Some women have been coned by men who wanted to start relationships online. PHOTOI FILE.
What you need to know:
The accused British boyfriend, Carl Singleton, 41, from Millom, Cumbria, was arrested on suspicion of murdering 22-year-old Peris Ashley Agumbi Mumtah, a student at the University of Nairobi.
Last year in November, a young Kenyan woman was reported to have been allegedly murdered by a boyfriend she met on Facebook after the accused flushed her diabetes medications down the toilet then watch her suffer.
The accused British boyfriend, Carl Singleton, 41, from Millom, Cumbria, was arrested on suspicion of murdering 22-year-old Peris Ashley Agumbi Mumtah, a student at the University of Nairobi.
Although it was later reported that the Nairobi court had dropped charges against theBritish national after an investigation showed insufficient evidence to sustain a murder charge against the accused, the deceased Miss Peris was reported to have died in hospital of complications from diabetes and respiratory failure days after reporting to the police accusing Singleton of flushing her medicine.
It was reported that the deceased and her boyfriend had met online through Facebook two years earlier. Six months before the incident took place, the British man flew out to Kenya on a tourist visa to spend time with his girlfriend.
In recent years, online dating has become one of the most popular ways for men and women to meet new partners. The trend which initially was popular in western countries appears to have taken Africa by storm, Tanzania included.
Social media is said to play a major role in our social lives today, with sites such as Facebook for instance being great tools that help us keep in touch with our friends. A good number of people are said to have found love through social media.
However, despite the possibility of meeting great people online, some people have had bad experiences online, especially those who tried to find partners through the avenue. A good example is the late Kenyan woman mentioned above.
Such unfortunate incidences do happen to men too. Like women, men too turn to online dating in a bid to mend broken hearts and perhaps find true love. In some cases, they also end up meeting the wrong people.
When his three year relationship ended bitterly early this year, Moses Lameck, 29, decided to go online. According to the marketing professional based in Dar es Salaam, he never dated another girl during the four years he was with his ex-girlfriend.
“I am a person who never hangs a lot in bars and a number of my friends are married. So after we parted ways with my ex, I stayed single for two months while thinking of a way to start another relationship. I never had experience with dating sites but I tried to give it a try,” says Moses. He tried different social networks including Badoo. According to him, this seemed the best way to meet a new partner.
“So I signed up but I didn’t stay for long because I found it to be unnatural. I felt like I had to lie a lot to get someone’s attention,” explains Moses.
Moses believes meeting someone physically is safer and healthy than just knowing one another from afar because that limits one from exposing their true intentions and feelings.
“Most women I found seemed to have a common character since all pretended to be kind and compassionate. None of them seemed to be down to earth. They never expressed who they really were in order to get my attention,” says Moses.
Emily Bartz, dating content manager for NextAdvisor.com says online dating sites are becoming better at matching people to potential dates and online dating is increasingly being done on mobile phone dating apps.
He says the biggest complaint people have about online dating is wasting time with people they have nothing in common with and that dating sites are now steering people toward people who have similar tastes in movies, music, religion and education.
Bartz says people are spending more time on their phones and the dating sites know this. As a result, they have created apps that are extensions of their internet presence or are solely available on phones.
Comfort and Charles Malima have been married for a year and a half now. They met online through a professional close up group of Human Resources professionals.
“My husband and I met online. At first I never really believed on starting friendships online because I have seen some of my friends being coned by men who wanted to start relationships online. But for Charles it was a bit different because I had an opportunity to meet him twice during various professional seminars,” explains Comfort.
“We had a chance to get to know one another better before we seriously declared our feelings. We had known each other for six months online. That time, he was working in Arusha and I was in Dar es Salaam. So it took us a whole year before we got married,” narrates Comfort.
She believes that dating sites can be of help to some men and women so long as they take precaution because there are a lot of crooks online.
“There are married men who look for other women online and cheat on their wives. The same applies to women. And since there are desperate women and men out there who are hungry for love, they can easily get hurt by people with bad intentions,” she cautions.
