Manti-ed (noun) meaning to have the wool pulled over your eyes, or having make believe girlfriends, with fake terminal cancer.
Most of you have probably already heard about this story, but for those of you who didn’t I am going to give a brief summary of what went down. Manti Te’o The star linebacker for Notre Dame was tricked into believing that he was in an authentic relationship with a woman who had leukemia named “Lennay Kekua”, pictured below.
Courtesy of rivals.com, here is the statement made by Te’o after he discovered he was in a false relationship.
“This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online. We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her.
“To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone’s sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating.
“It further pains me that the grief I felt and the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother’s death in September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another significant loss in my life.
“I am enormously grateful for the support of my family, friends and Notre Dame fans throughout this year. To think that I shared with them my happiness about my relationship and details that I thought to be true about her just makes me sick. I hope that people can understand how trying and confusing this whole experience has been.
“In retrospect, I obviously should have been much more cautious. If anything good comes of this, I hope it is that others will be far more guarded when they engage with people online than I was.
“Fortunately, I have many wonderful things in my life, and I’m looking forward to putting this painful experience behind me as I focus on preparing for the NFL Draft.” (http://notredame.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1460920)
Unfortunately, Te’o was going through a rough time because of the illness and death of his grandmother, so maybe he was looking for someone he could confide in and pour his heart out to, without having to worry about being seen in his vulnerable state. However, I have to ask; how in the world can you carry on a relationship with a woman for an “extended period of time” without ever having seen the person face to face. I understand time constrictions but in this day and age of technology, if they had time to talk on the phone, fall asleep, email and chat then they had time to find a webcam, or at least to open a Skype account.
I have tried my hand at the online dating scene and been very disappointed that what was portrayed over the phone was not necessarily so in person so I don’t want to be too hard or judgmental of Manti, but I did have enough smarts to make sure the person I was speaking with was in fact a living breathing adult female. Some of you may feel sorry for this young man, but I don’t. If you’re callous enough to believe what you are told over the phone and email, without any form of fact checking, then you deserve to be taught one of life’s lessons; which is, people are cruel and mean and looking to take total advantage of you at every turn.
Let this be a lesson to all of you that read this blog, if you start a relationship online, at least make sure the person exists, to avoid being Manti-ed!
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