I met a guy on line (who hasn't) we chatted and exchanged emails for months and he decided he wanted to meet me, and I didn't have the miles or money to do it...and agreeing that there were no lurid strings attached, he western unioned me the money for the ticket TUS - BRU (and I got the miles for it too).

We had a nice visit, but he turned out to be a bit of a jerk, and I need not have worried about any lurid strings - he was Definitely NOT interested. So when we said good bye, I figured it was forever. I had another week to go before I headed home (hadn't told him my return date), so I did some tooling around Belgium on my own. In Bruges (great movie) one day, I stopped into an internet cafe and found a screaming deal on the french SNCF web site for a ticket from Brussels to Paris for $12 USD. I clicked to purchase, but the cafe wouldn't let me print anything out...no worries, i thought. I will print it at the station....but when I got to the train station in Brussels, I realized I had clicked FRANCE when the website asked "country of purchase" and no amount of tears and really good begging IN FRENCH would alter the fact that in order to USE the $12 ticket, I would have to get to France to pick it up. By then, tickets directly to Paris were a lot higher....so I sucked it up, and called the guy...he worked for the Belgium version of SNCF, and he put me on the TGV, in first class, to Paris.

So $12 was the financial cost...the damage done to my psyche for having to call him again was probably more costly!! Hmmm I never DID hear from him after I sent him a thank you note.....