I met him two years ago in a class I was taking. He was charming, funny and handsome - a senior as am I.

We flirted, but when I found he had a partner, I stopped. A month later he told me his partner of 10 years was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Ten months later she died.

He began courting me with emails. I kept him at a distance because of the pandemic. In January, he proposed that we become a “sacred” pandemic bubble. He said he’d not been in a sexual relationship since his partner was diagnosed.

We entered a passionate relationship which was fun for a month. Things got erratic and he said he was crippled by grief.

A month into the bubble, I started seeing red flags in his early declarations of love. When challenged, he began avoiding me, broke our lunch dates.

Then he started to show symptoms of COVID-19. I kept urging him by phone and email, to contact his doctor. He didn’t. When I couldn’t rouse him for a day, I called 911 for a Wellness Check and learned he was in the hospital.

When I phoned regarding his condition, explaining that I was his girlfriend, the nurse blurted out, “Another one.” I was stunned.

I asked for his phone number there and found another girlfriend who’d just got off the phone with another. He was playing all three of us. He’d started courting the third one just after he ‘bubbled’ with me and had emailed a break-up message to girlfriend #1 three weeks earlier.

She was distraught. He was still courting #3. She’s younger, makes much more money and is beautiful.

He lives a credit-card lifestyle and was looking for another “purse” after his previous one died. We three “girlfriends” began communicating, comparing the love emails. He sent us all the same photo of him as a young man declaring, “I’m yours.”

I easily dropped any affection for him. Girlfriend #1 had been grieving him since the break-up while #3 is still taken with him despite knowing he’s a liar and reckless with our health and safety.

Fortunately, my last contact with him was a week before he got infected. I broke subsequent dates when I knew he had symptoms. The other two are not out of the woods for infection.

All three of us are well-off professional women, two of us retired. The third is still in the workplace at a high level.

Fortunately, I keep my cash flow low and save and invest, so have no intention of keeping anyone else afloat. Girlfriend #2 had already put this man in her will, but he’s been removed. Your thoughts?

Dodged a Bullet

Hustler, fraudster, con artist... all the names for a lying, cheating, fraud artist fit this man. Your red-flag detector served you well during his shameless, simultaneous conning of several women during the stress of a pandemic.

That he put at least two women at risk of becoming Covid-infected in order to prosper through at least one of them, is a lesson for everyone who’s on their own and hoping for romance with strangers:

Being open to meeting new people is a positive trait only if it’s accompanied by common sense when the other person’s behaviour appears odd and red-flag signals appear.

As this writer has clearly described, when a high-rolling companion, male OR female, starts pushing too-soon future plans with you, hang onto your money and check with a lawyer first.

FEEDBACK Regarding the boy, 12, who told his parents he thinks he and his close friends are all gay (March 27):

Reader – “As someone who’s been proudly gay for many years, I strongly recommend that the boy’s parents and any others whose children have confided sexual identity issues to them, use some resources to acquaint themselves with support groups for both parents and their children.

“Originating as Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, now known as PFLAG (Parents, families, friends and allies) is a good place to start.  PFLAG Canada is Canada's only national organization offering peer-to-peer support striving to help all with issues of sexual orientation. In the United States, PFLAG is the largest organization uniting parents, families, and allies with people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer. PFLAG National is the national organization, which provides support to local chapters.

“More resources can be found through LGBTQIA +Resources.”