communicated on the phone. Same thing with my wife’s ex-boyfriend and his current girlfriend. They met in an online game “guild” and talked over the headset.

    Both couples eventually met in person, but that was AFTER we got emotionally involved.

    3. then again, i have some Mormon friends who probably were/are this naive when it comes to stuff like this, so maybe

    Upbringing. Some much more naive than others. Naivite in the young is a goal/virtue with some religious groups. Helps keep the bishops in power.

    4. i can’t believe there wasn’t more inquiry into this by the media and/or ND PR. when a college football player achieves a certain amount of notoriety, we learn everything about them.

    Why do you say this? As Te’o got more famous, there was more inquiry. Before he was famous, they looked into this girl less than Te’o did. Finding out this info took time and effort and those cost money.

    5. i can’t believe a college football player would go through all this. at all, i mean, it just doesn’t make sense when there’s no discernible motive.

    Yeah, I can’t believe he would go through it either. Parsimony suggests he’s telling the truth.

    6. if he’s the victim of a hoax, i still don’t get the motive.

    The person who was online lying to him DOES have a motive. Attention … until Te’o got too hot (famous). Or he wanted to meet her in person and she’s not who she said she was. Uh-oh! Then a faked death to get rid of the problem account. (Soooo many times people have made a bed for themselves in forums then faked their death on the internet, only to return… a miracle!) Then MOAR ATTENTION WOOOT. Plus the sympathy and attention during the “illness”.

    What do you bet his “girlfriend” was married?

  107. 107.

    mere mortal

    @Comrade Jake: Shame at being the Socially Awkward Penguin might account for that. Just about every other real person in that article deserves to be tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail.

    And who knows yet, maybe the young foosball player as well.

    Again (this is not a personal “you”), if you never did anything stupid for love, never lied about or fudged the provenence of a relationship, then you are a rare bird indeed.

  108. 108.

    Another Halocene Human

    @KG: Look up Gawker’s “Hipster Grifter”. When she was in NYC she faked illnesses as part of elaborate lies (because she was lying all the damn time) and because she enjoyed the attention/sympathy.

  112. 112.

    quannlace

    The first thing I remember, as a kid, seeing Raymond Burr in, was the movie ‘Godzilla.’ It was later than I read his scenes were dropped into the original Japanese flick, to be repackaged for American audiences.

  114. 114.

    RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    @Baud:

    Are all of you real?

    I am at the moment. But in the summer I’m just reruns.

  116. 116.

    PsiFighter37

    This is crazy, dumbfoundingly stupid, yet kind of funny, and, last (but not least), yet another indictment of how lazy the media is. Then again, it was mostly sports reporters, who are basically glorified entertainers than serious people.

    I can’t believe he thought he’d get away with that in the age of the Internet.

  117. 117.

    Elizabelle

    @Mnemosyne:

    I think you could make a case for “Daisy Clover” having killed “Fred Mertz.”

    Somebody had this bright idea: “hey, Natalie Wood as a child star. She’s done it before.”

    She looked about 35 in the movie.

    Christopher Plummer was very good in it, however. (Serpentine movie producer.)

  118. 118.

    Peregrinus

    @mere mortal:

    I do. Very vividly, in fact, since it was about four years ago. If it is a hoax perpetrated on him, the poor bastard was getting rolled by, apparently, a fairly good friend. My heart would go out to him in that circumstance.

  120. 120.

    Kadzimiel

    And to think that poor old Clint was really communing with Lennay Kekua at the Republican convention…

    “What is it, Lennay? You want to say hello to Manti?”

  121. 121.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Mnemosyne: There are wedding boards? That’s much weirder to me than not knowing Raymond Burr was gay.

    And the head mod of our soapmakers board does see IPs for the reason mentioned above.

  122. 122.

    cathyx

    @Baud: That’s part of the illusion. To make you think it’s low tech. You’ve only scratched the surface here.

  123. 123.

    Obliterati

    Alabama beat ND so badly they retroactively erased his girlfriend from existence.

    Man, it would have been so much easier to just come out of the closet. Or just not say anything at all about your private life…

  126. 126.

    PsiFighter37

    @Comrade Jake: What are they saying? Given that Te’o said he met his ‘girlfriend’ face-to-face at some point, it’s pretty damn clear that he’s a liar and made this whole thing up.

    If ND is trying to cover their ass, that’s pathetic. Major athletic programs always look to cover their ass (and those sweet, sweet paychecks) first. They couldn’t give two shits about academics, integrity, or whatever it is why people are supposed to be going to college in the first place.

