Over and over, she would “reach my breaking point,” as she puts it, and try to break it off, saying their interactions were keeping her from finding a partner closer to home. “At no point was I under the delusion that I was his girlfriend and we were in an exclusive relationship,” Sarah said James, she said, made it clear he didn’t want to be in a long-distance relationship. She later came to believe he had never come to town at all. But shortly before the visit, Sarah said, James purposely caused a fight, and they did not see each other. In 2019, he said he would be in town soon and that he’d visit her. He said he came to the Pacific Northwest, where Sarah lives, often. Other oddities cropped up: James wouldn’t permit Sarah to follow him on his private Instagram, wouldn’t send photos of himself, and was oddly secretive about countless other aspects of his life. We’re withholding her full name to protect her privacy and safety.) Bell always invented reasons not to video chat, but that was fine with Sarah she had some insecurities about her looks and was more comfortable over text. They spent hours on the phone together every night, having phone sex and talking about deeply personal things. The real investment, on her part anyway, was in time and emotion. Over the course of what became a three-year online relationship, Sarah said, the man she knew as James sent her a few gifts, totaling a couple hundred dollars. And he was handsome himself: The photos he sent to his online crushes show a guy with thick hair and movie-boyfriend stubble mugging in a shirt and tie in an artsy black-and-white shot, posing in sunglasses in a city somewhere, or shirtless on a beach, his arm extended and his impressive musculature on full display. On Twitter, he interacted with a stable of smart, pretty, funny, left-leaning women, some with big public profiles. He was funny but understated, flattering without laying it on too thick, and conveyed he was leading a bustling life in marketing or advertising or as a contractor for a cybersecurity company, traveling often. The women who have interacted with him over the past 19 years-yes, 19 years, and more on that in a moment-say he had a particular gift of online gab. There is a group of women who’ve met James Bell online over the years, and every story they have about him begins in a similar way: with an innocuous or vaguely flirty communication, always on social media.
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