World Class Hugs

By Rachel Puryear

Have you ever met someone who seemed incredibly wonderful – but had a nagging feeling that they were perhaps too good to be true? And then maybe found out that they in fact weren’t who you initially thought they were? Unfortunately, that’s something just about all of us will experience in this life.

Sometimes, such deceptive behavior can amount to catfishing.

A reader asked for more information about catfishing, so this article will cover more in depth about that topic.

So, what is “catfishing”, anyway? “Catfishing” is when someone pretends to be someone they are not, with the intent to deceive someone else – their target. Often, the purpose of this is for the catfisher to scam the target for financial gain, but it’s not limited to that – it could also be for the catfisher to get attention, play a trick on the target (perhaps in the context of bullying), get information from the target, and other possible motives.

There are also some forms of catfishing with more benign intentions – such as pretending to be someone most people will view as very attractive and otherwise desirable in order to get more romantic attention, where someone feels unwanted or lonely. Someone might also pretend to have a sexier career or a more exciting life than they do, if they feel that theirs is not that impressive. These catfishers might not actually mean to hurt or scam anyone, it’s more about wanting to experience something they feel is out of their reach – although this can cause unintended emotional harm to others involved.

This article will focus more on spotting the kind of catfishing with more sinister intentions, though, like con artists and other predators, given the greater dangers in these. But the general principles can apply to any kind of catfisher.

Catfishing has always been around in some form or another, but nowadays it often involves the catfisher creating a fake identity and persona online, as this is so easy to do given the nature of online socializing. Catfishing can also happen in person, too, although that usually requires a higher level of effort and disguise by the catfisher.

It Seems Too Good to Be True

If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. If you’re already wondering about this in the back of your mind regarding someone you’ve met recently, there’s a reason why – your instincts are trying to tell you that something is likely wrong. Heed this warning and approach with caution, even if you aren’t sure yet, and even if this is the only sign so far.

Reluctance Around Phone and Video Calls, or Meeting Up in Person

If someone only wants to ever text and email/message; and doesn’t want to talk on the phone, do a video call, or meet with you in person, this is very suspicious. Someone who is real and genuinely interested in you should want to do these things.

A catfisher might establish a good-sounding reason up front why they cannot meet you in person – they might say they live far away, are deployed as part of military service, or travel frequently on business. Sometimes, these things can be true, and plenty of honest people are in these situations – but if this is paired with other red flags here, then be on high alert.

They Do Make Plans With You, But Always Cancel With an Excuse

Sometimes, life happens, and we all have to cancel plans on occasion. And someone who is being sincere should play a proactive role in rescheduling with you after cancelling plans for as soon as possible, and then follow through with them.

However, if someone makes plans only to cancel on you at the last minute every time and never actually meets with you, and it’s an ongoing pattern, then it’s a very suspicious one.

Granted, there are also people who are frequent plan-cancelers but not actually catfishers – but even so, do you want to spend a lot of time with someone who’s really flaky, and half-hearted enough about you from the start that they don’t commit to following through?

New Social Media Profile, Without Many Friends

A real person’s social media profiles will tend to be years old, have a variety of posts going back several years, and have a significant number of friends (a relatively small number of friends is okay, some people just have smaller social circles, but that’s fine as long as they seem to know these people and interact with some of them regularly in their posts).

However, a catfisher will tend to have a more recently established profile, with few friends. The friends they do have are likely people they have randomly added, and they won’t tend to know them or interact with them much through posts (this is another good reason to only accept friend requests from people you know, by the way). Their photos will be limited, and not show you much about them (see the next section for more on photos) – or they may not have any photos. They may add several posts initially – often rather impersonal ones, like shared memes – in order to just fill space.

Their Photos are Sparse, Generic, and Don’t Include Other People or Activities

Photos can provide a lot of clues as to whether you’re likely being catfished or otherwise deceived. For instance, again, real people tend to have wide assortments of photos of themselves – including ones where they’re dressed their best for big events, but also more casual ones like random selfies in their jammies at home. They also usually have photos of themselves with other people, too. Their photos tend to also show them in a variety of settings.

