Ask Mrs. Linklater POKER FACE Edition

Sometimes Mrs. Linklater wants to scream at the people who are stupid enough to play poker on the internet, but today she would rather scream at the people who were stupid enough to write to advice columnists because they were stupid enough to fall in love while playing poker on the internet. HEY, YOU ARE SO STUPID!! Of course, she means that in a concerned and caring way.

When it comes to internet relationships of the love or poker playing kind, Mrs. L thinks men fall in love faster online than anywhere for any reason.

A twenty year old headshot with a forty year old hairdo and good typing skills is about all it takes to get a proposal from Mr. Lonely. Women are more gullible, however. You can tell a woman you're a short, heavy version of Vince Vaughn with less hair or you drive a five year old Toyota Corolla that looks like a Corvette from the right angle, and she'll fly you to Vegas.

Meanwhile, here's today's tragic tale with Mrs. Linklater's opinion following right behind Amy's behind.

Published November 30, 2005 Chicago Tribune

Dear Amy: I need advice on what is happening in my life. Eight months ago, I joined an online poker site to unwind from work.

I met a lady on this site. It started out innocently enough. We'd meet at the tables and do some flirting back and forth. We started trading information. She's a little older than I am. She has two kids -- one in college.

For a couple of months, I thought she was either divorced or widowed and lonely, because we started to get more intimate (if that is the right word) on the chat. We'd make plans to meet and run off to Vegas. Then one evening she let me know that she was still happily married. She said that she was sorry, but she hadn't felt like this for some time. I made her feel like she was in high school again.

I haven't felt like this in a long time either. I really love her, even though we have never met in person. We decided to step back, and she was going to work on things with her hubby. We also decided to try and stay friends, a little poker now and then and flirting with other people on the poker site. But things have started heating up again.

We don't know what to do. We don't want to lose the other, but we know this can't go on as is. Can you help us?

-- Poker Face

Dear Poker Face: Poker is a game that rewards craftiness, feints and deceit.

Love, however, is not a game. Love needs honesty and integrity to grow.

I feel the need to point out the obvious -- that your love object might not be a married woman with two kids in college. She might be a middle-age long-haul trucker named "Manny" who enjoys messing with you.

Internet "relationships" are so enticing because we can invent our own identities and hide our weaknesses and insecurities. You don't love her. She doesn't love you. This entire relationship is an invention.

If you can only develop relationships in the virtual world that you can't develop in the actual world, then you have a problem larger than whether you and your poker buddy love each other.

The Web can be highly addictive, and the consequences of Internet addictions are similar to other addictions. This addiction would be hard to break without help, and I hope that you will recognize this problem and decide to do something about it.

Mrs. Linklater yells from the bathroom where she is removing unslightly blemishes with a flamethrower.

"Yo, Poker Face -- TURN OFF THE COMPUTER!!"

Sometimes this job is a little too easy.