Is Big really Beautiful or are we kidding ourselves?

What sort of drumming do you do Trevor?

Trevor has left the building, bohemian. I don't think he'll be coming back...

Oh dear

Oh , that is a shame !

Maybe he will return , in the future !

Am I right in suspecting that Trevor was maybe not quite what he seemed?
But at least he shook us all up and gave us food for thought, didn't he.
Not sure if I miss him or not though....

No; Trevor was exactly what he seemed which was a 47 year old man with [as he admitted himself] a penchant for older women, who then tended to become over familiar with them very quickly.

Yes exactly, spot on Tegan.

We each have our own opinion on Trevor. who knows which is correct?

Did you see among his later posts on his deleted thread about leaving? He posted:-
"Just thought I'd let you Know I'm taking full advantage of the attention I'm getting ; 0 (
who needs get me Out of here I'm a Celebrity!!!
I'm a Major one now and all for the wrong reasons and its Free Too.
right where's my address book and moby?"

Another was "But I thought you were all enjoying my act?"

I don't think he was as shy and depressed as he appeared. In fact, I don't think he was anything he claimed to be, just a bloke who was having some fun posting the kind of thing he had read in other parts of the forum and stringing along those who took him seriously. He covered religion, politics, food, older women, and more. I was waiting for him to post about pets, his favourite colour and about how devastated he was at being alienated from his grandchildren. Not sure how he would have linked that last one in when he hadn't mentioned them before, but I suspect he would have had a go.

On the other hand, he could be a shy, lonely, depressed chap with a mother-figure fixation, and I could be a cynical old B with a suspicious mind.

I agree with you, Elegran. I noticed how he used information gleaned from other threads to make his character seem more sympathetic/interesting.

I just thought he was a bit of a 'Frank' (still miss him).

Only a bit more overwhelming.

I miss Frank, too.

Lost for words nfkDumpling and Ana.
Though I do have a hint for anyone out there who wants to disrupt this forum:
Whatever your gender or age, pretend to be a lonely middle aged man. That seems to work best.

Frank didn't disrupt the forum. He was funny.

Trevor wasn't all that disruptive either, and neither he nor Frank were abusive (though Frank did make an unfortunate comment) What is more disruptive is the kind of poster who is not really here to discuss anything, or to be entertaining, just to get people into arguments so that they can exercise their deadly wit against them and use them as a butt for verbal abuse. We have had a few of those.

I agree with that Elegran!

Yes indeed!

I thought they were both funny, and looked at things from a different perspective. Which is something that I always find fascinating. As for being a babe magnet - well, we all have to take love where we can find it I suppose!

There was no malice there, though. Not in either of them. Very good-natured in fact, and that goes a long way to making yourself pleasant to converse with, whatever the subject.

Sounds a bit like me Elegran

Is that the "shy, lonely, depressed chap with a mother-figure fixation" or the "deadly wit . . . and . . . verbal abuse", Pompa ?

I thought he was a complete fake and boring to boot and never engaged with him at all

post of 9.13.

I always wait for Elegran to suss these people out, she's usually spot on and so eloquent when she cuts them down to size!

Agree Lona a very astute lady indeed.

A dangerous bit of praise - now I have to live up to it. What is the betting that the next one will be a Nobel Peace Prize winner wanting a bit of anonymity? I'd better keep quiet.

I have observed that a number GNrs seem to feel straight away that there is something odd about the style of the type of posts we have recently been subjected to and that others seem to feel that here is some poor person who needs the benefit of the doubt.

Almost no genuine poster starts out by plastering their life story, real or imagined across their very first post, nor do they make multiple long posts about themselves in a short time.
That should be a warning in itself. It happens every so often and maybe are by "repeat performers" we cannot really know but the style is usually recognisable.

Most new posters creep in gently, post a bit and test the water to see what the site is like, some announce themselves others don't.

There have been a number who seem to have hung about and posted on a few threads until they have felt they can trust posters on GN to be helpful with a real dilemma and often then revealed some private family difficulties and asked for some advice or sound off.

You only have to look at this sort of opening on a thread to gauge how much of what has been written you can trust.

We do not ever know who we are dealing with on here but we can surely get an idea that a particular posting style is so out of the normal that we should be very wary about all that has been said.

In any internet based contact we should careful of what people are saying and look out for glaring inconsistencies in a story.

The posts of the great majority of GNers stories sound real within our experience, so I feel we are right to be concerned about those who do not seem right. Trust gut instincts as you would if you were out in the street. "I don't quite like the look of those lads I will be careful."

The post by Elegran earlier about Trev quoted him as having made it clear he was on here to make mischief get attention and it worked. Causing a lot of disruption and spoiling the usual good chatty atmosphere.

A number of sad people do this and sometimes it appears to have led to very unpleasant PMs from the perpetrator. Even with Gns partial anonimity we need to be careful. We have all probably given away quite a lot about our selves and our location etc.

I worry that the type of posters who are out to disrupt might also be the sort who might indulge in trying to find about more us in order to target someone in particular. The best plan is to not engage when a situation looks really wrong. It is tempting but ignore.