“I Started Pretending I Was A 19-Year-Old”
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“I ‘catfished’ multiple people over the years. My family first got dial-up internet when I was 12 years old, and joined a forum I found while looking for goth MySpace layouts around 2005. I started pretending I was a 19-year-old from the next city over and that I had something like 20 piercings. Looking back, I can’t believe so many people believed me.
I started ‘dating’ a 21-year-old guy from Florida, and that continued for maybe three months before my dad sent me to a group home. I finally gained access to the internet at the library after a while and told the guy what really happened.
The guy I dated quit the internet entirely, quit talking to all his friends from the forum, and hated my guts after everything went down.
I felt bad for what I did, but I was lonely at the time.”
“My Sister And I Have The Suspicion That Our Mother Was A Catfish”
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“My sister and I had our suspicions that our mother was a catfish. All the signs were there. The bad part was that she used my sister’s pictures.
My mother had asked my sister one time how to make multiple Facebook accounts, would close her laptop whenever you entered the room, kept tape over the camera on the computer, and her phone would ring all the time, but she would never answer it.
My sister told me one time that she was out with our mother and our mom’s phone rang. My mom started to panic, so she asked my sister to answer it. At first, my sister hesitated, but eventually agreed to answer the phone. She said there was a guy on the other end with a funny accent that she didn’t recognize. I guess the guy started asking her random questions on what she looked like and stupidly my sister answered him. She said that the guy asked her what happened to her Irish accent. My sister said she got creeped out and hung up.
Shortly after that, my sister moved out and got her own place.”
“One Day I Saw A Picture Of Him On Pinterest”
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“A couple years ago, I was chatting with a ‘very good looking’ guy on OkCupid for a bit. He would make plans with me then have to cancel because something would come up with his kid.
One day, I saw a picture of him on Pinterest that a friend had pinned. It turns out the ‘very good looking’ guy lived somewhere else with his wife and they had a successful blog (hence the pics).
I confronted the guy about it and he said he’d join OkCupid to keep an eye on his ex-wife (kid’s mom) and found me in the process. He said the goal wasn’t to catfish me, but he’d already put himself in this situation with the fake account.
His loss.”
When Catfishing Is The Least Of Your Worries
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“I was catfished, but not in a romantic way. Years ago, I started talking to a guy called Zack, who lived in Pennsylvania. We spoke daily on MSN for about a year or two, but we never bothered going on webcam with each other. He would talk to me about his family. His mother and sister had left him alone, but he had never met his dad though had heard stories of him being a complete jerk to his mom.
One day, he came online and just didn’t seem right. I was asking what was up, had something happened at school or with his friends? He told me he had to go on webcam. So he did. So, the webcam came on and there was this girl. She looked about 14. He was 16. Anyway. I had been talking to ‘her’ the whole time.
Zack died a few years back. When he died, his little sister took on his personality. She had finally told her mom she has been speaking to me, and her mom explained a few things to me. She believed she was Zack a lot of the time. Spoke like she was him, told people she was him. The whole time I had been talking to a personality of a mentally ill girl. I was shocked and upset. I enjoyed speaking with Zack, but to think he was never actually alive in the time I was talking to him.
It was all pretty strange, and I still struggle to get my head around it.”
Things Aren’t Always How They Seem
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“While in the Army, I was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, which wasn’t that far from Kansas State University. I met this girl online who said she was a cheerleader at the college, and she even sent me pictures of herself. We spent a few weeks talking about all of the usual stuff, and the conversation started to get hot and heavy, so we decided to meet.
I went to meet her at the mall in Manhattan (a town near the college), I showed up to where we were supposed to meet, and there was just a bunch of teenagers there, so I waited. A few minutes went by and this overweight 15-year-old girl walked over and introduced herself using the name of the girl I met online.
It turns out she was using pictures of her older sister and saying it was her. She begged me to give her a chance, but I just told her to get lost and walked away.”
When Someone Steals Your Identity To Create A Whole New Existence
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“I found out a few weeks ago that my pictures have been used for catfishing for over 10 years!
