Whew! It's over. The fat lady has sung. Marie agreed to post a retraction if I agreed not to sue her for libel (her suggestion, not mine as I did not threaten legal action against her although I did demand a retraction.)
I just returned from an out-of-state family reunion and I want to thank those of you who posted in response to "Marie-deceived" and who provided me with two hours of gut-busting entertainment. Having said that, let me also apologize to those of you, who, like me, are serious in search of a mate. The reason for this apology is that these Marie-based threads have been a distraction to those seeking information and I am guilty of introducing Marie to Planet Love believing that she would likely entertain and possibly cause turmoil. Of course, I did not know that she would entertain by making up lies out of whole cloth and trashing me personally.
Some of you may wonder why I continued to maintain an email relationship with Marie even after suspecting some time ago that there were "irregularities" in her behavior. It is because while some men are smitten by beauty I am smitten by brains. Marie has a Ph.D. in education, speaks fluent French and English and knows American history and pop culture as well as many of us know it. She has taught me slang and cultural popouri in Spanish and French. She has regaled me with lengthy stories about Panamanian and Latin American politics, economics, culture, business, education and history not to mention her own family history and information about her country's spectacular and diverse flora and fauna. And for one minute during our sole phone call she put the phone down and played me such beautiful Chopin on piano that I thought I was in heaven.
No thanks go to those from this forum who read Marie's false statements and questioned my integrity even before they heard from me. One of these individuals who made repeated false statements about me and about things I previously posted on this forum and who all but declared me guilty before proven innocent then had the chutzpa to riducule my profession. Ha! I wonder from whom he would seek advice if he was falsely accused of a crime or if he needed to restore his reputation after it had been defamed, a plumber?
But many thanks to those with sound reasoning processes and acute senses of smell who questioned the validity of Marie's story from the start, men like rafael, cjweir, Marxport, Maxx and Jim C. I especially want to thank my good friend and neighbor Edge for defending me while I was away and for setting the factual record straight. I should even thank regulars like Pete and Junfan and owner Patrick who simply stayed out of the whole mess. Allan's posting entitled "The Woman of my Dreams" was a masterpiece of sarcastic wit. Anony Mouse gets no points for mixing up his Shakespearian dramas and quoting Juliet from Romeo & Juliet ("Oh Hamlet, Hamlet. Wherefore art thou Hamlet") but Marie scores for hoping she doesn't die by her own hand as did Ophelia in the tragedy of Hamlet. Ophelia killed herself when the Danish prince failed to return her affections. By the way, Ophelia was mad.
Hamlet