A Manti Te’o Lesson in the I-Dating Game

Manti Te’o apparently didn’t follow Luke’s rules of i-dating. By Shotgun Spratling/Neon Tommy

I understand falling for a woman on the Internet. Why? Because I did.

In 2007 I signed up as a late bloomer to facebook. While perusing the various links to each and every categorical description – religious, political, likes/dislikes – up and down the profile, I bumped into my religious description and clicked.

Click.

Now, 5-years later, and that was the greatest most random click of my life. I married a lovely Italian with a strong will, intelligence and sass, and all because I decided to “stalk” a pretty young 21-year old girl from Fairfield, Ca, with the same religious perspective as me.

But there are rules to this sort of game. Rules, which if obeyed, afford both parties at play the right to a comfortable first date, and from there a yay or nay in the direction of their relationship.

Have a first date within a month of meeting one another.  As much as I’m all for a patience that guards your heart,  allowing ample time to stalk-back and comprehensively research the one seeking your attention, you HAVE TO MAKE UP YOUR MIND within a month. Indecision won’t work here. Give in or let go.

Make contact beyond emails, Facebook conversations and twitter. Birds tweet, people talk.  Not putting the puzzle pieces together through the unsyncopated lack of intonation on the Internet, will save people like Te’o a ton of heart break, castrate the intentions of Internet trolls and if you’re lucky, actually find you love.

These rules are all very, very simple. Had Manti Te’o done his footwork he never would have been duped the way he was by a “woman” named  Lennay Kekua, a “graduate” from Stanford, who earlier this year “lost” her battle with “leukemia.”

The story of her loss to leukemia became the dominant backdrop to Te’o’s legend and national rise to prominence. On September 12th, he lost both his grandmother and his supposed girlfriend to two devastating diseases. Despite this, Te’o shined. And so did Notre Dame, the two mirroring one another. Te’o turned into a top-10 pick and the Irish back into a number one team, both symbolizing a level of redemption.

And yet it all was a grand hoax. None of it was true. Kekua, according to Te’o, was a character created through the smoke and mirrors of the Internet facade.

All this happening to come out three months from April’s NFL draft is fishy. Not to say Te’o is lying or that he drummed-up the fake girlfriend, but how he was strung along for a year just doesn’t sit right.

In last Saturday’s national title game against Alabama, Te’o looked over-matched and non-existent against the beef of the Crimson Tide’s offensive line, often slipping off offensive players and baring down below average in the open field. To say his stock is slipping because of it is an overstatement. But not all that far fetched either. In recent draft conversations, Te’o, once thought as a lock to be a top-10 pick has become more vulnerable in terms of draft position.

The real victims in this all are the fans. Along with the media, fans fell for a fake story all year, and now must reconcile that it all wasn’t real and that they too, were duped. To read a story with a sour ending, no matter who is to blame, taints the entirety of the novel and all of its characters developed. Manti Te’o, as far as I’m concerned will never be the kid we thought he was ever again. Whether he’s the perpetraitor or the victim, he’s stained, and that’s a shame for everyone.