It was on an online dating site that I met Joe back in 2014. He said he was a retired architect turned property developer. He told me he was divorced but still lived in the family home which he’d designed and built himself, boasting sweeping views over the beautiful Sydney Harbour.

Joe also said he had a little yacht moored at the bottom of his garden and that he shared custody of his children, though his wife’s mental health problems made her unreliable. When she had the kids he said he escaped to his little sheep farm two hours south of the city, where he roughed it in a dilapidated shack. He was drawing up plans for a proper house.

Joe had a kooky sense of humour and seemed kind and decent. We kissed on our fourth date and he asked me to go away for a romantic weekend. I was hooked.

Not so long after that lovely weekend, Joe arrived at my place and pulled a toothbrush from his pocket. “I’ll leave this here,” he said. One night in a whisper he told me he was thinking about “commitment”.

A routine emerged: when his children were with their mother, Joe split his time between his farm and my apartment. He said his Sydney house was about to be remodelled and he’d packed everything up in boxes ahead of a temporary move.

He said the house held unhappy memories and for now he’d rather not be there.

We cooked together at my place or he took me out for lovely dinners at restaurants. I met his children. I was in heaven.

But another routine soon took over: his constant cancellations.

Joe had so many excuses. On the farm – broken fences and lost sheep and his dog bitten by a snake. At home – his wife failing to pick up the children, or his daughter getting an asthma attack or forgetting to tell him about a parent-teacher night at her school. In business, there were endless last-minute meetings.

I wanted the relationship to work. I tried to be understanding, hiding my disappointment and anxiety when Joe left me in the lurch. When I confided with a colleague at the newspaper I worked at, she suggested title deed and bankruptcy searches.

“This is a love story, not an investigation,” I protested.

Besides, I’d done some basic online searches. While Joe had only a limited digital footprint, some of what he told me checked out. I’d seen his driver’s licence showing a harbourside address.

And when Joe cancelled, he kept in touch. My phone regularly pinged with texts and photos which added weight to
his stories: a new lamb in a field at his farm (“new life,” he captioned it and I interpreted that as a metaphor for our new relationship), his Land Rover Defender bogged in mud (“my day”) and happy snaps of his children on a little yacht.

But as time wore on, my anxieties grew.

Twice, Joe invited me for dinner at his house and cancelled at the last minute with more excuses. One day he missed a flight we’d booked to go to one of my best friend’s wedding interstate. When eventually he answered his phone, he said he had urgent problems with his ex-wife.

I was a mess. Depression was taking over.

“How long are you going to let this go on?” a friend asked me one day, dragging me out from under the duvet. I knew the answer, even if I didn’t want to say it out loud. I wasn’t sure what kind of fraudster Joe was – he had never asked for money – but I finally accepted he was one. After 14 months, I ended it. And that’s when my love story became an investigation.

I needed to understand who Joe was, why I’d fallen for him and why it took me so long to face my suspicions about him.

My book, Fake, tells that story. It is also a story about con artists, fantasists and phonies and the tricks they play.

My research would lead me to see just how masterful Joe’s tricks were: most of his stories held a grain of truth which lent them credibility. He layered in rich details until his lies felt rock solid.

I learned that Joe had lied to me about almost everything. He wasn’t a property developer with a harbourside home and a little farm. He has a criminal record for a fraud-related offence, was bankrupt the whole time we were together and was seeing at least one other woman.

Over two decades or more, he had left behind a trail of heartbreak and broken relationships, both personal and business.

Still, even after Fake was released in Australia in 2019, I felt a sense of shame. I kept asking myself: “I’m an intelligent woman, how could I have fallen for him? Why did I ignore the warning signs?” But then, the emails and messages started pouring in. In the years since I have heard from thousands of people, mostly women, telling similar stories of deceitful partners. Again and again, their messages start the same way: “I’m an intelligent woman, how could I have…”

I’ve come to realise that this kind of emotional abuse – characterised by extreme deceit and manipulation – is far more
common than many would ever believe.

In almost every story, the woman had a real, physical relationship with the man.

These weren’t online “catfishing” scams.

Most of the time the men do not seem motivated by money.

They seem to want something else – attention maybe, or just a thrill.

One of the most striking things I’ve come to see is how digital technology and smartphones have turbo-charged the incidence and nature of this type of abuse. Never before have so many women been so easily accessible. If one woman catches on to a man’s deceit, it’s easy for the man to move on to the next with barely a pause.

And smartphones give these men endless tools to build their stories.

I’ve heard from women who, in the final days of their relationships with men like “Joe”, accessed their phones and discovered their partners were messaging multiple women on multiple dating apps – all while lying in bed with one.

Texting lets them seem to be in several places at once, reassuring multiple women that their messages are true.

I have another theory about smartphones: they create a false sense of intimacy. Often these devices are with us 24 hours a day. We keep them close, even
taking them to bed with us. We have an intense relationship with them and all the little dopamine hits that land in the form of comments, “likes” and text messages.

