Sweet Bobby - WTAF?

[Merryoldgoat]

Just how? I understand how you can start a relationship online and it become serious but all those years, no video calls, the utter absurdity of witness protection - even a rudimentary search would tell you there’s no way he’d be communicating with you whilst in the plan.

A British man shot in NY would make the news - maybe not national but local and it would be Google-able

I just can’t get my head around how you could be so fooled.

Me either.
The podcast is SOO much better than the Netflix programme. It kind of addresses these WTAF questions.
I listened to it after I saw the Netflix version and it's still hugely compelling and in some parts different. The story is told by the end of episode 2 and 3-6 is more investigative where they track down Simran.

Thanks @itslikecakesbutitsnotcakes I’ll have a listen.

The podcast is definitely gives more insight

Someone from the same Sikh culture commented that it is everything to do with culture, so it’s hard to understand as an outsider to that culture.

I suppose that might be a factor - I absolutely do not have experience of that.

I think for me the shooting being so easy to verify would have just been a step too far and the idea he’d have a FB profile that people were interacting with whilst in witness protection? It feels more than cultural.

I was thinking this too. It's quite normal in those cultures to not meet in person until close to a wedding.

I think she got on too deep, so it was a case of the 'emperor's new clothes' ie she had to carry on with the pretense; as the alternative (her real life was based on a lie) was too horrific to comprehend.

I get that - but this was years with a load of utter bonkers stuff as a backdrop.

Yes I suppose this might be true.

It’s completely baffling.

Several people have commented that it’s hard to grasp the cultural aspect if you aren’t part of it and I get that. However I’m sure Kirat said at some point that the community was relatively small. Over all those years I can’t believe nobody ever mentioned the real Bobby.

I can only think that on some level Kirat knew it wasn’t real but was in too deep to allow herself to accept it. Didn’t Simran claim in the podcast that it started as a silly fantasy that went too far and that Kirat knew?

I’m Sikh and it is not normal in our religion or culture for someone to allow themselves to be strung along for so long. What a load of offensive hooey.

I work with a Sikh lady and I asked her about this - she laughed her head off and "Bullshit! Of course it should have been obvious.". Another Sikh friend (younger) said the same, although added that "an older person like Kirat" might be easier to fool. As someone who is older than Kirat that stung a bit.

Agree the podcast is better. 6 eps, can't remember how long each is, but put together substantially longer than the Netflix thing which skims over a lot of it to squeeze the story into the allocated time.

The podcast is all online, they have also transcribed the script.
https://www.tortoisemedia.com/listen/sweet-bobby/

There’s no way she didn’t know. None at all.

She may not have known who it was, although I am doubtful even of that. But IMO she was living out a fantasy, hence. Why she had aspirations to murder bobby’s wife so she could parent his child after it all came out into the open.

I’ve listened to the podcast. I still don’t understand how she was duped in this way.

I watched this and was puzzled like everyone else.

but I have to say that having listened to a couple of podcast about scams (woman & girl pretending to have cancer )where not just one person, but whole communities were duped, it makes your realise that when there’s trust, people find it easy to go along with stories that for most of us, as outsiders, seem unbelievable.

highly recommend Scamanda and Believe in Magic.

She didn't seem like the sharpest tool in the box, although sweet. There is so much pressure on women to get the happy ever after, a little drama on the way may seem like an acceptable price to pay to some.

@FridayNight1975

I listened to Scamanda and understood that more as it was a real person who you could interact with.

I still think it’s bizarre that checkable facts are just ignored by all these people.

With Sweet Bobby I keep coming back to the fact that the level of deception carried out by someone Kirat trusted was just INSANE. For Kirat to work out what was going on, she would have had to believe that someone she trusted was huge amounts of time for years and years to trick her....and why?! It is almost unbelievable, and impossible to understand.

@Merryoldgoat
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I listened to Scamanda and understood that more as it was a real person who you could interact with.

Yes, I can see that. But there were also facts about chemotherapy and drug trials that a quick Google would have revealed as impossible.

Agree and I don’t think I’d have fallen for it. But a woman you see telling you about her illness and it becomes boiled frog stuff so I kind of get it.

But messages from witness protection? Being shot in The US and no one in your close-knit community is talking about it? Bumping into him and him not knowing who you are? Doctors taking all that time to talk to you who isn’t even NOK?

I can’t believe anyone would be this dense.

It's not a part of the Sikh culture for someone who you are engaged to to fly to London to meet you and for them to be too tired to come downstairs and meet you when you are standing in the street waiting and they are 'looking at you' out of the window.

For two weeks he was too tired.

When they were engaged.

I listened to the podcast when it came out and I thought she was nuts then.

It seemed unlikely to me too!

She suspected he was being dishonest but the idea that he didn’t exist didn’t cross her mind because she had a cousin who she trusted who was corroborating all the information and she’s talked in interviews about meeting other people from the community who knew the real Bobby. Her suspicions are why she ended up hiring a private investigator.