Lorneception

I hate to bring up too many military stories, but I think this one is relevant: In the Asian countries I was in, prostitution was not frowned upon to the extent that it is in the States. Everywhere you went there were loads of hookers who were looking to meet and marry a service member so that they could get a ticket to the big PX, get a green card, milk their "husbands" for every dime they had, bring their families over with them, then kick their "husbands" to the curb. It happens all the time. Arguably, that kind of catfishing is the worst kind there is, especially with children involved but most ordinary people know how that game works and can see right through those kinds of women. I knew one guy who was in his mid-20s, was goofy as fuck and had never been laid in his life... until he went to Thailand and banged a hooker. All of a sudden, he was engaged to this (very good-looking) woman and despite the blunt warnings from everyone around him, he married her and of course it was a total disaster for him. Some people just don't listen to anything but their dinks.

Lorne is one of those guys. He'll go all-in on any woman who gives him attention , no matter how ridiculous the situation is.

Shit, at least the guy I knew from back then had gotten laid...

I still need to hear the livestream from Wednesday. I only heard the last hour or so of it. What was the story of the welfare check? Was the timeline of this Nikki girl mentioned? Was this before the sting, and a girl he was dating in person? 

I'm curious how Lorne's time in prison was. From what I can tell, he has no close relationships with men, seems to fear/mistrust men, and is also uncomfortable alone. He desperately needs someone he can share his pitiful days with, even if it is only through the internet or phone. I can't imagine being surrounded by men could have been very comfortable for him. I remember in one of his calls with Ramona, he's angry with her because she only gave him a couple hours on the phone. He seems to use the number of hours they spend on the phone as a daily barometer for how "close" he and Ramona were to each other at that given moment. 

I can talk a bit about the psychology behind it.

First, catfishing, hoaxing and fraud (all forms of identity deception) take place a hell of a lot more than most of you probably realize. Some of you reading this might have been a victim (or suspected you were a victim) in the past. The thing is, generally, most people are either unaware it's happened or too embarrassed to tell anyone it happened to him. This is not about intelligence. One of the earliest documented deceptive incidents involved a group of affluent, sophisticated single women in Manhattan. The entire community formed an attachment to a "Joan". Beyond that, "Joan" suggested to a couple of them that they would like her friend "Alex" who proceeded to have an affair with at least one of them. Another well known case involved a community composed primarily of geeky engineers.

It's not unusual for a person to fall prey to false personas multiple times. Why? There are a couple of possible reasons. First, most of subscribe to the idea of "lightning never strikes twice". They figure that it's happened once so the chance is good that it won't happen again.

They also tend to be pretty trusting and take people at face value. Overall, most people assume others are good and honest until an individual proves otherwise. There is a concept called warranting. It's the way we demonstrate our identity to others. One of the ways we warrant in this community is when we display our knowledge and opinions on TCAP predators and incidents. This demonstrates to others our identity as TCAP aficionados. Deceptors do it the same way but they might also use photographs, phone calls, and other modes of communication to reinforce the illusion.

I'm going to make an educated guess that if you were to test people who fall prey to multiple false persona, I'm going to make an educated guess that they would be more trusting and less observant than others. (I should look this up but I'm feeling a bit lazy today).

So let's look specifically at Lorne. From the bits and bobs I've heard in various calls and such, he says that he had a GF who cheated on him as well as a broken engagement. So if you are afraid of getting hurt that have that innately human desire for affection *and* you likely had shitty, unhealthy models for what a relationship looks like, you just might retreat to the Internet to conduct relationships because of a perception that you have more control (I won't recap it all here but I talked about the theoretical underpinnings in a post a made here a couple of months ago as well as in the recent chat I had with Andrew Birkett on his channel).

It terms of Ember, Michelle Simpson, and Ramona... I've seen people ask "how could this "bald headed sex offender loser every believe any woman would want him?" Well, if a woman expresses interest he's going to dive right in. Lorne is not very sophisticated and I really think that a lot of irony, satire and plain old mockery sail over his head, he just takes things on their face. If a woman is friendly, let alone flirts or gets sexual with him, he's going to respond in kind. He is missing a governor on what to say and how to behave that I think I lot of us develop be early adulthood. (But then again, enough adult men send multiple unsolicited dick pics to adult women, and demand boob and pussy shots that, unfortunately, Lorne is just one more guy in a pretty crowded field.)

Can Lorne be catfished again? Yes, absolutely. Will he fall for it again? If Lorne remains (relatively) sober and in therapy, he might develop enough healthy skepticism to avoid it. However, he's always going to be more likely to catfished that most people.

Joan and Alex
Van Gelder, L. (1985). The Strange Case of the Electronic Lover. Ms Magazine. doi.org/10.1068/a150357

Caspi, A., & Gorsky, P. (2006). Online Deception: Prevalence, Motivation, and Emotion. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 9(1), 54–59. doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2006.9.54

Ms Norway
Spaight, T. (2003). Who Killed Miss Norway. Retrieved from www.salon.com/2003/04/14/who_killed_miss_norway/

Warranting
Warkentin, D., Woodworth, M., Hancock, J. T., & Cormier, N. (2010). Warrants and deception in computer mediated communication. In Proceedings of the 2010 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work - CSCW ’10 (p. 9). New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. doi.org/10.1145/1718918.1718922

There's nothing abusive about the phone calls if you take Lorne out of the equation.  You place any other predator there with a similar background I seriously doubt these calls last aslong as Lorne's.  His possessive nature and single track mind is what keeps things combative.  Seriously, Lorne as raged about such topics of wanting to know how Ramonuh saw the doctor naked and why Ramonuh is going out on a date with her therapist.  These are topics that aren't all that sexual in content yet Lorne refuses to discuss them in a rational manner then comes the abuse.  Lorne has a short fuse so any random topic where there isn't a satisfactory answer in his mind will frustrate him.  Lorne has also became abusive just waiting for unreturned texts that don't get a response when he wants them.

