Even if it’s not actively a scam, there are some bizarre life stories out there. E.g. my mom’s (Central European) friend in her 60s who had a long-distance relationship with a married Turkish guy until recently. They met (and banged) each other a grand total of once, but they were sharing morning tea on video call for years before and after that - they had no common language, only used Google Translate to talk??? And she gathered up her meagre savings to to Turkey every year on the off-chance that she runs into him in a millions-population city??? (No they didn’t arrange meetings. The guy didn’t really seem to want to meet her anymore, probably related to being married lol.)

And somehow this “relationship” went on for like a decade before she finally broke up with him.