Gone fishin' ...

I got catfished! I was waiting for it to happen. In fact, I kind of brought it on myself just to see if I could get anyone to catfish me. I know I usually write about the funny side of online dating but this time, it's serious. My usual "Fish Called Wanda" style of writing is being kidnapped this week for "Catfish Candid Camera".


Catfishing has been around a long time (old scam, new name) and is when a person purposefully misrepresents themselves. For example, a guy in Nigeria steals some Facebook photos of a good looking guy in the United States and passes himself off as that person to the women on the online dating site.


Unfortunately, catfishing has become so popular that there was an MTV show called Catfish which was actually based off a movie called Catfish -- all about the same topic!  Also unfortunate is the fact that online daters have to be twice as vigilant about catfishing scams than they did 5-10 years ago. In fact, even the military is affected -- find a great article by the US Army on it here. Sadly, military members are being used as "bait" in catfishing scams (their photos of them in uniform are being used to solicit money and emotions from lonely yet patriotic, supportive online daters).


But why does a person "catfish"? Primarily it's to scam people out of money but sometimes it can just be for the fun of it. One story was about a scammer (female) who was so depressed she made up fake identities to get the attention she wanted/needed. Sad, but believable.


So, back to my catfish saga:

1. Red Flag (RF) #1 -- I got a lovely e-mail from a very handsome man named Jason (note: not all guys named Jason on dating sites are scammers -- just needed to clarify that) who claimed to be 48 but looked 28. It looked fishy but I though, "I'll play along."
2. RF#2 -- This guy started out by writing me short conversational e-mails, then by the fourth e-mail they were novels about everything from his last surgery to his childhood trauma.
3. RF#3 -- Then, he said it was too difficult for him to converse over this e-mail system (the dating site's system that is) and wanted to text instead so he gave me his cell phone number. Of course, I'm thinking, "typing versus texting" they are both the same. OK, I'll still play along although at this point it was all really just a game to me too since I was waiting for him (or her) to slip up big time. I told him I didn't give my number to men I didn't meet in person first.
4. RF#4 -- In response to RF#3, he said, "But, I'm in the military stationed over in Iraq, you can trust me." Of course I'm thinking, "buddy, the last two times I trusted a guy I ended up pregnant and with a car payment I couldn't afford. So, I said thanks but no thanks and wished him luck.
5. RF#5 -- Then the questions came raining down: Why didn't I support the American military, why couldn't I trust a man, who hurt me so badly, blah, blah, blah.  Well, I was bored by this point so I just said (AFTER I reported him to the online dating site's security team), "Dude you are possibly the WORST catfisher I have ever met.  You need to up your game!"

Of course, this experience made me want to fish for the catfishers so I'm "gone fishin" ...