  127. 127.

    JPL

    Why is Notre Dame having a news conference and pointing out that Catfish proves that Manti was hoaxed?

  129. 129.

    Elizabelle

    @Obliterati:

    It’s kind of awful, isn’t it? Alabama, with QB with “Miss Alabama” girlfriend who’s going to cover the Super Bowl for some entertainment outfit vs. dead legend girlfriend.

    Stomped twice, and this one might hurt more.

  131. 131.

    Another Halocene Human

    @mere mortal: Lots of CT’s on this thread.

    You want to believe he cooked this up, show me some sort of trail that he had this persona cooked up, right?

    If Manti Te’o needed a fake girlfriend, why would he need to kill her off?

  132. 132.

    the Conster

    @ranchandsyrup:

    I’m going to be spending next weekend with my friend, the woman who wrote Lars and the Real Girl. She based it on a job she had selling those dolls to sad larrys, and she also wrote for Six Feet Under and the first two seasons of True Blood. She’s got a weird/sweet streak a mile wide.

  135. 135.

    Mnemosyne

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    They’re actually very helpful in figuring out which local vendors are good and which ones are overpriced or may be scamming you.

    Downside is when personal relationships with fake people get formed. And if people think B-J is cliquish, they’ve never been on a local wedding board. Mee-OW!

  136. 136.

    PsiFighter37

    @Comrade Jake: A bunch of fucking clowns, all of them.

    I bet he still gets drafted in the 1st round. If his ‘character issue’ is related to lying about fake girlfriends and not going to nightclubs at late hours, he’ll still get drafted high.

    I still cannot believe how stupid this all is. And clearly his father was in on it, too. Un-freakin’-real.

    Is Te’o going to speak tonight, or is he hiding in his dorm room crying into the sheets?

  138. 138.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @ranchandsyrup:

    Teo is trying to play it that he only had an emotional relationship online and over the phone but never met someone that he consistently called his “girlfriend”. Smell test fail.

    I know a guy whose now ex-wife spent months trying to figure out where the money kept disappearing to.

    Turned out he was maintaining two internet mistresses.

    It happens. There are reasons I’m skeptical of this story, but that’s not one of them.

  142. 142.

    Corner Stone

    @eemom:

    Anyway, maybe he’s just a pathological liar. They do exist.

    No doubt. Mnemosyne is commenting on this very thread.

  145. 145.

    The Dangerman

    Dear Penthouse, I never thought it could happen to me, but when I discovered that my Girlfriend was invisible…

  146. 146.

    Another Halocene Human

    @PsiFighter37: The Hipster Grifter did almost all of her lying F2F.

    FFS, we know she didn’t go to Stanford and her name wasn’t her real name. When Manti got famous she needed to slither out of the limelight, but just breaking up would interrupt her delusional self-image.

    Much better to go with the “I’m dying of leukemia in another state” gambit.

    This has happened on der intert00bs so many damn times, I can’t understand everyone’s shock and disbelief.

    Plenty of internet liars have gone to conventions or met people in the flesh.

    Remember that member of congress who lied about his job and marital status on Craigslist and suddenly quitXORs when there were rumors that one of his tricks was a tranny who was itching to talk?

  147. 147.

    Corner Stone

    What if this is really the real deal for one of those failed NBC show pilots?
    During the day he’s a stud NCAA football player but when he goes to sleep at night he’s emerged into a world where the love of his life has been in an accident and he has to solve the puzzle of what happened to her so he can save her.

  148. 148.

    mere mortal

    @Another Halocene Human: This is where I go all Occam’s.

    If you’re inventing to cover homosexuality, why aggrandize with dramatic accident, cancer, death. And further, why at the same time as your ailing relative passes? That’s a lot, so completely discounting the beard. The beard is a friend willing to attest to your wonderful, happy, stable relationship.

    Timing injury and death with that of a relative screams emotional manipulation. When you’re going through an emotional crisis, a lot of your best buffers are worn down. That speaks to people trying to mess him up.

    That’s where I am, but what do I know? I was fool enough to believe Weiner about his wiener.

  150. 150.

    JPL

    So is this guy suppose to be helping Manti? Okay big draft guys I have this great recruit who dated a girl online for two years until she disappeared.

  153. 153.

    Corner Stone

    What kind of an idiot ass reporter does a major story about the guy and never once talks to his girlfriend or her family?
    Can I get that job writing fiction for ESPN, etc ?

