Catfish

[gimmepie]

Yeahhhhhh

I have never been knowingly catfished, but unless it's the more dangerous variety I'm not too fussed. I generally don't share any details online and keep stuff like facebook well and truly separate from my anonymous life on PC.
I've never been anything but honest here, I just hide my identity.

There was one time however, I noticed someone who I'm fairly sure was pretending to be me. They acted totally different but they used the same username and birth details etc and shared a few facts that sounded a lot like things I've said. That was weird.

As for being the catfisher, well on a more serious note I actually got addicted to being other people for a while. I got sucked in by the anonymity of the internet and the fact I could be anyone I possibly wanted etc. Long story short, I realised it was unhealthy and quit cold turkey.

 

[Rogue planet]

I catfished three people, two intentionally and one unintentionally. Makes for a good story. Broke one guys heart, feels a little bad.

 

[moon]

Uh, if catfish is the term for trying to hook up with people online by pretending to be someone you're not, I haven't done that xD I don't think I've been catfished myself either. Nah. I'm not easily swayed enough :p

Honestly I've never really become close with someone that I didn't trust online. Like, the people I skype with, I'm reasonably sure that they are who they claim to be. At least the really close ones. It's not like they could hurt me anyways. or is this where you come and say that you are actually an Icelandic girl, Went

 

[Corvus of the Black Night]

That honestly sounds like way too much effort for me nor anyone I ever dated lol.

 

[Honest]

I've never gotten catfished in over the internet, as far as I'm aware, but I did have my friend attempt at catfishing me, with half the payoff he wanted.

During the beginning of college, I used to hang out with two friends of mine who I knew from beforehand. They had a friend named Tiffany, who I knew was super cute and such. I met her once, and then sometime after, I believe my friend gave me her "number". In reality, it was his number (which I didn't have). So for about two weeks or so, I would text "Tiffany", slightly flirty, and my friend would respond back, yadda yadda. Fast forward about two weeks later, and all four of us meet again. I'm thinking I've been talking to this girl for a while now, when in reality, I more or less haven't talked to her at all. My friends wanted to record the awkward encounter between Tiffany and me, so they made some excuse to leave the room, and I could see them recording me from outside with a phone. I had no idea why, but I just talked to her, and it was not awkward whatsoever ahahaha. I guess that failure ticked them off, because "Tiffany" started texting me really odd stuff, as if she was watching me constantly. I only figured out about the whole catfish thing because during one of the weird texts, I texted back and my friend's phone immediately went off. And I got suspicious and tackled him, and the truth was eventually revealed.

 

[Candy]

I've never catfished nor have I been catfished as far as I know. And I'll never do such a thing, 'cause I'm an honest person. :v

But if never sharing a photo online counts as catfishing, then there's that for me.

So far there's only one PC member here who has seen my face. And probably only a couple I've met online that managed to meet up with me irl, as well as another person. P:

 

[Poki]

I've never been catfished before, but I've done it to people who used to annoy me for one reason or another.

 

[Guest123_x1]

Other than making a fake display name on MySpace when I first signed up for that platform (which wasn't really much of an attempt as I revealed my real name in messages to people I added as friends), I've never catfished-at least not to the extent shown on Dr. Phil (which regularly has episodes covering catfish cases.)
Luckily, despite my attempts at getting a date online from people I used to know from my past, I've never fallen victim to catfishing-the closest I've gotten to this was seeing random girls I've never heard about send me friend requests on MySpace and Facebook, all of which I promptly rejected (each of the fake accounts sent me similar form messages, such as saying "I'm moving to your area soon" and what not.)

 

[Lapis]

As far as I am aware of, I haven't been catfished before. *shrugs*

 

[Tamara❤]

I havn't been catfished by anyone yet because usually I can tell straight away plus I don't have a lot of online friends x)

However there have been several times where my name and photos have been stolen and used by someone else on sites like Instagram which was annoying. -_-

 

[Alfieri]

I was catfished once. Some girl was pretending to be Asian on a blog/quiz site but after speaking for a bit, she felt guilty about hiding her identity and revealed she was a Caucasian girl, with a different real name. I got bored of that site after awhile so idk what she is up to.

 

[JustAnotherIllusion]

I've never been. I don't really get that close to people online. I'm not really that confident in the way I look so I hardly ever share pictures and often use fake names, just for privacy reasons really as I don't want weirdos facebook stalking me. If I consider someone a real friend and I know they are who they say they are I will usually tell them my real name if they ask. Does it count if you admit the name you are using is fake?

