An Old Confession, Catfish-esque

[ruby412]

Making my own FFFC thread for this one.

I'm watching this show Catfish on mtv.com and thinking how psycho these people are to pretend they're someone else online and form relationships. I mean really, WTF?

Then, I remembered my own little Catfish experience. In 1998, my high school boyfriend left for college. We decided we'd stay together, of course. I was a senior in h.s. and he was a freshman and I was sure we'd be together forever. However, after a bit, I started to suspect he was cheating on me. He was acting sketchy, glazing over details of his days, and not calling me as much. Several times he talked about his "friend" who was also the RA. So, I did what any crazy high school girl would do... got her email address (I think by logging into his email - the details are fuzzy at this point) and wrote her pretending to be a prospective student. (I had already been accepted at my school of choice and had no plans to go to this college). I started by asking her questions about the school, life in the dorm, etc. We went back and forth a bunch of times and finally I asked her about the guys there and if she had a boyfriend. My suspicions were confirmed and she and my bf had totally been seeing each other! I printed the emails and used them to confront him the next time he was home. Ahhh, Catfish-eque memories.

I know I'm not the only one who has done something like this! If you have a similar story, spill it!

[Deleted]

I was on the flip side of that when a 40 year old man began stalking me after pretending to be a 14 year old male in a chat room. I was 14 as well and scared shitless when it all went down and he began propositioning me for a sex meetup.

[ruby412]

Oh my gosh, Ouiser that is horrifying! What ended up happening?

[TrudyCampbell]

Haha oh my gosh I love that story. I have a similar one... I was also still in highschool when my bf left for college and I used to read his emails (because I was a psycho??). He became suspicious that I was reading his emails so he sent a fake email to himself pretending to be a girl. I saw it, freaked out, and then he knew I was reading his account. Oops.

[thedahliharpa]

Jan 4, 2013 14:46:36 GMT -5 TrudyCampbell said:

Haha oh my gosh I love that story. I have a similar one... I was also still in highschool when my bf left for college and I used to read his emails (because I was a psycho??). He became suspicious that I was reading his emails so he sent a fake email to himself pretending to be a girl. I saw it, freaked out, and then he knew I was reading his account. Oops.

Haha busted!

[Deleted]

Jan 4, 2013 14:43:01 GMT -5 ruby412 said:

Oh my gosh, Ouiser that is horrifying! What ended up happening?

The guy did a little bit of time, but there was no precedent for cyber stalking or anything back then. This was in the days of dial-up. The guy ended up dying in a car accident a couple years later. I was pretty terrified of him retaliating when he got out and that solved that issue.

[Deleted]

I'm sure I have. I just can't think of specifics right now. I made a fake online chat thing to talk to my ex. But I just wanted to check up on him. He went downhill after I broke up with him and I was worried, but I didn't want to lead him on by being myself.

[ruby412]

Trudy - Love that story! It's not a true high school relationship until you've logged into your bf's email account and down some stalking. I love that he was on to you. Sounds like a smart guy!

Ouiser - That is so scary! At least you didn't have to worry about him anymore. And I doubt you were the only 14 year old he was stalking. People like that are sick and twisted.

RealMC - So close to success, stupid auto reply! That's hilarious that the emails were in Spanish. I would have totally been babblefish translating that shiz. Do you remember what happened? Did he continue dating the girl?

[Deleted]

I agree, completely!

[mamasaurus]

I had an ex who was into fishing, and I am into birdwatching. The two areas do overlap a lot, because a lot of the best places to see birds that eat fish are frequented by fishing guys, for those same fish. I did NOT want to run into him, though, so I went on his fishing forum and pretended to be a 45-year-old divorced man to find out what days he was going and suss out from his photos where he liked to fish.

It hurt me inside to intentionally use spelling errors and bad punctuation in my efforts to sell this character.

[hass2001]

Holy shit these are hilarious! Ouiser that is really scary :/

[mamasaurus]

I might have also smirked at the pictures that were unflattering shots of his new girlfriend holding fish. ;D

[ruby412]

Mamasauras, that's awesome! I like your creative choice of character and grammatical wilingness to really get into character.