  156. 156.

    RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    @Double nickel:

    Raymond Burr was also a Canadian. The plot thickens.

    From his IMDB bio:

    “He was incredibly generous, giving most of his money to charities and sharing it with friends.”

    Apparently he gave away a fortune to good causes.

  157. 157.

    El Caganer

    @mere mortal: The dramatic accident, fatal illness, and death make a good reason why the girlfriend couldn’t attend any awards ceremonies or the bowl game. It doesn’t tell anything about why one would make up the imaginary girlfriend in the first place, though. I would be inclined to believe he was a naive young person who got snookered except for the fact that he claimed repeatedly to have met this person. Whatever his real motives, it’s a shame he felt he needed to take part in this. He really seems like a good guy.

    Lance, on the other hand, has always been a prick.

  159. 159.

    JPL

    OMG… The Notre Dame guy sounds like he is going to cry .. the poor baby was duped. Please forgive him for being an adult in a ten year old body.

  160. 160.

    RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    @El Caganer:

    Lance, on the other hand, has always been a prick.

    Then when he decides to come clean, dodges the sports press, who he’s been verbally abusing for years, and shares his feelings with Oprah. Jerk and a coward.

  161. 161.

    mouse tolliver

    Well, try to look on the bright side. At least he wasn’t aiding and abetting a serial pedophile. Be glad that he didn’t have a real dead girlfriend that he murdered himself.

    There’s been some serious fuckedupedness in the world of football lately.

  163. 163.

    RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    I vote for ‘Fictional DougJ’ as his next handle. Can we get a referendum on that?

  164. 164.

    BAtFFP

    Victorian novels always warned me about not falling in love with the dark, mysterious stranger whose family lived overseas and who had an entire wing of his ancestral house boarded up for no reason. Best stick to the somewhat dull parson who everyone in the community knew and approved of.

    In light of all the munchausens By internet stories and similar… maybe there really was something to this advice.

  165. 165.

    JPL

    I’m reading the DeadSpin article on Manti Te’o and it does seem as though there are a lot of inconsistencies.

  166. 166.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Even for an Open Thread, this is way off-topic, but if you didn’t hear today’s Fresh Air interview with Dustin Hoffman, you really should. The whole thing is good, but I was especially mesmerized by a segment where he mentioned that he has refused for pretty much all of his career to hold a gun onscreen:

    “I’ve always trusted that what I think is funny they will laugh at, what I think is moving will move them, what feels … interesting [to me], they will find interesting. I don’t find anything interesting about a gun. A gun is there to threaten or kill. … A gun is rarely used in film in a way that feels like … life.”

    I expect it was just a coincidence of timing, but I thought it was very interesting that this aired the same day that gun safety was the topique du jour.

  167. 167.

    scav

    I can’t stop laughing. Any direction I take it The bulk of the individuals end up if not menditious, still avaricious gullible fools, and then it’s at Noter Dame with the football background and the Catholic background, and then I’m off gcain as at least their imaginary and over of age. I rhink it’s been a long week. oh help.

  168. 168.

    WaterGirl

    @bmcchgo: Been there, done that. When I was in my early 20s, my cocker spaniel thought used tampons were the best thing ever. Mmm, yum. (speaking for my dog, here)

    You’d be sitting in the living room and you’d hear this smacking sound from behind the couch. You knew what you would find, but you had to do it anyway.

    6 women (and 3 men) lived in the house, so there was plenty of opportunity for Mellon to score a tampon. She was a great dog.

  169. 169.

    Southern Beale

    OMFG:

    A security check on a US company has reportedly revealed one of its staff was outsourcing his work to China.

    The software developer, in his 40s, is thought to have spent his workdays surfing the web, watching cat videos on YouTube and browsing Reddit and eBay.

    He reportedly paid just a fifth of his six-figure salary to a company based in Shenyang to do his job.

    Operator Verizon says the scam came to light after the US firm asked it for an audit, suspecting a security breach.

    This guy is some kind of visionary, outsourcing his own job before Verizon can do it. Now I’ve heard everything.

  170. 170.

    J.W. Hamner

    My first inclination is to believe the con/grift angle, as it is much more plausible than a famous college football player conspiring with several others to invent a fake dead girlfriend to buttress his Heisman candidacy. If the latter is true, then Manti Te’o is a certified crazy person because that makes not one lick of sense. It’s not like Heisman trophy winners have a universally high draft position.

  171. 171.

