No One Else Is To Blame

Over the weekend, I saw an episode of some show on the ID Disovery Channel. The tragic story (as with every show on the channel) was as follows:

A woman decided to give a shot at online dating. She joined a dating website. She met a guy and hit it off. They dated some. Her friends did not care for him, and eventually they broke up. As to be expected, a few weeks (months maybe?) later, he drives across the country, kills an ex-girlfriend he had not seen in ten years and then goes and tries to kill the woman who was the focus of the story.

That is really understating it…I will leave out the gory details, but that he failed to take her life is not due to being sloppy or rushed. He made every effort to make this into a homocide investigation. It is amazing she lived to tell her tale. But one detail got me. She is suing the dating agency for ten million dollars because the website had no warnings.

Really? We are going to demand that websites include disclaimers of potential sociopaths and psychopaths using the site to get dates? And would a disclaimer have changed anything? Would she have questioned the guy if only the web site had included a warning label? Would she have not used the website? If she had met the same guy through a friend, would she sue them for $10 million?

What she went through was horrific…but what happened was no more the fault of the the web site than it was hers for breaking up with him. He made the decision to turn to become a murderer. He chose to try and kill her. The web site had no ability to prevent him from crossing into the territory of murderous villain in her life. I get that there is the desire to hold someone accountable… But the responsible party is the person who deceptively portrayed themselves as someone who is not on the verge of a murder binge.