True confession: I got catfished by my catfish

Deborah, 35:

In 2012 I was online just surfing through a few dating sites when an idea popped into my head to make a dummy profile just to see how many men would respond. I got quite a few responses but one stood out and that was a message from a man living in Canada.

We talked for a few days online before exchanging numbers. I found him interesting and easy to talk to. Our conversations would last for hours.

Hours turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. I felt as if I was talking to a friend who I hadn’t seen in a long time and we were just catching up.

I knew that I was lying to him and wanted to tell him the truth but didn’t. Every time I told him that I had something I wanted to tell him I just couldn’t bring myself to say it. As time went on I found myself falling for this man and he seemed to be falling for  me. I didn’t want to think that this was really happening — I was falling for someone who I had never met before.  All these emotions made it even harder to tell him the truth, so I hid it from him.

But I couldn’t hide for long because he told me that he was coming to Jamaica just to see me. I started to panic because I didn’t know what to do. My fear was that if I told him the truth he was going to think that I was a big lair and he wasn’t going to like me or give me a chance to explain myself. I didn’t want him to think I was like all the other women he had met online. I didn’t want him to think I was only interested in him for his money because that wasn’t the case. I had literally fallen in love with this man. And in knowing this I had to tell him the truth.

The day I told him he got upset and my worst nightmare of him thinking the worst of me came through. He asked me to send him pictures of myself and when I did, he got upset, saying that the reality just set in that I lied to him. He stopped talking to me that day. No matter how much I tried to reach out to him he didn’t respond and when he did it was as if he was feeling the hurt I caused him all over again. He was mad. So I just stopped reaching out it him.

Nearly six months after we stopped talking, my birthday came around. I was surprised when I received a text from him, wishing me happy birthday. I told him thanks and we started to communicate again as if nothing had happened between us. I felt good knowing that he had forgiven me and realised that the feelings that we had for each other were real. A few weeks later he told me that was coming to Jamaica to see me. I was happy and started to count down the days to seeing him.

The day finally arrived.  I went to the airport all excited to see the person who had captured my heart. I stood there waiting and waiting and never saw him. It wasn’t until I sat down in disappointment that I heard his voice as he called my name. But when I turned around I didn’t see him. I was looking to see a tall, slim, handsome man, but all I saw walking towards me was this short, bald, fat man. I sat there thinking maybe he was walking towards someone standing behind me, but then he gave me a big hug.

I didn’t know whether to hug him back or scream out for help. I told him he looked nothing like his pictures. He explained that he was just as guilty of doing to me what I did to him. I asked him why he had got angry at me if he was doing the same thing. He said it was because he was disappointed that I lied to him and that I didn’t look like the pictures online.

I spent as much time as I could with him and we did all the things we said we would. But even though I had fallen for him, seeing him and knowing that we had lied to each other never sat well with me.

He went back to Canada and we spoke on and off until our conversations became fewer and fewer, and then none at all. He was a nice guy but I just couldn’t get over the guilt he put me through knowing he was doing the same thing.

After that experience I deleted the fake profile and did one up with my actual information. I was blown away by the responses I got. And I’m happy to say I met someone online who I can be myself with and who loves me as I am with no judgment of my past mistakes.