    Punchy

    @El Caganer: but how was he duped? To whom did he speak to every night? How could that person keep up the ruse each night? And what about all these face-to-faces he has talked about? His story has bigger holes than Traci Lords.

  173. 173.

    Gin & Tonic

    @RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist: I’m glad to see that his attempts to control the spin on this aren’t working well at all. I have yet to see a positive story anywhere, and we haven’t even begun to hear from Frankie Andreu, or Greg Lemond, or Emma O’Reilly. WADA has already come out saying “full testimony under oath and we may begin to think about considering lifting the ban.”

    Tomorrow is the DoJ deadline for joining Landis’ suit; if they join, his life will become much more difficult. I hope they do, but I am not optimistic.

  174. 174.

    Kadzimiel

    I think this is one case where H.P. Lovecraft said all that needs to be said:

    “That is not dead which can eternal lie.”

  175. 175.

    Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)

    that he has refused for pretty much all of his career to hold a gun onscreen:

    He’s played a psychopath who has others do the dirty work(Billy Bathgate, Confidence), so I demur.

    “I’ve always trusted that what I think is funny they will laugh at, what I think is moving will move them, what feels … interesting [to me], they will find interesting. I don’t find anything interesting about a gun. A gun is there to threaten or kill. … A gun is rarely used in film in a way that feels like … life.”

    Except when it saves a life……..

  176. 176.

    maye

    @aimai: yes, my husband, a ND alum, was really pissed when it was printed. But Melinda Hennenberger would have no reason to hurt her alma mater.

  178. 178.

    The Dangerman

    Did Armstrong say if he started doping after having testicular cancer? Because, to do so, he’d have to be a crazy fucker. Then again, if doping caused his cancer and he still doped, he’d have to be a crazy fucker.

    I guess I’m a Manti level fool, because I didn’t think he was a crazy fucker, which meant he couldn’t have doped.

  179. 179.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @maye: She’s a professioinal Catholic, too, a proud and self-righteous supporter of the Red Beanies

  180. 180.

    zzyzx

    I’m sorry but if you talk with someone for hours every day and then hear that she died, you’re going to want to go to the funeral or have a proxy there or get all of the information you can about this tragedy. It doesn’t pass any sort of human nature test.

  181. 181.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @The Dangerman: If someone can explain how you get from brain mets to elite cyclist, I’ll believe he had anything beyond stage 1 cancer (which is nothing to sneeze at but survivable when caught early). He’s lied about everything else, and you really can’t blood dope your way that well.

  182. 182.

    MCA1

    @mere mortal: Maybe. That’s certainly the pattern that’s been established out there, I guess. Did you read the Deadspin story? It’s possible that “Reba” is actually the perpetrator here, or that it’s some as-yet unknown person, but the clear indication the authors make there is that (a) there’s a very high likelihood this was perpetrated at least in part by some guy named Ronaiah Tuiasasopo, and (b) that kid knows Te’o personally. Perhaps there’s some personal animus there and the kid had it out for Te’o, and got a real, live female to engage in at least some of the following: lock eyes with Te’o at a game in Palo Alto, fly to Hawaii on numerous occasions and meet Te’o, and/or speak with him on the phone every night, and pretend to have Leukemia; as a part of his hoax or scam or whatever. But until there’s some further evidence of anyone other than a person Te’o apparently knew in person as being behind this, it’s hard for some of us to go with the storyline we’ve heard a number of times before.

    There’s also the possibility the reporting’s wrong, of course. Or that as Te’o’s fame grew, he overstated the status of what he thought was a more casual online relationship into something more serious, out of pressure from one direction or another, and helped inflate this without actually taking part. I guess we’ll see. But until someone explains to me how some of the things that were reported about the girlfriend and Teo’s relationship with her that seemed to come from his very mouth square with an independent scammer (like, they actually met in person the first encounter; they met in Hawaii on multiple occasions; he’d sit on the phone with her all night while she was in the hospital; he never visited her in the hospital while she was dying of Leukemia despite professing in the papers how much he loved her; he never spoke with or contacted her family at any time over three years; he sent flowers to her funeral [c/o whom?]), I’m remaining skeptical.

  185. 185.

    WaterGirl

    @Litlebritdifrnt: Really short summary:

    Gex has been with her girlfriend Kate for 14 years. Kate has been going thru cancer treatments for about 5 months. A few days ago she started a new chemo treatment. It seems they got the dose way wrong and she got terrible sores and it wiped out her immune system and she had tons of problems as a result. Kate was in the hospital being treated for that, and finally things seemed like they were turning around. Her numbers improved and they could finally give her an antibiotic that she needed, but had been unable to take while she had the terrible mouth sores.

