My story of Pie and Mash is twenty years old, but remains worth the telling.
Jane came onto a forum where I was a moderator around 20 years ago. She lived in Texas, like so many in the USA born to a rural community where prospects were limited and the expectation was she would be a waitress in the cafe until she settled down with the boy next door (or up the street), have 2.4 children and bring them up in one of the town's back street with their biggest outing being to Church on Sunday. A plain girl rather than pretty, not particularly fit, and often reminded of this. Being a girl, her parents and brothers treated her as something of a servant, and failed to note a certain spunky intelligence that was bursting to get out. Life was difficult with dad's drunken tempers, and always wondering how the rent would be paid.
Those were the days of Internet News Group and text talkers. Jane was one of the early people in her community online. She reached out and found other people reaching out too, through the thin slow text-only connections of the late 1990s. She found others with similar interest - ranging from the groups that got esoteric and specialist very quickly to those where the first question of a new member was "ASL".
Texas is much like Gateshead. There are boys and girls the world over - whether they're still boys and girls or into their twenties who feel trapped in their community, bullied in their school or junior work role, dreading a rough home environment and dreaming of better. But they are not confident to go down to the "Rag And Parsnip", see a young lady or gent across the smokey bar and think "I fancy a bit of that". Let alone to walk across with a pick-up line ready. With confidence lacking, there's no-one who they get to know at work, and they know the sordid history of cousins and bad habits of near neighbours. The internet and news groups offered a fresh new outlook ... for John from Gateshead, as it did for Jane from Plano.
John and Jane both went online and became engrossed in a world beyond their world. They both just happened upon alt.food.fruit.cherry. Both bright souls, common interest (in cherries). Both open to life changes.
The ... excitement ... of logging on line. The wiv,wiv,wiv ... wha,wha,wha, ... ziv,ziv,ziv as the modem connects. The excitement as the connection come in and "You've got mail". It's private messages from the news group which develop from people with similar interests and similar motives. And so it was with Jane and John. Their emails became the most important things in their lives; twice daily at least, long messages and a gaping hole where either missed. It started as an exchange of views but it developed - my, how quickly it developed. And Jane, who found herself in a burrow in Plano found herself flowering as she promoted herself to John. What was the risk? Where was Gateshead anyway - far enough away to be safe. With symmetry, John who would not say "boo" to a goose in Gateshead felt he could tell Jane in Plano what he dreamed of doing to her; and it happened that she wanted that doing.
You may have seen "Sleepless in Seattle", with the map showing distance and the impracticality of it in a romance at that distance. Did you see how that distance shrank? How it became immaterial to a first meeting? How Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks knew each other before they met in real life and when they did they just ... fell into each other's arms and were already a couple even as they left the place they met. It happens, far far more often than the reader may imagine. And so it was that Jane got herself a passport and flew for a holiday of an extravagantly long 2 weeks and with great expectations into Gatwick. John had driven there in his old Escort ... picked her up (and literally he did) in his arms as she emerged jet-lagged through immigration, and drove back to the hotel John had checked in on his way south. We'll draw a veil over the afternoon and the night at the Stevenage Travelodge.
Love. Jane overlooked John's bald head and 20% tax he had added to his age in his writing. John overlooked Jane's teeth yellowed from years of smoking and her stutter. They were adults, mutually attracted, scarce a care in the world with this holiday in a lifetime. The town and the hotel chain of their first
night afternoon together were irrelevant. And, next day, the long drive north to Newcastle. Jane marvelled at the greenness of the countryside, the freshness of the air, and the rolling hills as they got further north. She looked over at John, his fit body, and reached over to caress him almost to the point in distraction. John, for the first time in his life, feels unconditionally wanted, stimulated by Jane's sexy Texas accent. In her relaxation with John her stutter is hardly there; this is the life.
Gateshead - a grimey northern city, scarce visited by tourists, free from theme parks and little leisure - urchins playing in the streets between Victorian two up, two down terraces. But To Jane - history; a house this old would be a landmark in Dallas or Plano, and "quaint" and "petite" come to mind.
John's brother, with who he normally shared, is spending a couple of nights with cousin George in in Dunston so Jane and John have a room to themselves - two single beds, of course. "Quiet - mum and dad will hear us". And thereafter ... a few days at North Sheilds, a couple of nights in Saltburn and all too soon it was time for Jane to return home after a final night in Crawley.
So what followed? Plano home felt shallow and not home; Gateshead felt flat and empty.
Our lovebirds planned a new life together - Jane moving across to
UK▸ and them renting a room in Hebburn. That's lots to plan - much that neither John nor Jane had one before and it was about this time they joined a forum where both Lisa and I were moderators. We learned this story (though I may have a couple of details wrong) as "Pie" from Gateshead and "Mash" from Plano joined and asked questions about shipping possessions from the USA, Visas, and UK driving tests. We were the right place to ask - they had all been asked before. And with what was almost indecent haste it felt - even for that group, Pie and Mash were plated up together in the North East.
A holiday is not a lifetime. A romantic fortnight differs from forty years of partnership. Going out to work at The Nissan and coming home tired to a single pokey room is different to returning to a hotel room from a long walk on the beach. John started visiting the King's Head on his way home, and Jane found life cold, enclosed and miserable on Tyneside. Over a matter of weeks - no longer - John started drinking more heavily. He started to dominate Jane ,controlling of what she could do, physical and mental abuse. Jane has, alas, put all her eggs into the one basket. A one way ticket from Dallas. Financial dependence on John, and a visa that prevented her working or drawing any support. No friends in the area. Her one escapes the internet and her forum and news group friends.
So Mash (Jane) was, still, online. Pie (John) had faded out after some public disagreements between them. There was a huge outpouring of sympathy, and suggestions, for Mash. Few other members up in the North East and back-threads / p.m.s going on asking "what can we do to help her? Social services and police avenues were out because of her visa status. Here was someone who had become a friend we felt we knew; it moved on to a realisation that Jane was in a mess - admittedly much of her making - from which the only "out" options called for money she didn't have, and we were her only possible help. She couldn't get help from her family in Plano; whether they would or not, we didn't know, but offline and not worldly wise, it would have been hard for them to sneak funds to Mash without Pie learning. And so plans were laid to get funds to Mash to get home to the USA and help her back on track.
Why would the group give money in this way?
Much of this story rang true - we could identify with it "there, but for the grace of God, go I". I can find you a lady who came from the USA and later needed a middle-of-the night pickup from an abusive partner. I can find you a lady who came multiple times in a much longer courtship, but never the less found herself stranded out of her environment in something very different to the earlier trips once she moved. I can find you numerous other "returnees" for whom a transatlantic love move has not worked. Good news - I can also find lots of people for whom it has worked, and are on emotional and financial solid ground - with the tools to help if we need to.
And ... a certain responsibility was felt too - where advise given has apparently been taken, but things had gone "belly up".
So ... have you read my story of Pie and Mash - John and Jane.
Sadly, that's what it turned out to be - just a story.
There was no Jane. There was a John, and he had registered two accounts. John evaluated forum members from their posts in public and private to the tiffs and other interactions between Pie and Mash and their private messages to both parties. And I believe one or two people may have been taken in to the extent of sending money.
It's not just the money that mattered to the people who sent it - it was also the hurt of being lied to and taken in. It means that everyone who was taken in felt a betrayal of trust, whether on not they spent ££ - they certainly spent a lot of time writing to help and a lot of emotional energy.
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