You probably know someone who's been lied to online, if you've never experienced it yourself. Catfishing happens when someone creates a fake digital identity to seduce another person. It's basically trickery enabled by technology, as most cases involve a Photoshopped image or a stolen photograph from Google. Catfishing toys with real feelings and will never be justified. It's deceit, plain and simple.
We asked Cosmo Girls* from our Facebook group Cosmo Mixers to share how they caught a catfish. Read on.
"...we were so disgusted"
"I have an ex-friend who decided to catfish a girl she likes. She's a lesbian and she used the identity of someone else to hit her up on Facebook. What's twisted is that she used the face of one of our high school classmates who already has a wife and kid! We found out about it since our university has a pretty strong org connection and word got out. Her reason is that, if the girl she likes falls in love with her as a boy, then she will be more accepting of her when she finally reveals herself. We were so disgusted by what she did that we cut her out of our circle."
"She pretended to be her sister online"
"I had a high school classmate who had an intense crush on another classmate. For some reason, she pretended to be her sister online. [She and the guy] started talking a lot, she used her sister's photos and her account, and I think she and her crush became official boyfriend and girlfriend. I can't remember other details but it caused a huge commotion in class, especially because we were only 13-14 years old at that time! From what I remember noong nagkaalaman na, nag-apologize naman the classmate who catfished and, of course, they broke up."
"...they just wanted to see how gullible I was"
"Happened when I was 12. Some random guy introduced himself via text as Carlo Delos Reyes who was allegedly one of my classmates' cousins. He asked if he could court me and I declined because I didn't want to date someone I've never met but he insisted. He was too pushy that I ended up blocking him and changing my number.
"Months later, another random Kenneth guy texted me, told me he'd seen me around the campus and that I was really cute, blah, blah. I pretended to fall for it. One week after continuous chatting, I ghosted him for three days. Then I bombarded him with calls to see if he was real. He answered none of the calls so I assumed that he was a prankster and I blocked him too.
"Before the school year ended my 'friend' came forward and told me that one of our female classmates was actually Carlo and Kenneth. Turns out, they just wanted to see how gullible I was. (I looked so mahinhin that time.) I was kinda expecting that, but 12-year-old me got hurt that I [eventually] dismissed every 'suitor' [who would] chat [with] me via text or social media."
"I reverse image-searched it"
"There was this girl who was making me kulit through my DM to accept her follow request on Insta. She even tried to video-call me but I was asleep so I didn't get the chance to answer. Then I decided to accept the follow request but she started bashing me, saying I'm ugly, etc. The only clue I have of her is her account and profile pic. I reverse image-searched it and silly me, it was a pic of a streamer. So I decided to ignore it and figured that it was a weird troll."
"...he had excuses. Lots of them."
"It was 2010 when a guy added me on Facebook. We left messages that read like love letters to each other. I asked for a picture, he gave me one. I offered to see him in Manila when I moved for my first job but he had excuses. Lots of them. Had dengue, his mom died, etc. Yep. It was the real catfish deal. Good thing I caught it early on and stopped replying. 10 years later and I still trust my gut that I dodged a catfish."
"It even went as far as using guilt trips and insults"
"I had a similar experience with someone impersonating a celebrity I recently followed [on Instagram]. Long story short, I tried to catch 'him' in a lie but it was hard because he would use some excuse to dismiss my concerns. Only when he began to speak of a charity that he is supporting and was convincing me to also donate (more like forcing) that I was 100% [sure] he was trying to scam me. It even went as far as using guilt trips and insults (even when I told him I would rather [support] anti-COVID-19 donation drives). [He said I was] being selfish and stingy for not wanting to donate. I blocked everything, took evidence, reported the IG, informed the celebrity, and gave the link of the profile. I just hope the celebrity isn't too shocked when [he] opens his IG inbox. I'm just looking out for him!"
"...[he was] married with kids."
"[I was] catfished by someone who ended up being married with kids. He was using a very generic Chinese name (should've been a red flag), didn't have a very updated Facebook account (turned out to be a fake account), and I even met his best friend who went along with his entire story. Good thing I ended things even before I found out the truth, but it didn't make things any better. Right before I blocked him on all channels, I even tried to get him to admit everything, but he wouldn't budge and just denied lying to me about anything. Definitely learned a lot from that incident!"
* Names have been omitted.
Have you ever been catfished? Follow this thread on Cosmo Mixers!
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