    Seems like there was maybe one day of improvement, then we heard Kate’s port got infected, then everything took a big nosedive and suddenly Kate is on a respirator (for 2 days) and they were going to take her off the respirator this morning.

    Gex has been staying in the hospital with Kate.

    Apologies in advance for errors and omissions.

  186. 186.

    SmallAxe

    To believe Manti & ND you have to think a completely online & audio only. Really? In this day & age your not going to mix in a webcam session at some point? Please. At a minimum you would do it during the long distance supposed hospital sessions you would think.

    On the other hand you watch the ESPN videos of him talking about her and he seems so sincere, this is crazy.

    Also ND not giving any of the investigation to authorities? After bringing up possible extortion threats as a motive? Really?

    F’ing swamping the Lance story this is.

  187. 187.

    GregB

    Much of this story has to do with the cultish idiocy that the American sports/media complex promotes.

    One wonders whether this lad invented this fantasy girlfriend in order to be a little more butch.

  188. 188.

    Darkrose

    @Another Halocene Human: Before I met my wife in person we had only communicated on the phone. Same thing with my wife’s ex-boyfriend and his current girlfriend. They met in an online game “guild” and talked over the headset.

    Same with me. However, I never told anyone that I’d met her in person before I actually did.

  190. 190.

    JPL

    Next year I’m going to watch Manti play and I’m also going to look in the stands because you know there will be signs saying I’m Manti’s girlfriend. You also know there will be at least one inflatable girl like doll.

  191. 191.

    JPL

    @SmallAxe: Maybe Lance was the real (fake) girl knowing that the story would blow up and he could admit to drug use and no one would care…

  192. 192.

    Jade Jordan

    In previous interviews he stated he met her on the Stanford Campus and their eyes kept locking…..His dad said in an interview that she came to Hawaii every time Manti came home.
    In other interviews she graduated from Stanford in 2012, etc.

    The hole is big enough now STOP Digging.

    It is not the lie that will kill him but the cover-up. Call Judy Smith STAT (real Olivia Pope Scandal).

  193. 193.

    SmallAxe

    @JPL:

    Excellent and more plausible than the ND line. Karl Rove is a Bama fan isn’t he? This Jan surprise may have broken just a little later than he wanted. (JK)

  195. 195.

    JPL

    but let’s not forget
    that a girl who did not exist died.

    Wish I thought of that but it was on nbc.sports..

  196. 196.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    You know, I think the fake girlfriend was right to get out of this relationship. He almost killed her once in a fake car accident. Then gave her a disease to finish her off. She deserved better than that. Now that she’s on the market, I hope she finds a better storyline for herself.

  198. 198.

    Tripod

    @GregB:

    I hope it was a beard tale that went horribly sideways and not some bullshit he barfed up to be everybody’s All-American hero.

  200. 200.

    RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    @The Dangerman:

    Lance Armstrong has been fishy for years. I stopped reading the cycling press at least 15 years ago. I recall reading articles about his amazing performance that stated that he just had outstanding oxygen uptake. Like, freakishly high compared to every other cyclist. This was around the time that blood doping – which increases O2 uptake – was starting to be discussed.
    I’m surprised he held out so long.

  201. 201.

    Birthmarker

    Perhaps the fellow who faked the twitter account is a significant other?

    Also, I am a huge Cam Newton fan, but I don’t think his “compelling personal story” helped him win the Heisman.

    And the most important aspect of the Te’o story is how it highlights the many failures of the so called press.

  202. 202.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    @Jade Jordan: the dad thing is odd, but I’m thinking that he used her as a ruse for his family before she became a national topic. So kiddo, who were you seeing when you’d go out to meet her for coffee and told the old man that you were just meeting that nice girl from Stanford?

  205. 205.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    @SmallAxe: Can’t wait for Mike Golic on this, but the show to listen to tomorrow will Be Jim Rome, WAR Al and Tipper being the inspiration for Love Story!

  210. 210.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    @scav: when grandma died, perhaps someone thought it would be a good time to meet this girlfriend, even if the circumstances weren’t the best. They had, after all been a couple. So in a panic, he killed her.

  214. 214.

    SmallAxe

    @Mr Stagger Lee:

    No doubt Golic will be good. I’m in DC looking forward to Lavar Arrington on the small box take too. He fame/heismanwise was in a similar position to Manti, be interested to see how this pings his radar as believable or not.