We get lost in our smartphones and all the while they’re making the dedicated romantic fraudster’s work so much easier.

Looking back, I think I fell in love as much with Joe’s text messages as with him.

Beyond the photographs he sent showing me how his day was going, he sent sweet messages and tantalising banter.

When he cancelled plans, I’d often immerse myself in his back catalogue of text messages for reassurance.

“I was so overwhelmed by the attention, by the text messages, I can’t tell you how many text messages I’d receive in a day,” one woman told me of her experience with a man like Joe. We may think smartphones are our friend, but in these types of relationships, they’re anything but.

One day after I broke up with Joe I looked again at some of the photographs he’d sent me. That bogged Land Rover Defender? A quick Google reverse image search revealed the full picture. It was from a Land Rover owners’ forum. Joe had cropped out the central body of the vehicle and two men looking at it. The vehicle was the same model and make as Joe’s truck, but it didn’t have the blue striped doors of Joe’s. He had stolen someone else’s photo to make himself look like a rugged bushman.

And Joe’s driver’s licence with the harbourside address? The kernel of truth was this: he used to live there, years earlier, with his wife and kids.

But after the divorce, his wife got the house. Joe hadn’t lived there in years.

Joe never had a farm, or a yacht, and his “property developments” have left a string of associates very much poorer.

I’ve met Joe’s wife now, a number of times, and she is delightful.

As Fake starts to screen in the UK, I’m waiting now for a new deluge of emails and messages from women. I know now that I’m not alone in this experience.

● Fake is streaming now on ITVX

I learned that Joe had lied to me about almost everything. He wasn’t a property developer with a harbourside home and a little farm. He has a criminal record for a fraud-related offence, was bankrupt the whole time we were together and was seeing at least one other woman.

Over two decades or more, he had left behind a trail of heartbreak and broken relationships, both personal and business.

Still, even after Fake was released in Australia in 2019, I felt a sense of shame. I kept asking myself: “I’m an intelligent woman, how could I have fallen for him? Why did I ignore the warning signs?” But then, the emails and messages started pouring in. In the years since I have heard from thousands of people, mostly women, telling similar stories of deceitful partners. Again and again, their messages start the same way: “I’m an intelligent woman, how could I have…”

I’ve come to realise that this kind of emotional abuse – characterised by extreme deceit and manipulation – is far more
common than many would ever believe.

In almost every story, the woman had a real, physical relationship with the man.

These weren’t online “catfishing” scams.

Most of the time the men do not seem motivated by money.

They seem to want something else – attention maybe, or just a thrill.

One of the most striking things I’ve come to see is how digital technology and smartphones have turbo-charged the incidence and nature of this type of abuse. Never before have so many women been so easily accessible. If one woman catches on to a man’s deceit, it’s easy for the man to move on to the next with barely a pause.

And smartphones give these men endless tools to build their stories.

I’ve heard from women who, in the final days of their relationships with men like “Joe”, accessed their phones and discovered their partners were messaging multiple women on multiple dating apps – all while lying in bed with one.

Texting lets them seem to be in several places at once, reassuring multiple women that their messages are true.

I have another theory about smartphones: they create a false sense of intimacy. Often these devices are with us 24 hours a day. We keep them close, even
taking them to bed with us. We have an intense relationship with them and all the little dopamine hits that land in the form of comments, “likes” and text messages.

We get lost in our smartphones and all the while they’re making the dedicated romantic fraudster’s work so much easier.

Looking back, I think I fell in love as much with Joe’s text messages as with him. Beyond the photographs he sent showing me how his day was going, he sent sweet messages and tantalising banter.

When he cancelled plans, I’d often immerse myself in his back catalogue of text messages for reassurance.

“I was so overwhelmed by the attention, by the text messages, I can’t tell you how many text messages I’d receive in a day,” one woman told me of her experience with a man like Joe. We may think smartphones are our friend, but in these types of relationships, they’re anything but.

One day after I broke up with Joe I looked again at some of the photographs he’d sent me. That bogged Land Rover Defender? A quick Google reverse image search revealed the full picture. It was from a Land Rover owners’ forum. Joe had cropped out the central body of the vehicle and two men looking at it. The vehicle was the same model and make as Joe’s truck, but it didn’t have the blue striped doors of Joe’s. He had stolen someone else’s photo to make himself look like a rugged bushman.

And Joe’s driver’s licence with the harbourside address? The kernel of truth was this: he used to live there, years earlier, with his wife and kids.

But after the divorce, his wife got the house. Joe hadn’t lived there in years. Joe never had a farm, or a yacht, and his “property developments” have left a string of associates very much poorer.

I’ve met Joe’s wife now, a number of times, and she is delightful.

As Fake starts to screen in the UK, I’m waiting now for a new deluge of emails and messages from women. I know now that I’m not alone in this experience.

● Fake is streaming now on ITVX