A woman my age has been pretending to be a guy a few years younger than me and has been in an online relationship with two girls that started when they were 11 years old.
This included making at least 15 Facebook profiles of my family and friend’s pictures with fake names and eight Twitter accounts. She even went as far as to make phone recordings of my Facebook videos and upload them to Youtube along with pictures of me intertwined with pictures of one of the girls with a love song behind it. She even created a twin brother for ‘me,’ and photoshopped me into pictures of myself to make twin pictures. One of the twins died at some point, and the original ‘me’ used to check in at a crematorium with a memory every now and again.
The woman doing this lives within 10 miles of me, but I have no idea who she is. I spent four hours at the police station one day trying to put it all in a written statement.”
You’ve Got To Watch Out For Those “Best Friends”
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“My sister was catfished by none other than her supposed ‘best friend’ of seven years.
Her best friend ‘grew up’ with a guy, who we’ll call John. Anyway, she gave my sister John’s instant messenger handle and phone number because she thought they’d get along. My sister began talking to him on a regular basis. At first, it was only friendly, but then John showed romantic interest. So, a relationship started and went on for about three years. All the while, he made excuses for not being able to hang out with her in person. It was always messaging and phone calls. She was a little skeptical, but since her best friend grew up with this person and knew who he was, she just brushed it off and thought they would eventually meet.
After three years, he suddenly dropped all contact with her. She was heartbroken and wanted an explanation. She asked for my help since she had some personal info about him. We did some deep digging, and lo and behold, his pictures and other things traced back to the Facebook of a random guy on the other side of the world. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the person behind it was her best friend.
She was sick to her stomach and upset beyond words. So I contacted her ‘best friend’ and told her we knew everything and she’d better have some answers. All she kept saying was: ‘I don’t know, I’m sorry.’ Years of deceit and betrayal, and that’s the best she could come up with. My sister deleted her from everything and hasn’t been in contact with her since.”
The Accidental Catfish
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“I accidentally catfished someone, and I think I fell in love with him.
I was playing an online game, and just talking to this guy. I was in the 10th grade, so I guess I was about 15 or 16. He asked me how old I was, and I panicked and picked a random age – 24. He told me he was 18, and I immediately kicked myself for not saying my real age.
We ended up talking for the next few years. I think I loved him, or as much as in love as you can be for someone you never met. We texted constantly, back when phones had minutes and texting cost a minute per text. We did webcam, all PG, so I often wonder if he knew I was younger? If he did, he didn’t let on. We had grand plans to meet up several times, but of course, I always had to back out. I was only in high school. I legitimately thought about going to college near his hometown, but I didn’t know how I would explain that.
Ultimately, I faded out because I couldn’t fathom coming clean, and I was wracked with guilt.
The details of my life were all true, except I had to add things that were obviously not true such as a profession, living situation, and things like that to appear to not be just some kid in high school.
I think of him relatively often, especially when I catch a Detroit Lions game on TV. He was a big fan. I know his full name, so I occasionally look at him on Facebook and make sure he’s doing well. Although I am now 26 years old, in a committed relationship, and happy in life, I often wonder how it would have been if I said I was 16 instead of 24. What if I really did decide to go to college in his area? Would we have worked?
He is a hilarious, kind hearted person. I sometimes wonder if he ever thinks of me, too. Or maybe, he doesn’t even remember me at all… we were just kids, after all.”
Well, That’s One Way To Catch Your Boyfriend Cheating
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“About seven years ago, I catfished my then-boyfriend because I had a hunch he was trying to cheat on me. I had caught him chatting online with other women a couple times already, and it wasn’t just innocent conversation either — it was very explicit dirty talk, begging for pics, trying to get them to come over, etc. He cried and groveled each time I caught him – it was ‘just chatting,’ he wasn’t actually going to do anything, he’ll never do it again, blah blah blah. I didn’t catch him again for a while, but I just had that feeling, you know? I should have just dumped him after the first offense, I know, but I was a lot more naive and forgiving in my 20s.