    Amazing that a hoax that carried an entire season flew like that, definitely speaks to the lack of a decent press at a minimum and the gullibility of many others.

  216. 216.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Or something like that.Suffern Ace: That’s really stupid if you’re Te’o. It would be much easier to just say he broke up months ago and produce a local “girlfriend”.

    Unlike fake internet personas, dead people generate real records.

    The fake girlfriend was not a story until she “died”.

  218. 218.

    Michael2

    @Birthmarker: Yes to 1 and 3. No longer journalists, they are simply stenographers. ACCESS is the only thing that is valuable for them, and they won’t endanger it. The story at Deadspin is full of inconsistencies that any observant person – certainly any “reporter” – would notice.

    Anyway, I predict: three new awesome MEMES!!! They will be: a. obviously the ‘fake dead girlfriend’ [though is that new?]

    b. ?
    c. ?

  220. 220.

    Corner Stone

    @Litlebritdifrnt: There was something else about Kate hating Gex or loving her career more or something like that.
    But, honestly, I couldn’t pay attention long enough to know what or who.

  221. 221.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Darkrose: That’s the thing that’s weird about it. Either he dug himself in with more lies, maybe out of embarrassment over his internet romance or this is a case of in-person and internet hoax, IOW, a real girl, but NOT a Stanford student and she did not have leukemia.

  223. 223.

    Anne Laurie

    @Another Halocene Human:

    What do you bet his “girlfriend” was married?

    Or a gay guy. Has the “Borderline Personality disorder is a very real disease, and shame on you all for not being more understanding” card been played yet?… possibly by Manti himself?

    (BPD and leukemia are both real diseases, and convenient grifter excuses, too.)

  224. 224.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @Corner Stone: My step-daughter has a fake pregnancy thing going on constantly, she has managed to get two guys to marry her on the fake pregnancy and at least half a dozen to get engaged to her. Funny how the pregnancy never ends up with a baby.

  225. 225.

    Another Halocene Human

    @J.W. Hamner: Of course, maybe the theory is correct, he really IS crazy as a bedbug, and this story is way more interesting than it looks at first blush.

  226. 226.

    Comrade Jake

    On Sportscenter, on the sidebar they have

    BREAKING NEWS:MANTI TEO’S GIRLFRIEND DID NOT EXIST.

    Yeah.

  227. 227.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    @Another Halocene Human: remember, he’s only 21 and the other kid was 22. This whole thing is kind of stupid. And unimportant in the scheme of things, and of course I want to know all about it now. But it’s a scandal and being handled by the press, so we’re doomed.

    The movie will be more real.

  229. 229.

    Corner Stone

    @Litlebritdifrnt: I had a “girlfriend” in High School who, for no reason I could determine, held her tummy with both hands when she was in my house. Like she was pregnant.
    That really never went very far, actually.

  230. 230.

    Corner Stone

    @scav: I think we’re misjudging the boy. It’s pretty clear she exists in another timeline and we just aren’t able to understand what’s going on here.
    She’s had a rough time and we should give them some slack.

  231. 231.

    Another Halocene Human

    Brian Te’o told multiple reporters that the family had never met Kekua; the Te’os were supposed to spend time with her when they visited South Bend, Ind., for Notre Dame’s Senior Day on Nov. 17.

    Yeah, sounds like this girl had a reason to defs kill off her character now.

    And the accident/illness drama had been going on exactly the same months they had the “deeper” relationship.

    This just screams internet Munschausen’s.

    What is odd is the timeline about when she “died” and the funeral and shit. If Deadspin can unravel that, I think we’ll find out the truth.

  232. 232.

    patroclus

    After reading the Deadspin article, I’m not buying the “victim” thing. I would have if it hadn’t have been for the leukemia thing though…

  233. 233.

    scav

    @Comrade Jake: Better than the headlines with”Manti’s Girlfriend” because I keep seeing the Praying kind, and that’s a baroque and gender bendy species-crossing mess. Even for the internet where no one knows you’re spouting mandibles.

  234. 234.

    Andre

    Ugh, the armchair psychology going along with this (along with the “how could he to this to US?!” moralizing) is all a bit much. This sort of thing happens all the time, it’s only the attention that’s different.

  235. 235.

    patroclus

    After reading the Deadspin article, I’m not buying the “victim” thing. I would have if it hadn’t have been for the leukemia thing though…

    Defensive players rarely win the Heisman – I guess the hoaxsters figured Teo needed something special to put him over the top with the voters.

