Some background about myself:
Throughout my 24 years of living, I have had only one relationship which was in high school. As much as high school relationships were not "serious", I would always have the mindset of dating to marry when trying to start a relationship. Of course this would scare many high schoolers at the time so it was always on the back of my head but I took my relationships seriously, that was the reason why I only had one relationship. Unfortunately, we both parted ways but this came with benefits for me. I learned to love myself more, interact with many more people, understood why the relationship failed and what I could've done to prevent future mistakes. Fast forwarding to college, I mentioned from my previous introduction that I was an Electrical Engineer so I essentially had no time at all to date anyone at all. Throughout my years in college, all I did was to study and if I had some time, I joined a club involving in Esports where I was a coach for some time. Once I graduated, I downloaded several dating apps to see how it worked, and the potential that it could bring. I would be lying if I said I wasn't desperate for a relationship so I downloaded Hinge, Bumble, and Tinder which were the three biggest dating sites at the time. My preferences were fairly strict because I felt like this was what I wanted in a long-term partner that I was going to be in a relationship with. I currently prefer Asians because of what I believe in, filial piety. It is a Confucianism concept in which one advocates norms, values, practices of caring for their parents. This was a concept in which I always believed in and respect towards my family goes a long way. Now it's finally time to talk about how I was a victim of the pig butchering scheme.

Disclaimer: I am not trying to put anyone down, I don't blame anyone at all, even the scammer. The only person I can blame is myself and I would like this story to alert many others so this does not happen to them. Also, I did not know who Raku Goto was at the time until recently because I generally have not involved myself in the idol culture ever. This is a true story, pictures will be sent to prove that in the next post.

The First Meeting:
It was October 22, 2022, I was bored so I scrolled through my Hinge dating app and found a really beautiful girl named "Toto Goto" (At this time, I did not know who Raku Goto is). The app showed some information about her, she was a 22 year old scriptwriter who occasionally lives between Japan and Macau, I generally loved her smile. I put a heart which notifies that I was interested in her so we could talk and get to know each other online. I was surprised that I was able to match with her because she was absolutely gorgeous. My first encounter with toto wasn't the best because I failed to understand some of her English which was fine, I'll slowly adjust and learn from it. I learned that she was Chinese & Japanese who loves reading books, plays golf, lives in LA with her sister-in-law, and writes books every single day. On October 23, 2022, she mentioned that she was in Hawaii to only visit her family and needed to go back to LA with her sister-in-law. Before taking off, she mentioned that she will tell me everything about her life, talk about her days, future, and everything to deepen our relationship. This was when I started to have feelings for her and thought that this was one of the best opportunities I have. Toto shared some of her favorite books to me, to name a few, How the Steel was Tempered, La Dame aux Camellias, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Now, because I wanted to impress her and gain a new hobby, I read every single book and have enjoyed my time reading them. Eventually, we moved to Line, a messaging platform that many Japanese people use to talk with one another. We did voice chats, facetime sessions, and sent each other selfies occasionally (At the time, this was what made my trust level exceed over the roof, a scammer would not facetime you, right?). Toto would also send me Tanka/haiku poems every single morning and night before I wake up.

Our Relationship Deepens:
Once I told her about myself, what I want to do in the future, what I believed in, and what I do from a day to day perspective, I felt that we had some sort of bond because the first moment we met, we started a good morning and good night routine which heavily made me look forward to them. Regarding to the different time zones of 3 hours, we made do with that. I remembered that she would always wake up at 6AM to exercise, come back home to eat breakfast that her sister-in-law made and then would write her novel for a few hours on the day. She would then take an afternoon nap to relax and would then start writing again. That was her usual day to day schedule and we would often talk with one another and enjoyed our time spent together. One morning, we had our usual good morning greetings but she added the word "honey" onto it. I wasn't too sure what our relationship status was but I wanted to ask her out given the next time she comes back to Hawaii but that really made my heartbeat rise extremely fast. Our naming conventions went from our usual names to honey, dear, baby, sweetie, you name it and that's when our relationship started and where every single day became a dream come true. Toto gave me a date when she was going to come back to Hawaii, November 22, 2022, the day that we would've met for the first time during Thanksgiving day.

To be continued… in part 2.
I'll write part 2 and release it between tomorrow and the next few days, the pain is still fresh and I haven't been able to sleep well at all so I may spend time writing instead. To whoever who reads this, spread the word.

Final thoughts:
I really would like to inform everyone that the scammers nowadays have everything in scripts, and possibly AI generated faces which make things look so realistic. That's why I believed the person fully, Toto did facetime calls and we both talked like it was normal and I could not sense any sort of danger at the time. The scammer that referenced Raku Goto did an extremely well done job in portraying her character. I'm sure they spent months perfecting each and every scenario and have done intensive research on the real character they're portraying. This is why I also want an opportunity to talk with Raku Goto and understand who she is as a person.