Hugs. Kiss. Vera.

This winter season, I'm reminiscing about the letters I've sent to men on behalf of my mom. One time, I even got rewarded with the title "African scammer". This warm on the feels yet cold in the shins season, I am bringing you along with me down the memory lane of someone pretending to be someone else for the sake of romantic or otherwise mutually beneficial matchmaking.

Kind Regards,

not the actual Vera

Can't believe someone would step out and talk about such a looked down upon activity with this much romantic nostalgia in the post. I mean, the sad violin instrumental? The scribbles and the silhouette of a woman's face showing through? The part about it being "a Christmas collection?" You obviously romanticized the heck out of your time catfishing people that you should come to the point of advertising your definition of fun in a collection of letters. Sad here is not just referred to the violin music.

I don't believe I did anything wrong in speaking out on the part I played and am still playing in my mom's well-being, including personal life. She has never known a legal love of a man, never experienced the tightness of the band around her finger when she gave birth to my older brother and then me. She has been a loyal lover, betrayed by a language barrier and the inevitably flawed nature of a human male. I am just highlighting here that she didn't know it then, but she had possibly given birth to her two guardian angels. And one of them is a female, too.

Wow, humble. Which is super inspiring in and of itself, just like a portrayal of a romantic set-up.

Maybe some link is missing here because I can't seem to understand where all of this bad karma is coming from. I am mixed race, my mom is a Caucasian woman. She doesn't speak very good English, and I am, indeed, half African.

So the part about you being an African scammer is actually spot-on, don't you think?

It's already three against one in a sparring of opinions, and I think that's against the rules.

The internet has no restriction on sharing an honest opinion, let alone TikTok.

Okay, four. I just don't believe you really understand what I'm sharing in this collection of letters, and why I decided to write it in the first place. My mom is now more proficient in English than she ever was before. She can write her own letters. And that's why I put together this collection. She can forge her own destiny in love now. My words don't safeguard her anymore. To me, it's like watching your child grow, but it's your own mother instead. I don't hold her hand through every relationship she enters, and I don't even know if she would ask me again for a letter, even with her dictation of the text.

Oh my goodness! This is the type of person who would go through your emails and say that they were just looking out for you! She probably doesn't realise that this is a pattern of a control freak/an abuser.

I admit, I look through her emails, but it's not for perceived control or malignant prying. My mom gave me access to her emails because we are this close, this honest with each other. She is amazing at meeting men and establishing a point of communication, but keeping it up to par with native speakers is not her strong suit.

You need a straightsuit to keep your hands away from keyboards.

I stand with the author. Don't listen to these trolls. It's nothing short of admirable to find a daughter who is obviously a mother's daughter. I mean, if you took the time to see her other posts, you would notice that the poor girl is single herself. And I guess it didn't spring up a question in your head that maybe she is single because she wants to see her mother get there first? It's only the right thing to do, in my opinion. She seems like the daughter that would get a divorce from a real actual husband just to support her mother to the best of her ability, out of reverence for her life story.

Don't you see that this is a love letter to her mom first and foremost? She is intimately connected to her mom's destiny and I can sense that in her writing and her other posts.

Thank you for coming to my rescue! It's true, I'm not the bad guy here. Same like I am not the actual Vera. Two things can be true. I did catfish men online by pretending to be my mom, but I believe it begs a closer evaluation of motives and interests. And if one of the potential suitors should sue me for this, I would take the fall for me and not for my mom, because I fully realise the role I played in his worldview. I don't deny the questionable parts, I just link them with the parts that contain answers. That's how I see my mom and I. We are always there for each other because that's how we were made. That's our make and model. And I understand that some families have competitive dynamics. I just feel that there is enough room for the whole picture.

That actually sounds pretty cool! I don't believe I ever stumbled upon an account of a catfish that is kind of a good person. Looking forward to reading your collection of letters!

Thank you so much! I hope you enjoy!

I love the title! Does it have a happy ending? No spoilers, of course. But maybe a hint?

Some letters are happy, and some are angsty -- I'll let you read and decide which ones led to the final destination more than the others.

Are you a self-published author?

Yes, I'm going it alone. It's been three years now since the beginning of my journey. Thank you for asking!

So are you making fun of men in this correspondence or what?

No, I wouldn't say there's anything pertaining to that. It's just a female perspective on keeping correspondence over emails. It's going over very normal, human matters. It's a sketch on romantic life of sorts. I mean, at least that's how I see what I've compiled in Hugs. Kiss. Vera.