Anyway, I made a fake Yahoo profile with some random hot girl’s MySpace pictures, named myself ‘Ashley Adams,’ and made up a backstory that included cheerleading and modeling. The profile was comically fake, but I knew he’d fall for it because he wasn’t too bright, especially when a hot girl was involved. I added him as a contact and waited for the first chat. I didn’t have to wait long at all either. As soon as he popped online, he took the bait: ‘Hey there, wanna chat?’ Why yes, ‘Ashley’ would love to chat, and she thinks you’re super cute too. He asked me for pics, asked me where I lived and was happy to hear that ‘I’ only lived one town over and could be there in half an hour. I agreed to come over, and he gave me his address and told me to just come right in and jump on him.
I waited about 15 minutes and then headed over to his apartment. I went right in like he requested, and I saw his expression change from excitement to dread when he saw me walk in instead of Ashley. He asked me what I was doing there, and I acted innocent and said I just wanted to spend some time with him. I could tell he was trying hard to come up with a reason why I couldn’t stay, but since he was hanging out in his boxers with the lights dimmed, he could think of none that weren’t incriminating, so I made myself right at home. I didn’t let him know he was busted, I just sat there and enjoyed watching him squirm and glance nervously at the front door every time he heard a noise. He must have been terrified, expecting Ashley to show up any minute while his girlfriend was cuddled up right there next to him. I hung out for several hours just relishing his discomfort and then left him with blue balls after he realized Ashley wasn’t going to show and tried to get frisky with me instead.
I dumped him a few days later after finding proof of real-life cheating on his phone, but I have to say, catfishing him was actually pretty fun.”
They Knew The Truth But Still Just Had To Ask
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“I once met a British girl named Amber on a Harry Potter board. We became friends and talked every day. As time went on, we became closer, and she told me all about her family. She had an older brother, a twin sister, and a younger brother. After about three years of knowing her, she ended up telling me she and her sister had found out they were adopted and were actually named Alayna and Anouska. Around the time she was 15, her sister became pregnant with triplets.
I had always had an inkling that the stuff she was telling me wasn’t true, but it didn’t really sink in until she sent me a picture of her and her twin. It was obviously photoshopped, and she took it down after I called her out on the terrible editing job. Eventually, she started emailing me from an account that had an odd last name. I asked her about it, and she said it was her cousin’s. She sent me a song on iTunes that had the same last name, and I asked her about it. She told me it was a fake name her father used. When Deathly Hallows was released, she sent me a package with the British version, and again that last name was on it.
I’d known this girl since she was about 11. Finally, when she was 18, I asked her if she was really Alayna. She told me no, that her name was Emma. She didn’t have a twin or a younger brother, and that when she was little, her parents forbade her from using her real name and that she’d just made up a whole life to escape from her real one.
We are still friends and even though she lied to me for the majority of our friendship, we are still close.”
The Lengths Some People Will Go For A Quick Flirt
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“I met a girl on AOL back in the late ’90s. I’m a girl, too, we were just friends. She would sometimes joke with me flirtatiously, but nothing more than the whole silliness that girls do with close friends. She told me that she liked to go jogging in sweatpants without underwear on because it was more comfortable. I was like…ok.
Months later, she said she showed my picture to her brother and he thought I was cute and wondered if I would chat with him. I said, yes, and we started chatting. After a few months of flirty messages, he told me that he had a fetish: girls in sweatpants with no underwear. I started thinking about it. I never saw him and his sister on at the same time. His sister wasn’t around much now that he and I were chatting. They had a similar flirty sense of humor. She must have forgotten that she mentioned the sweatpants thing.
Instead of confronting since I had no proof, I just started responding like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s what your sister says, too.’ ‘Your sister said she goes commando when jogging, too, did you know about that?’ After a while he/she figured it out. I think the girl liked me but knew I was straight and created a fake brother profile so she could flirt with me and get me to flirt back.”