  236. 236.

    Anne Laurie

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    Funny how the pregnancy never ends up with a baby.

    My dad used to warn us, “It’s the rare guy who’ll admit he couldn’t get a girl pregnant just by looking at her, and that’s how so many ‘honeymoon miscarriages’ happen.”

    That was before the internets, of course. Now we have pregnancy boards, and women who scam well-meaning strangers because the heartbreak of infertility is a get-out-of-jail-free card. The (twisted) human emotions never change, just the technology for using other people as spearcarriers…

  238. 238.

    Darkrose

    @Another Halocene Human:

    That’s the thing that’s weird about it. Either he dug himself in with more lies, maybe out of embarrassment over his internet romance or this is a case of in-person and internet hoax, IOW, a real girl, but NOT a Stanford student and she did not have leukemia.

    It just doesn’t add up. Why say you met her in person when you didn’t? Plus, given that the actual woman in the photos says she doesn’t know him, one of them is lying. And why, if ND knew on December 26th that he’d been the conned, did they let him answer reporters’ questions about the non-existent relationship on January 3rd?

    My money’s on “realized he’s gay, tried to pray it away and panicked when he realized it wasn’t working.”

  239. 239.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    @scav: ah, but she was suffering in California while they lived in Hawaii. And since when the family gave an interview, they mention that “she would never become their daughter-in-law”, I’m wondering if she was invented for them and not for us.

  240. 240.

    Keith G

    The poor kid really got in over his head it seems. I see no reason for joy or criticisms until or unless all the issues motives get sussed out. Maybe it was planned malevolence on his part, maybe it wasn’t. I’ll reserve judgement.

    It’s not like there is a shortage of news to be thinking about this week.

  241. 241.

    CaseyL

    When I was in high school, someone I considered my best friend, who was later revealed to be a pathological liar, fed me the most astonishing whoppers, and I believed them all. Here’s the thing: she believed them, too.

    I don’t know why this kid first invented the Fake Girlfriend, but he put a lot of serious effort into the story over a long time. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he talked himself into believing she existed, on some strange level.

    At the risk of offending the devout, if people can talk themselves into deeply, passionately, believing in a God no one has ever seen or heard and for which no objective proof exists… coming up with an imaginary lover* and then falling for your own gag is not at all unlikely.

    *They never turn you down.

  244. 244.

    Suzanne

    @WaterGirl: Have you heard any more from her today? I’ve been thinking of her, but I don’t have time to read all the threads.

    I read Nicole Cooke’s statement at her retirement, and what she said about Lance. She is absolutely right and I’m not going to give him any more of my attention.

  246. 246.

    scav

    @Or something like that.Suffern Ace: It’s not like the magnitude of the lie or the exact intended audience is the guts of this. He, his family, ND, esp, the media will come out with some amount of credulous, greedy, mendacious, craven, gullible, lazy, backspatter. Doesn’t really matter best I can tell.

  247. 247.

    Svensker

    @WaterGirl:

    Kate is on a respirator (for 2 days) and they were going to take her off the respirator this morning.

    To breathe on her own, I hope? ! ?

    Hugs to Gex.

  248. 248.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @CaseyL:

    If you have one of them antique turntable thingys, you can play that song off the ARS album at 45rpm and it sounds like Stevie Nicks.

  250. 250.

    WaterGirl

    @Suzanne: At 6pm or so I opened each thread that was posted since the one last night, and did a search for “tex” in each one. Nothing. So unless Gex has posted since then, we don’t know anything since last night.

  253. 253.

    WaterGirl

    @Svensker: Sadly, it wasn’t looking like that’s what Gex was saying.

    Long, long day. It was day two on the ventilator and we just didn’t see the improvements we needed to see. I’m pretty sure we’ll be extubating her tomorrow. And of course after that, you don’t know what will happen or how long it will take.
    …..
    …..
    In 2008, she quit the office job she hated. She didn’t want to be part of the problem anymore, working for Wells Fargo. I’m so grateful I was able to support her and that she spent her last years doing something that she truly, passionately loved.

    Things happened so quickly this weekend. It looked like we were turning a corner towards recovery when the port infection took over and she took a sudden turn. Even though I lived in that room with her for almost two weeks, we didn’t have the conversation you’d like to have if you get the chance before a loved one dies.

