Manti Te’o a sad story of lies and deceipt

He is one of the biggest stars in College Football playing in on of the most reknowned legendary colleges in the country. He suffered tragedy and the football world felt his pain, losing his grandmother was hard enough, but losing your girlfriend, six hours after losing your grandmother wow, devastating. Only now we find out that the girlfriend part wasn’t true. Not in the physcial sense. he shared a on line romance with someone who played the role of someone he thought was real. Yet after reading reports you get the feeling they never met and everytime the subject came up to meet there was always an excuse why she couldn’t meet.  Then to make it worse the person used sickness in the form of  leukemia to explain away her not meeting him only to find out after she supposedly died in September that she was alive. There are parts to this story that are confusing. Who was he talking to on line and on the phone if this person wasn’t who they said they were? Did he really meet her or did he see pictures of her? And what did he mean “I’d seen the most beautiful girl I ever met, not because of her physical beauty but the beauty of her character and who she is,” did this mean at so point they met even once? And how do we know it isn’t Te’o that isn’t being deceiptful now?  I am sure there is more to this story that will be forthcoming in the days to come. For this young man he should be thankful that his college is backing him up and thinks highly of him. To say that many connected to him are surely embrassed and feel duped would be the right feeling at the moment. But more to the point whether 22, 42, 62 years old the are certain situations that a red flag becomes obvious that demands our attention. Did he see her not meeting him as a red flag if this is to be believed? Is it easy to fall in love with someone you never met? It’s quite possible. On line romances happen more often than many wish to admit to simply so as not to be embrassed or ridiculed by many who don’t believe it. Te’o still has his future in front of him, his future employers the NFL will act like it will mar Te’o and maybe he will take a hit for lack of good judgement but he will have a future and someone will take a chance and pick him to play in the NFL.  As for his personal life only one can guess how he will quiet the talk around him. Some have already stated he knew she wasn’t real after a point and kept the story going for the attention. One hopes that isn’t true. It is one thing to be duped or conned it can and at somepoint happen to any of us but if after being duped we keep it going then that makes one look beyond foolish.  Depending on how the rest of this story plays out it is a cautionary tale of lies and deceipt and on line romance, something that happens more often than not. The fact that it happened to someone who plays in the spotlight shines a bright light on it. If he play at a no name college in a no name conference this wouldn’t get any attention. But because it is Manti Te’o and Notre Dame and it is on  the heals of the national Championship game against Alabama well, that becomes attention times 10. So the question is was he duped and this was ahoax on him or was he in on it as some have suggested? Where does the lies and deceipt begin and end?