Also, my computer wants me to call you mamas auras. You do have a nice aura, I'm sure.

[dojo]

Jan 4, 2013 15:41:52 GMT -5 mamasaurus said:

I had an ex who was into fishing, and I am into birdwatching. The two areas do overlap a lot, because a lot of the best places to see birds that eat fish are frequented by fishing guys, for those same fish. I did NOT want to run into him, though, so I went on his fishing forum and pretended to be a 45-year-old divorced man to find out what days he was going and suss out from his photos where he liked to fish.

It hurt me inside to intentionally use spelling errors and bad punctuation in my efforts to sell this character.

Lol, because excellent grammar would have tipped him off?

[ruby412]

He sounds like a total manwhore! Glad you moved on from him to bigger and better Irishmen.

[katie]

I suspected my ex was lying to me about talking to other girls online so I created a fake MySpace account. I sent him random emails as this other girl, asking questions, hitting on him. He told me that he didn't have a GF. I totally outed myself to bust him. I didn't care at that point and was so pissed. He turned it all around on me, said I was psycho. I was crazy I guess and apparently had a lot of time on my hands.

[Deleted]

This happened to a good friend of mine. We were in middle school. She became friends with this guy, Bob. She knew he was older (I think he said he was late 20's), and he knew she was like, 13. He was telling her he was going to be a youth pastor, and my friend was very involved in her church so she talked to him a lot about that. They talked for about a year, I think it was our 7th grade year. All of her friends knew about Bob. She talked about him a lot, because they talked a lot online. Her parents didn't know. We all thought it was cool that she had a friend who was older. And it really wasn't creepy to a 12-13 year old.. we didn't know any better. Seriously, we knew so much about Bob.

Well, Bob really wanted to meet my friend. He kept saying how much he liked talking to her and what a good friend she was, etc. I think he lived a few states away, but was telling her he would come to MI to see her. She was very excited and told us all about when she might meet Bob! One day her parents found out. S*^t got real. They freaked out, and contacted Bob directly, and told him if he ever talks to her again...bad things would happen. They stopped talking. 8th grade year, we find out she is still talking to Bob. She begs no one to tell her parents. They somehow find out again, and the police are contacted. Bob was arrested and fired from his youth pastor position, apparently he was seeking out younger girls all over the country... I'm not sure what actually happened to him after that. My friend was very traumatized by all of this! Ugh.. freaks me out that something bad could have happened to her..

[rxbeth]

Back in our very early 20's my friend was seeing this guy that we knew was a player. She started to suspect he was cheating on her. Her suspisions were confirmed when she logged onto his e-mail. My friend ended up contacting this other chick and setting him up.

They arranged for my friend to catch them in bed together (he was sleeping with both). She let herself in his apartment and caught them in the act. He tried to score a threesome. The both dumped his ass.

When she told me this I was all "who are you? Is this 90210?" But I think it was pretty awesome they busted him.

[TrudyCampbell]

Jan 5, 2013 8:14:19 GMT -5 rxbeth said:

Back in our very early 20's my friend was seeing this guy that we knew was a player. She started to suspect he was cheating on her. Her suspisions were confirmed when she logged onto his e-mail. My friend ended up contacting this other chick and setting him up.

They arranged for my friend to catch them in bed together (he was sleeping with both). She let herself in his apartment and caught them in the act. He tried to score a threesome. The both dumped his ass.

When she told me this I was all "who are you? Is this 90210?" But I think it was pretty awesome they busted him.

Wow! Tried for a threesome!? What a jerk!

[ruby412]

Sprinkles - That is so creepy and scary! A 20 year old having an online relationship with a 12 year old is so not normal. And the fact that she was keeping it from her parents? It makes me cringe to think that we'll have to worry about these things years down the line. Ugh!

Beth - I love your friends' elaborate set up! That guy is a total scuz!

[Deleted]

I know!! It really creeps me out. And he turned out to be almost 40. Lied about his age! I forgot to add that!