    And I’m okay with that. Beyond supporting her in comedy, the cancer months also provide me with a peace of mind on that front. I know that I could not have done one single thing better when caring for her during her cancer treatments. There isn’t anything I could have said last week that would do a better job of showing her how much I love her. I’m glad I will not have to wonder about that and that I won’t have any regrets over it.

    Such a strange place to be in. This isn’t done, but there’s nothing left for me to do. Real life continues moving right along out there somewhere, but I haven’t been in it for a while. I will have to return to it. The idea of trying to catch up when I am so depleted is stressful. I’m glad I don’t have to do that just yet.

    My communications have abrupt stops these days. When my brain is done, it is done. It’s done now.

  254. 254.

    Another Halocene Human

    Since it’s an open thread and we’re gossiing, did anyone else notice that the other gossip story today (besides Lance) is that the Hollywood blind items are sometimes true: Michael Lohan confirmed that Lindsey is going on “dates” with very rich men. For money.

  255. 255.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Nerull: He either:

    Knew all along, which is odd b/c why all the drama (remember, this ‘family friend’ of his had cosplayed before as this girl with total strangers

    Found out in the fall and was too fucking embarrassed to tell anyone, meaning he was complicit at the end

    Found out after the “death”.

    Everything about the “death” is sketchy so I wonder if he found out right before.

    He also apparently lied about meeting her in person, and abuot when they started dating, according to was DS found on twitter.

    He’s in pretty deep himself, but it doesn’t mean he cooked up the entire thing. That’s just… odd. Not impossible, but odd…

    Wonder if the friend is gay, though.

  256. 256.

    Kyle

    @Mnemosyne: But if we assume he is being truthful, and that he buys all that crap about no pre-marital sex, would’t an online girlfriend he never sees make that easier to deal with?

  257. 257.

    Another Halocene Human

    If the con guy was pretending to be a girl online and had done it before, pulling a more elaborate con with someone he knew could have been an example of escalating.

    At some point Te’o found out, though. He enmeshed himself in the lies. That’s probably why nobody believes him.

  258. 258.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Nerull: Never mind, I read more and realized Manti Te’o made up all those in-person meetings. The twitter timeline contradicts all the lies he told about how they met.

    ETA: the girl who was involved is claiming she was duped.

  259. 259.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Darkrose: Somebody’s gay in this story, but remember that many con victims (in financial scams) never report the crime to the police.

    I’m guessing that he knew she wasn’t real before the “death” because his frigging story kept changing. So he made a decision to continue to lie about it, and didn’t come clean until his pants were around his ankles.

    People are very, very embarrassed when they get taken in, plus he had lied pretty extensively to his family.

    Remember, Bill lied to Hilary about the extent of his involvement with Monica until the very end.

    Which doesn’t mean he’s not gay.

  260. 260.

    Corner Stone

    @WaterGirl:

    At 6pm or so I opened each thread that was posted since the one last night, and did a search for “tex” in each one. Nothing.

    Sometimes I like to imagine myself as “Big Tex”.

  262. 262.

    Corner Stone

    Listen. I’m not fucking gay or anything but I’m about to slap on the headphones and bliss out to some dubstep now.

  264. 264.

    Suffern ACE

    @Corner Stone: hmm. In this next round, we insert the straight Mansi, who is using his fake girlfriend as a reason he must break up with another girl, who…he later falls in love with but because the whole affair has been based on lies, he needs to kill, and pretend to mourn, so she won’t think less of him. You see, he was at her bedside over spring break although he really was in Ft. Lauderdale but baby you can’t come because it would be weird, you understand. Meanwhile, our friend in California…I think the Whistler enters the story. Or five kids and a dog.

  265. 265.

    Suffern ACE

    In the next version, manti meets a girl from Stanford. She’s really a townie, but has been given a chance to prove her worth at a party. But then midnight strikes and she needs to leave, leaving only a fake name and a shoe.

  266. 266.

    The Bobs

    @WaterGirl: You’re scaring me. I was just diagnosed last Friday. I’ll start radiation treatment in a couple of weeks.

    Still, my chances are very good I hear. Let there not be any mistakes.

  267. 267.

    seaboogie

    @PsiFighter37: Yeah – like the political pundits are way more accurate…at least the sports reporters have to hew to stats at the end of the day and are probably way more honest – this story notwithstanding.

  270. 270.

    Legalize

    My favorite part of this is the butt-hurt from sports writers who believe that it’s the crime of the century that they were evidently duped … by someone. If nothing else, this story further highlights what a farce the Heisman voting is.

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