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Do you familiar with the term CATFISH?
Wikipedia wrote, "On the internet, a "catfish" is someone who creates fake personal profiles on social sites using someone else's pictures and false biographical information to pretend to be someone else. These "catfish" usually intend to trick an unsuspecting person or more into falling in love with them. The term "catfish" is derived from the title of the previously-mentioned 2010 documentary, in which filmmaker Schulman discovers that the woman with whom he'd been carrying on an online relationship had not been honest in describing herself."
Allow me to tell you a little bit about myself. I'm a 40 yo single working mother. I got divorced in October 2018 and felt so free that I jumped into a world that was so new to me: online dating -not for something serious, just want to have fun with strangers that live very far from me (I only chatted with westerners who live abroad). The thing about online dating is almost 99% of all the men I was chatting with were into sexting, but there's this one different man. The only man that never had any interest in sexting or my naked picture; he's not into that kind of thing. His name was Jaimes. On his profile, he wrote his age 44 yo [edited by @NoneTheWiser for sharing personally identifying information]. We started chatting on December 1, 2018.
Jaimes told me that he was a true introvert, but we share stories, even though I mostly did the sharing. He also called me sometimes and we always had a good laugh. I grew fond of him and I felt that I really care about him. But I was also very curious about why he never wanted to do a single video call. He promised to do it but never keep it.
I guess I got so attached to him that I started to compare any man that wanted to get close to me and even sabotaged my real relationship with any man that could be my real partner in life. And the longer we chat, the more I was dying to know who he was. So, we started to fight a lot through chat. I begged to have a single video call with him, but he always said no.
Until one night on July 11, 2020. I just turned down a man because Jaimes was the only man in my heart, and my house also got flooded by the heavy rain. I told that man how I felt about Jaimes, and he commented that I was crazy and stupid for believing a person whom I never met before and never wanted to do video call. He told me that even if he killed himself, he would still be unable to make me happy because I chose Jaimes, who might not even be real, over him, who is real. Even though I did not like him, his words got me. That night I finally searched Jaimes. I used several search sites but didn’t pay any of them (I have to pay if I wanted to get a full report). So, I did not know if the result was valid or not, and thought I have to confront him with my findings. I did that, and I guessed I made him freak out.
He texted me: “You disappointed me and crossed a line that I hoped you would not. Take the inaccurate information you found and have fun with it, dear. I hope you find whatever you were looking for because I'm not participating anymore. Best wishes to you.”
Previously I already told Jaimes that I was so close to hiring a private investigator to help me find out who he was. He told me that if I do that, he would stop talking to me because he thought that it was creepy. So, I promised him that I would never hire one. So, his reaction when I tried to confront him was predictable, but I didn't know why I still felt so shocked that night. I felt misunderstood and hurt. I didn't try to defend myself, I didn't reply to his message for days until I got to the point where I really missed chatting/talking to him because we usually talked to each other every day and the longest we were not talking to each other was 4 days (when we both so busy with our work and our life, or when we just had arguments, which was not so often). After 3 weeks I texted him back, half pretending nothing had happened but he didn’t even read my messages until August 20, 2020; the day I called Black Thursday.
He finally replied to my message and hurt me even more because instead of coming clean on who he was and apologizing to me for not keeping his promise to do a video call, he blamed and judged me as someone who did something creepy and violated his space when all I did was just try to find the truth after 20 months of knowing him. I asked him to just delete and block me in his WhatsApp because I can't do that by myself; I even wrote the instruction on how to do it (because he always told me he wasn't good with WhatsApp and only use it for the sole purpose to chat with me), but then he replied me with this: "Just stop... Ok. Please. Just stop." So I stopped, out of respect for his feelings, while neglecting how I needed to know the truth and get closure.
I did not find out the truth about Jaimes until August 26, 2020, when I was when browsing the 7 Cups Help Center under the topic of Community Safety. There I read and quote, "You can stay safe on 7 Cups by adhering to the community guidelines [https://www.7cups.com/forum/NewbieHub_27/CommunityGuidelinesandProtocol_446/RulesofEngagement_62/1/]. Be kind, but use common sense when interacting on the internet. Not everyone is who they say they are (have you seen the show Catfish? Yeah, this really happens). Maintain boundaries and guard your personal information and identity." When I first saw it, I was stunned but then I immediately googled Catfish the show and found the MTV Catfish youtube channel. After watching just 1 video, I was shocked, because at that time I knew that I was being Catfished. Jaimes catfished me; he lied to me and played with my feelings, and then just cut me off when I tried to find out about him. That moment brought up all the pain to the surface, and out of desperation, I finally did another search on Jaimes in Spokeo and also Intellius and eventually paid for the result.
Jaimes Bondey was not his real name (of course, how silly I was). [edited by @NoneTheWiser for sharing personally identifying information] Besides those 3 facts, all about him was real: his origin, home address, job, marital status (single), and even all of his photos. I was even able to find his email address and viewed his LinkedIn account (and got blocked the next day). I cried a lot for days, felt so deceived, and was heartbroken.
And that was my story of being catfished. I have forgiven Jaimes. I'm no longer mad at him, as a matter of fact, I bless him every time I remember him. But until this day, I don't know why he did it. Do you know why he did it? Or do you have a similar experience? Please share your story or comment below -maybe we can strengthen each other and learn together from our mistakes.