 

[Treecko]

I am not sure if I have never been catfished, but I have a big suspicion that a girl I used to talk to was one. When I was 12 or 13 I used to talk to this girl on AIM named Sarah West. We met on this gaming site named Grab.com and she was 13 and was from Monroe Country,Tennessee. We used to chat all the time about things we like music, and anime, games, tv shows and such. I had kind developed feelings for her, but she said she already had a boyfriend who like 15. One day she emailed me a picture of herself and it was this picture which she said was taken by a photographer at her church.

Spoiler:

As a 13-year-old, I was convinced that this was a legit picture of her and thought she was just really mature and beautiful for a 13 year old. But now I'm looking back at this time, and thinking "Yeah, she really doesn't look 13. She is too mature-looking to be 13." So I just now did a Google Image search of her picture and this comes up in the results.
https://www.pokerpages.com/blog/stevehall.php?itemid=387

And this.
https://www.peekyou.com/candace_gregory and this. https://www.peekyou.com/candace_gregory/31595066

It's been years since we've talked , and I've tried to get back into contact with her, but her email address is gone now, and I can't find her on Facebook, twitter, Instagram, etc. Yeah part of me think, this was some stranger trying to lure in young boys like 13-year-old me. So now I'm making the assumption that she was a catfish.


And then yet, I trust a bunch of random strangers on a forum and believe they are who they say they are hahaha...........

 

[Raigeki]

A guy claimed to be a famous singer in my country. Suddenly, his sister took away his computer and demanded to see my body. If I did that, she would give the computer back to the famous singer.
Long story short, I was sexually abused and tricked into being the victim of child porn for months while a pedophile working as a teacher masturbated to me. I never told anyone, so he was never caught.

Later, I became good friends with a boy who died a little later. It was so sad until I found out it was all just a joke. "I just wanted you to appreciate life".

And then I met a 17 year old girl. She often uploaded pictures of herself, and she had many friends she hang out with often. Yeah, it was actually just a ****** 12 year old British girl claiming to be someone else. Then she tried telling me that "it was okay and I shouldn't leave her because she was in love with me".

To combat this, I am very careful now. If I make new friends online, I track their IP and location, do research about their usernames and e-mail accounts, and I ask them the same questions a few times during a couple months and compare the answers they give me.

 

[Margot]

Ohhhhhhh yes, I have v__v I was naive enough to believe the person too even though there were SO many red flags that everyone else caught. I was way too ridiculously trusting and didn't want to think it was true because we had been friends for so long. But alas, FIVE YEARS LATER they were like "oh btw, not who I was claiming to be".

This was back in 2012 I think and I've only spoken a few words to them since. No idea what they're up to now.

Gah I was so stupid.

 

[Phantom1]

Nope, haven't been catfished. Been accused of being one before. Proved them wrong. Safe to say that relationship didn't happen.

All in all, I find catfishing honestly revolting. I mean, who is that SAD of a person to do that? That sick? Do people really need that much attention? Seriously, people like that make me sick.

 

[griever7x]

Eh... This matter really makes me feel uneasy about internet relationships.
I've never had one but I do have a few really close friends that live far away, and our only means of communication is through the internet.
Thinking about this makes me feel so nervous...
Fortunately, I don't think I've ever been catfished.

Actually, maybe one time I have. When I was a teenager, I remember receiving a message on my phone from an unknown number claiming to be a girl and saying that she found me hot. In other messages, this person said she wanted to engage in anal sex with me...
I just ignored any future message, and after a little while they gave up and stopped contacting me. It certainly was a weird and funny experience, even though I realize they might've not been who they claimed to be...

Also, I do remember catfishing a girl when I was a teenager. She was one of the first girlfriends I had, and she had a bad reputation; I really liked her so I didn't mind at the start, but after a month or so it finally got to me, and I came up with a little plan to test her.
I used my mom's phone to send her messages, claiming to be another guy and tried to flirt with her. She seemed interested and after a few days of conversation, she agreed to meet. The expression on her face when she saw me instead of another guy was priceless! She was shocked, but somehow I did not feel mad at her and found the situation very funny. We both started laughing, and eventually the relationship lasted a while longer...
I actually lost my virginity with her.

 

[TRIFORCE89]

Not entirely the same, but someone I didn't know online was pretending to be me earlier this year.

That was interesting. And creepy. ("I want to meet you!" ehhhh, no thanks)