'Sweet Bobby': A Journey into Psychological Torment
While I usually lean more towards true crime docs over regular true story docs, there was something about the earnestness on the woman's face that drew me in.
I was not at all prepared for the story she was about to tell, and doubly not prepared for the reveal of the true villain's identity.
We set the stage across four locations: Kenya, the UK (London area), NYC, and Facebook.
While the physical locations are where our cast of characters either reside or travel to (supposedly), the main events all happen on the Meta platform.
We'll call our main character The Hopeful Lady. Although The Hopeful Lady is quite successful in her marketing career, is a popular DJ, and seems to be a genuinely sweet and caring woman, the questions that kept circling back to her were about marriage and children. At 32, she was in an unstable relationship with a long time partner, who wouldn't commit, and feeling the pressure of "running out of time" constantly, especially within her own family.
Around the same time, by way of her younger cousin, she becomes Facebook friends with Bobby. He's married and a gentlemen, so all of the interactions between him and The Hopeful Lady are harmless and platonic. Through a series of digital conversations, the two become each other's emotional support system through a series of divorces (his), a shooting (his), and even an unexpected child (also his).
The words I'm writing cannot express the deep feeling we hear from The Hopeful Lady while her voicenotes to Bobby from during that time play aloud. And, although they'd never met in person (except for the time he didn't recognize her in a nightclub they had both attended, separately, on the same evening, which she chalked off to him probably having blurry vision from being inebriated), he finally declared his love and proposed marriage to her (via a Facebook doodle of a flower and ring).
She accepts, and thus continues nearly a decade of an online friendship turned intensely emotional love affair that can never quite make its way into physical reality.
The doc presents interviews with the The Hopeful Lady's parents, aunt, another younger cousin and, eventually, the Real Bobby. We see and hear the digital trail of The Hopeful Lady turning from a vibrant young woman to a heartsick version of herself, as she falls under the controlling spell of Bobby, the man whose voice she'd only heard once.
But, after her pleas weren't enough to convince him to meet her in person, The Hopeful Lady pulled her last card available, and hired a detective to track down Bobby's current address.
After driving hours to confront her missing fiancé, The Hopeful Lady is standing at Bobby's door, staring directly at him...and his wife. In the same moment, The Hopeful Lady's phone rings, and it's Bobby calling.
The reveal of "Bobby", the younger cousin, who "introduced" them through Facebook, is infuriating. Especially since she confessed to creating dozens of supporting cast profiles to keep her trusting, older cousin, The Hopeful Lady, trapped in a mental and emotional knot for nearly ten years, but then refused to provide a reason as to why she did it.
But the moments where you hurt for The Hopeful Lady the most are as you listen to her relive every private detail of the years long deception, by someone she trusted the most, who used every secret shared to hook her deeper into psychological dependency.
