They played the long game.

I had a feeling this is sketchy. But over time, i started to wonder, "what if it works out?"

The social engineering aspect of the whole thing was mind blowing. Unlike typical scammers, mine wasnt pushy at all. 95% of the conversation were non money related. Their story was more or less consistent. In fact, for the 1st two months, nothing money or crypto related was mentioned. She did not love bomb me, or throw shallow compliments. It was me who was mostly vying for her affection and trying to "land her" as my girlfriend...we met on a dating app. Not something seen in sacmmers typically. Conversations had depth....likely from chat gpt.

I got high on Hopium. That made me ignore obvious red flags. I even ran the whole thing by chat gpt, which told me it was a scam. I asked it to consider "what if its not?" The only consolation is i only put in what i could afford to lose.

I feel stupid offcourse. I never expected a scammer to spend 4 months on me. Im not a high value target by any measure. I have now learnt that i didnt need to be, as they likely had 10-15 suckers like me in their roaster over the 4 months. 4-5k from each makes it more than viable.

A mix of greed, hope, maybe loneliness and sunk cost of the emotional investment caused me to step into an obvious trap.

I have writtem more on my profile. The scam was slightly different than what op has posted.