Real-life Catfish

Remember the girl in class who said she was in the casting for MTV’s Catfish? Well that’s me. And here’s my full story.

Like most middle schoolers, I was establishing myself in the social networking world called Myspace when I was in the seventh grade. However, I loved Myspace so much that I wanted to take my social networking to another level. So I joined another site called MyYearbook. Heard of it? Kind of sketchy site actually.

On MyYearbook, I met two guys from the far off world of West Virginia. In seventh grade I perceived WV to be halfway across the country so I was super excited to have friends in another state. Our friendship was simply a friendship maintained on the website, with the exception of one phone call I made to them one night. After about a year or so of a “close” friendship, we drifted apart as we entered the wonderful world of high school.

Jump ahead to roughly my junior year of high school, I found my “friends” on Facebook. Except I realized that these guys were no longer friends, so I only chose to add the one who I felt closer to. His name was Dustin. In the years that we had lost touch, he had been in a very serious relationship and had a child with his girlfriend. We never really talked on Facebook, but we were “friends” nonetheless.

So now let’s jump to when things got “real.” In summer 2012, we started following each other on Twitter. We exchanged phone numbers and started texting essentially nonstop. I felt like we were getting really close, but that we had very different intentions. I would self-disclose personal details about my life because I trusted him, wanted him to fully get to know me, and possibly progress to a long-distance relationship. I think Dustin just really enjoyed the female attention.

In the article “A Long-Distance Affair,” by Abigail Sullivan Moore, it says, “This virtual intimacy increases understanding of each other’s lives.” My perception of Dustin was definitely all based on my virtual understanding of him. I admittedly would creep on his Facebook profile, his friend’s profiles, his family’s profiles, ANYTHING that I could to better get to know him. I was satisfied by the intimacy I gained from creeping on the people that actually had face-to-face interactions with him because this filled a void for me.

However, something always felt a bit odd about Dustin. He would text, tweet, and message me about his feelings for me, but he never really self-disclosed a whole lot about his life. We had one fairly personal phone conversation on Christmas Eve in which I felt like he actually started to self-disclose to me, but that was the only instance it happened. We also made plans to meet up for the first time in Cincinnati over spring break, but as break approached our communication disappeared. “…Text messages, calls, and virtual images still provide just a momentary –and sometimes puzzling- window into a partner’s life,” says Sullivan Moore. This couldn’t be more accurate. I would turn to answers within his tweets as to why he was inconsistent in his communication with me, but all that led to was head scratching and heartbreaks.

I never felt like fully giving up on Dustin because I saw some kind of potential there besides the communication issues. In January 2013, I decided one very late night to apply for Catfish. I told them my story about our sketchy communication patterns and my concern that he might be lying to me about something since he could never commit to meeting me. Two nights after I applied for the show, I was working a pancake fundraiser and I received a phone call from the casting producer Mike. He asked me some more about my story and was very interested in uncovering the truth. He added me on Facebook and had me send him Dustin’s Facebook and Twitter profiles so he could start investigating our relationship. Mike and I had a few more phone calls after that initial call, and he also had me email him pictures of Dustin and I to be put in our casting files. Unfortunately, Dustin and Mike got in a game of phone tag that resulted in Dustin ultimately deciding not to answer his phone because he didn’t want to be on the show. And that is why I never made my MTV fame.

Dustin and I somewhat stayed in contact after our Catfish fall out, but frankly I was pretty bitter about the whole situation. From time to time, he would message me to tell me how much me missed me or still cared about me, but I minimized his genuineness since he was never consistent in his communication towards me. He made two other attempts to make plans to come meet me, but naturally those plans never happened. He also set up a Skype date with me (notice I never mentioned us ever Skyping) and messaged on Facebook up until the time we were supposed to Skype, but never actually signed onto his Skype account. Sketchyyyy.

Two weeks ago, I removed Dustin from all of my social networking sites and deleted his number from my phone. I’ve given up on him. I’ll probably always wonder “what if” but at this point the toxic long-distance virtual relationship that we had is not worth it.  There are better things out there to pursue than a boy with terrible communication skills in West Virginia. And that, my friends, is my Catfish story.