Welcome to Collier Girlfriend. A podcast for long distance festies everywhere.

I'm Amina Tussaud. And I'm Anne Friedman. Every other week we'll be bringing you a special

phone or friend episode between either Anne or me and one of our Rad Pals.

So this week Amina, I talked to journalist Maria Connacova.

Oh my god she has a book out that I love. The confidence game, she is an expert on con artists.

My favorite vertical. And related phenomena like sociopaths. We had like a

really funny conversation about psychopaths and sociopaths and the typical gender breakdown of that behavior.

Ah can't wait to hear this.

Maria thanks so much for being on the podcast.

Thanks so much for having me. I have to tell you that I read your book in like three sittings because

there was something kind of car crash like about it that I couldn't look away.

I'm gonna take that as compliment. Not do your prose, but just do to the phenomena that you write about

where it sort of has that feeling. I guess now I'm really mixing my metaphors of like,

you know when you read a health article where you're like this could strike you at any moment.

That's sort of how I felt reading your book. I was like have I been conned?

Like am I am I going to be conned? Did you come away from the reporting process feeling nervous

about that? Oh, oh absolutely. I mean I felt like I could not trust humanity that just

everyone sucked people sucked. Everyone was out to get me and that the world was just a horrible place.

I was just so dispirited by the end of it. The more I got into the research and the more con artists

I met with and the more victims I met with, the more I realized that oh my god this actually does

happen. It could very very well happen to me. And in fact I am positive that I've been conned and

not been aware of it both in small ways and potentially in bigger ways. I just can't pinpoint when

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