Catching a Catfish
After hearing and reading about the show Catfish, I finally got a chance to check out the series, as well as, the documentary. For those of you who haven’t heard of Catfish or seen the show; here’s a brief breakdown. The show host (Nev Schulman) was once interacting with someone he met on Facebook, an adorable little artist name Abby. He then formed a bond with a woman who he thought was her older sister, Megan. In reality, he unknowingly spent his time forming a bond with the mother who is a married artist. Long story short, this lady was a mastermind of deception and of course upon meeting her in person she was not as pictured in her Facebook profile. It took a trip to Michigan for him to find all of this info out. The documentary set the basis for the MTV show Catfish which helps others find people they have formed romantic online relationships with. From what I’ve seen, nothing ever goes as planned. I haven’t seen every episode so I can’t say whether everyone on the show has been deceitful or not.
In my own reality show that I got going on here in my neck of the woods, I admit to having found multiple deceptions in people’s Facebook profiles. I’m now going to go into my own Catfish story here involving my friend who I’ll call Sally. Sally was excited to finally get a Facebook profile and immediately started accepting friend request. Sally started chatting with a nice looking guy who I’ll call Hank. Sally and Hank started chatting on Facebook which eventually led to actually phone conversations. After chatting for about 2 months, Sally and Hank decided it was time to meet in person. Sally met Hank and luckily Hank looked just like his profile pictures. She found herself growing more romantically interested in him as they continued communicating. However, Sally had this feeling that something wasn’t right. After their fourth encounter, Sally begins to tell me about Hank and how he seemed fidgety and secretive when they were together. With me having a natural nosey investigative mind, I decided to check Hank out. Within an hour, I called Sally and told her these words “Hank is engaged, and the wedding is this Saturday” I then sent her the link to Hank’s wedding website that I assume him and his fiancée set up. Sally confronted him and the only thing he said was “how did you find out”?
I absolutely love how social media has opened of the doors of a new way of communicating. But, it has it dark sides. Social media makes it very easy to lie, deceive, and victimize someone if the proper precautions are not taken. People who have dull lives or people who have a lot going on in their lives create these profiles and present fragments of themselves combined with people they wish they could be. It provides them an escape from who they really are.
However, I have to question myself and my feelings because I don’t understand how people get to the point of falling in love with someone they’ve never met personally. I’ve been chatting online with a guy for almost 3 years. He lives about 90 miles from me and although we’ve spoken on the phone a few times, I have yet to feel that he’s anything more than an online chat buddy; nothing more nothing less.
If you want to use the internet to date, use the appropriate websites designed for that purpose. People are less inclined to create fake profiles on websites that charge a monthly fee. Facebook makes it too easy to deceive! In the time it took me to type this post, I could’ve created 5 fake Facebook profiles. As the documentary suggests, Catfish are placed in your tank to keep you active. Unfortunately, I fried mine.
For the record, Hank did get married that Saturday. What a catch!
Have you ever fallen for someone that you’ve never met in person?
