Old Duffers Beware!
For Men Only—OLD Men!
Would the wonderful young woman serving in the Armed Forces of the United States and to whom this image actually belongs, please step forward??Thank you for your service, soldier!?Let’s find out who stole your images and the joy you obviously have in both serving and in life with your comrades.
Courtney Liliana McTeer, perhaps Lt., perhaps Maj. McTeer of the US Army Nursing Corps, perhaps Courtney and perhaps Liliana, perhaps a civilian nurse in Missouri, presented herself to LinkedIn in general and to me personally on Google Chat as the absolute picture of young American womanhood and of most of the nurses and all of the military nurses I have known over the years. I was given to think, according to the Google Chat conversations she preferred to have rather than on LinkedIn or WhatsApp, Threema or Signal, that she is US Army nurse on combat deployment--17 months and just about to come home and ready for what you can’t readily get on deployment--in what might be Erbil in Iraqi Kurdestan, but of course members of the military may not divulge their whereabouts.?The profile photo she had under the name ‘Courtney Liliana,’ was of a civilian, perhaps in scrubs.?The other picture she had on her profile page was of a group of young adults at some sort of kiosk with the caption, ‘in Moscow now.’?You won’t find her profile, which I blocked and then just now unblocked to collect some of the photographic material, because it is absolutely not there anymore, just as her profile and her presence on LinkedIn was simply not there before Saturday, October 8th, at 7:19 p.m. Eastern US time, right after she had sent me a connect request and I said, for some unaccountable reason in a moment of distraction and loneliness, OK.
The pictures she sent me were almost all of her in uniform, alone and with other comrades, or repelling down cliffs in civies and generally horsing around.?Her military lingo was all correct, as far as I could tell, as was her humor, which I have learned to expect from nurses and especially Army nurses, harmlessly raunchy and ribald, all laced with terms of endearment. ‘Honey’ this, ‘Honey’ that! ?OK, I played along a bit, explaining that, quite seriously I was interested and actively involved in courting a lady much closer to my own age, instead of close to the age of my dead daughter, but that I understood that she was just being silly and not serious.?Knowing that nurses, especially those serving in the contemporary equivalent of a MASH* unit in war zones were likely to see and experience horrible things, including loss, I commiserated, offering emotional support 24/7, and pretty soon I was almost hooked, receiving cascades of love emojis and blandishments without end, inquiries about the precise size of my sleeping quarters, etc., etc. And there may really be such an Army nurse out there, fun to be with and hilarious as the day is long.?I would love to know such a young woman, not as a partner or mate, but as a mad-cap friend.?I’ll bet she’s out there somewhere, that those photos are from somebody’s life, just as the three photos I sent ‘Courtney’ to try to demonstrate my geriatric condition are probably floating around the metaverse in some new incarnation along with all the personal details of my life I shared--nothing to be ashamed of, but not anybody else’s business either.
Oddly, this AI Hot Lips Houlihan never responded to any of my specific requests, e.g., that she check out a recent post of mine and let me know what she thought.?I should have asked her about the ‘In Moscow’ caption?for that photo you will now find nowhere on LinkedIn.?Why didn’t I??Flattery and a little attention can make some men really dumb, and I was one of them.?What brought our ‘relationship’ to a screeching halt was my request for her APO address so that I could send her a ‘care package,’ cookies from home and such which she ignored.?What she wanted instead was for me to purchase BITCOIN to top off her ‘micc,’ Military International Calling Card or Communications Card, something I could not find on the DOD website, by the way.?I did not refuse to comply, but I ignored that request as well.?In response to her emphatic statements that had us already in bed together and getting very little sleep, if not walking down the aisle, I pointed out to her that it would be terribly unfair to her should she wish to have children of her own, referencing a mounting pile of evidence pointing in the direction of geriatric sperm, where there is any left, and autism in children conceived with a very old father, such as I.?This produced a fusillade of flattery and her unshakeable confidence, based on absolutely nothing, in my ability to father veritable nations of healthy offspring.?Wow!?You don’t hear that everyday!?When I returned to the topic of the ‘micc’ and how I do not purchase bitcoin or any other digital currency, the only advantage I can think of to being perpetually broke, the very last text I received from ‘her’ was, I thought, almost threatening.?“You should not be so curious.”
So guys, especially really old guys like me, be extremely careful whom you approve as a contact.?Find out why she wants to connect.?If the response is silence, or some silly statement about your sexy profile photo, please, do yourself a favor, do not, I repeat NOT either accept her, or having accepted her, block her at once.?Some of us are fortunate enough to be loved for who we are, but it’s not happening this way, guys.?Sorry, Courtney Love, who- or whatever you are.
--Guy Christopher Carter, ?2022