How much is a broken heart worth? For one woman, the devastation she allegedly suffered at the hands of a man she met on Facebook has a precise figure: $8,386.88.
Single mom Cheryl Gray says Wylie Iwan, whom she met on the social networking site last November, led her on and caused her to drain her finances as she lavished him with gifts and spent money on a vacation to his home state of Washington.
On May 18, she filed a civil suit against Iwan in Michigan, asking for $8,368.88 for misrepresentation, promissory estoppel, defamation of character and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Now, 'I feel foolish,' Gray told Washington state's Tri-City Herald. 'I'm not so much mad or angry. I feel foolish. I am disillusioned.'
The pair first met over Facebook and quickly found common ground playing the online game Mafia Wars. But Iwan, who works at the restaurant Applebees, insists the relationship never progressed past the friendship stage.
He clearly told her, he says, that she was welcome to travel to visit him as 'my friend.'
He also says he never led Gray on, and in fact quickly told her when he'd met someone new -- at which point she seemed fine with it.
But Iwan, 35, claims she soon launched a hate group about him on Facebook, going so far as to brand him an 'online predator.'
'I want this lady to move on and leave me alone,' Iwan told the newspaper. 'It's a completely frivolous lawsuit.'
While this lawsuit is a novel one, Gray isn't the first to try to recoup money spent on a doomed relationship. According to Eric Goldman, a Santa Clara University law professor, a judge will want to know if the case constitutes fraud before deciding to hear a case like this one.
'Courts get reluctant to regulate matters of the heart,' Goldman told the Tri-City Herald. 'Judges don't really want to be in the middle of a lover's quarrel.'
Gray, who lives with her 13-year-old daughter, said she and Iwan grew closer as the months passed playing Mafia Wars, exchanging Facebook messages, texting and chatting by phone.
Iwan eventually invited to join a special group page where they could 'meet' privately, sometimes spending more than eight hours a day online together, Gray claims.
Then came the gifts. Gray says she sent Iwan and his son presents, including on Christmas, his birthday, and Valentine's Day.
Next was her trip to Washington in April, for which she purchased airplane tickets, booked a rental car and a hotel room in Seattle, and scored tickets to the Mariners' opening home game.
Iwan says he, too, was happy to meet.
'We decided — it wasn't all me — but we decided we wanted to meet each other," he told the paper.
'After that, things started toward a relationship and we started sharing more information. For Valentine's Day, she said she wanted to tell me she loved me as a friend. I told her I love her, too. I was meaning it as a friend.'
The trip never happened, however, because Iwan told her just days before she was due to leave about his new relationship.
'I had done some very nice things for him,' Gray says. 'He supposedly met this person on Saturday, but I don't believe that. I believe he was already involved in a relationship. ... I felt like this guy is taking me on a ride.'
Iwan claims she lied to him, too, telling him early on that she was 42. He says she only confessed to being 50 when their plans to meet up grew closer.
He also says she took screen shots of their private Facebook page, and proceeded to write on his wall claiming he led her on for three months. Iwan says he only posted the vile comment about Gray after she allegedly created a hate group in his name.
Gray now says she was 'shocked, humiliated and embarrassed' by Iwan's portrayal of her in posts, which were visible to all their friends, and said her reputation was injured, according to court documents Gray filed.
No comments:
Post a Comment