I think we can draw enough from the chatlog with Kayla to know it doesn't take much for Lorne to become dependent.  Once a girl/woman shows interest he will make them his whole life fairly quickly.  Kayla was Lorne almost talking to himself and he was ready to marry her after a week.  Probably took longer with Ramonuh because if what she says is true and she never said she loved Lorne, he would somehow have to rationize their connection, this is where the whole "you believed in me" is born from in my opinion.  

Lorne is lonely and will always be because his over bearing need for attention will drive any normal person away that doesn't have any ulterior motive (money or trolling for lawls), Lorne will wear on your mental health, I'm sure this is why most of his family avoids him (unless they need something).   


Stanley Kendall seems to fit the uncle you described more than Lorne, Kendall seemed fully aware of the 'joke' and went along with it because it was his only outlet for his fantasies and having his asshole lick while he farted.  He was at the end of his life and knew it, no delusions of 'getting his act together'.  He knew about his stuff getting to the internet too but cared far less than Lorne.

Lorne absolutey participates in abusive and possessive phone calls. But lets not forget that these aren't real phone calls. They are scripted and engineered with one single goal. To encourage Lorne to be abusive and possessive. "Oh...the doctor isn't working anymore? I'll say I saw him naked. Oh..that isn't working anymore? I'll say he has a huge penis. Oh..that isn't working anymore? I'll say I would love to date him."

These conversations are designed to provoke Lorne into acting inappropriately and then we pat ourselves on the back and say "Look how inappropriate Lorne is acting! Sad!"

Or saying, "I don't love you!" and then crying and acting all heartbroken when she's forced to end the "relationship".
At one point, it was about having Lorne own up to his behavior. But after the Michelle episode, it was just her seeing how badly Ramona could set him off.
I'm not blameless in this, as I thought it was humorous at first, but when I heard her on the phone doing that pre-call "huddle" with Ember and Sam, that's when it hit home that this was wholesale bullying. Putting someone through mental anguish just to get your kicks or to look good for the community is not OK. When people gave Lorne stick for his YouTube and eBay follies, I didn't have a problem with it because he was trying to cash in on his TCaP infamy. He's since put that to bed and is trying to live the simple life as much as a dysfunctional alcoholic can, but the things being done to him are not punitive in any way towards his behavior. It's just to set him off, get him to drink, repeat.  I don't doubt that if it continues, he WILL get arrested for a DUI eventually and the usual suspects will pat themselves on the back for making a self-fulfilling prophecy come true putting all the blame on him and none on themselves for the prodding off the edge.

He's more than capable to dig his own hole. No need to hand him an excavator.

Not arguing with your overall argument, but surely that is not his choice- he has consistently shown that the only thing that will make him change his behaviour is if he is forced, usually through a court order. He didn't suddenly get a revelation and close his eBay account voluntarily. He didn't suddenly throw his computer away out of self-disgust and willpower. But then, even today he continues to use the compelling defence that he "never meant to do it." Never meant to solicit for sex from a minor every day for a month. Never meant to send pornographic material to a child every day for a month. Never meant to plan to drive over an hour to her parents' house on his birthday, knowing she would be alone, and then carry it out for over an hour. His Marie Antoinettesque response that an elderly retiree should herself get a job after his living months without seemingly any such inclination to recover the 30,000 he stole makes him more than dysfunctional to my mind. 
I find your warning about making self-fulfilling prophecies a real risk, but he makes a conscious decision to drive after drinking without any guilt afterwards, although again his defence is that he can't remember doing it or, when confronted, that he never meant to do it. Hopefully the hole he digs is not filled with other bodies.

a natural response to a manipulative relationship, set up by someone who preys on his emotional vulnerabilities and even have secretely enlisted the aid of others who have detailed knowledge of the man.

If lorne was a woman with drug problems, and a man kept building up her emotional dependence on him through months of phone calls every day... Would it be amusing to hear her react with despair when he begins talking about how tight his nurse's ass is, or how he's going to be 'stolen' away by his hot female therapist?

This is true to an extent but the biggest reason why its so easy to get Lorne to display controlling or abusive behavior is because he is a controlling and abusive person. He is possessive enough on his own even in situations where he isnt being "coached" into acting that way. Sure romoma and others push him to act this way sometimes but he acts this way enough on his own enough for everyone to come to the conclusion he is a controlling and abusive person.

I wasnt commenting on the morality of any of this, that would be a different discussion. My point is that it doesnt take some insidious planning to make Lorne look controlling, he will do it natuarally on his own because thats who he is and has proven time and time again to act controlling even when he's not being led into it.

You're right we have only seen his actions while he was being catfished and he could be totally different around "real" people but based on the way he acts in the audio and texts we have I've come to the conclusion he's a controlling type of person. Even the way he talks to his mom about her own car is very possessive, but that could have just him joking around, we dont really know for sure. I would just think someone who wasnt controlling wouldnt have acted so controlling over kayla, no matter how much he was tricked into acting controlling.

Agree Lorne is a dangerous groomer but disagree that his Miss vagina talk was clever manipulation. He really does have the intellect of a lemming. Look at how many times he is duped, look at his YouTube shit, and recent phrases like 'mr penis thinks about protecting children'. He is a total idiot.

The irony is Lorne could never groom a real child who wasn't stupid themselves. He would try and fail. Any normal 13 year old would be put off by his mix of baby and sex talk and his childish nudity - I am sure of it. I imagine 'successful' groomers are far more subtle.