Recently, I received an email message from my daughter’s dance studio. The email advised me that a woman left a voice mail message saying she was trying to get in touch with me. The woman said that she knew my daughter danced at that studio at one time and asked them to give me her phone number and email address as she was hoping to talk to me.

I was intrigued but not alarmed, initially. I met a lot of people while my daughter danced. I could have talked to anyone about anything that might have lead them to remember an opportunity or information they needed from me or that they had to offer me.

I contacted the woman by email letting her know that I received her message. She replied in a way that seemed like she was trying to make me believe that she was an older woman. Firstly, her email address was non-identifying but it identified her as a retiree. Her response, “Oh, wonderful!” She said she was a widow, used an older, outdated sounding name, said that she was hard to reach because she was always in her garden, described her phone as “my dinosaur old lady land line” and after giving me her phone number again and asking me to call her at 6:30 p.m. she commented, “I’ll wait inside for your call and try not to have the news on too loud!” She also said if the call was much later than 7:30 pm, “I’ve got no brain cells rubbing together. I’m up at 5 most mornings.”

Red flags raised but I did call her. I asked her when me met. She said that we have never met. She said that we have a common enemy and she named my ex. She said that she found me through my blog. I did not believe her. She specifically referenced how nasty my ex and his coworkers/friends were to me on one particular post. I deleted a lot of the terrible things that were comments from them on that post so not sure if the impact of those really comes through now but it was odd that she mentioned that one specifically when it dated back to 2016. She also said to me, “You were no angel either.” Hmmm. It lead me to believe she was involved. She did not speak or use language like the old lady she feigned to be. Furthermore, she let her guard down a couple of times and made comments like, “Oh, I thought you lived in Brentwood Bay.”

Although she tried to persuade me that I could help her professionally she would throw in random questions asking whether my ex was faithful to Janice Andrews. (I thought at one point maybe this is another woman he is fooling around with). When she would drop odd pieces of information that I would inquire about further she went back to her confused, old lady, getting too tired to continue talking routine. This happened a few times.

I offered to meet her in person but she didn’t want to put me out.

Her ask: She wanted my help in “taking down” my ex. I told her that I had no interest in doing that. I told her firstly this had no benefit to me or my children and would actually harm us. I told her that we rely heavily on his support payments. She seemed shocked and said, “I thought those were over.” Hmmm, is this Janice or her friend and did Dave tell her he is no longer obligated to us financially? Maybe this is another woman only interested in my ex because she sees him as improving her life financially. (I have a girlfriend who broke up with a guy because she said she couldn’t get ahead as long as her boyfriend was paying support payments to his ex and kids). She also thought we were divorced. Nope, my ex has yet to complete the paperwork he was required to submit.

What bothered me most is that she said she wanted to talk to me so badly that she considered going through my daughter on Facebook to reach me. Why would she not go directly through my Facebook to reach me? How did she have my daughter’s name but not my name? My daughter is not identified in my blog. The email I received from my daughter’s studio said that she identified me and only knew I had a daughter who danced. She never said that she knew the identity of my daughter. I asked her how she knew my daughter was at that particular studio. She said she just guessed based on where she thought I lived.

She followed up our phone call with an email that asked for financial information about my ex. She mentioned specifically a guy in my ex’s office that I knew before he worked there and then said “and a couple of other guys.” Interesting that she specifically only mentioned by name the person that I know. She asked about other females that work in his office. She asked about whether any of these women would speak to the misogynistic culture in the office. She mentioned personal morality and business morality. She also asked me to delete any emails from her “just in cases somebody really creepy knows your password and looks at your email.” And she threw in a PS, “I do love dance.”

I did not respond further. Their last email to me was hopeful that I would stay engaged and they offered me further information. Not interested, not curious. Whoever it is, I suspect it is someone my ex considers a friend but they definitely are not.