Sure, some people are genuinely camera shy. But even people who are will tend to have photos showcasing their hobbies and interests, pets, careers, places they’ve been, beliefs and opinions on current events, creative pursuits, and so forth.

A catfisher will tend to have very few, if any, photos of “themselves” (or who they’re claiming to be). They will tend to be the only person in whatever photos they do show, and the photos are usually limited and generic – rather than showing them in a variety of settings. The photos will also usually looked too polished – like professional photos, rather than including casual selfies and photos where they don’t look posed. Catfishers like to steal photos from stock websites, or copy them off of real people’s profiles.

Besides…if someone looks like a model but has no significant following, isn’t that in itself kind of unusual, realistically speaking?

They Want to Move Off of a Dating Platform Quickly

Modern dating platforms have software now to detect scammers, and others behaving badly in general. If you meet a catfisher on such a site, they’ll usually want to move off of the site quickly, in order to avoid such detection software. They’ll likely claim they want more privacy, and feel more comfortable chatting elsewhere.

They are then likely to suggest using an app that’s hard to trace, like WhatsApp or Signal, as opposed to giving you an actual phone number. However, even an actual phone number could still be a burner phone, so them having a phone number doesn’t necessarily clear them – especially if you spot other red flags.

Their Story Sounds Unbelievably Over the Top…Literally

We all have some crazy stories, and some of us have stories that we know many others would have a hard time believing. One or even a few out-there stories isn’t automatically suspicious.

However, when every story they have is dramatic and unlikely – especially if they naturally appeal to your emotions, your sense of mystique and adventure, and your deepest desires; the other person may be full of it. And if that’s the case, they could be a catfisher.

This one alone doesn’t automatically make them a catfisher – they could just be a liar, but not actually a catfisher. However, this one paired with several others makes it likely that you are dealing with a catfisher. Nonetheless, a regular old liar, even if they aren’t also a catfisher, isn’t someone you really want to get involved with, anyway.

They Ask for Money Early On, Perhaps Claiming a Crisis

Nobody you’ve never met in person, or haven’t known in an established relationship over a period of time, should be asking you for money – for any reason.

And a catfisher will give a heart-tugging reason why they supposedly need the money – i.e., they’ll be kicked out and become homeless otherwise, someone they love needs urgent medical care, their scholarship fell through and they can’t pay their tuition, and so forth. They’re playing your emotions to try to get you to set aside your natural skepticism and defenses.

Requests for money from catfishers may start small, like less than $100. If they get money this way, then they may progress to increasingly larger amounts.

They Ask for Deeply Personal Information About You Early On

It’s a normal part of human nature to want to share of ourselves, to want to connect, and to feel understood and affirmed and validated by other people. That’s perfectly okay, and it’s a good thing to try and seek that out.

However, a catfisher will likely exploit this natural human trait by asking you all about kinds of personal things early on – and initially, they’ll seem to listen really well, and offer you a sense of validation and connection. Targets who feel lonely and unloved may have a hard time resisting someone who is all too eager to listen, and consistently validate them.

However, they aren’t seeking to actually help you feel more connected and to emotionally support you – instead, they are looking for your vulnerabilities that they can use to their own advantage. They are trying to pull you off guard, so that you won’t see the tricks they are about to pull next. They want you to love them, so that you’ll do anything for them, and even ignore the red flags. They may even want you to feel guilty about saying no to them, ever.

And this isn’t just limited to asking for your Social Security number, and other obvious personal information – they’ll want to know about things like your childhood, your family troubles, your failed relationships and heartbreaks, your dreams, your goals, and your deeper feelings about everything.

Isolating or Alienating You From Loved Ones

It’s a lot easier for someone to take advantage of you, if they can create strife and distance between you and those who actually do love you and care about you.

That’s why for any con artist – as well as cults, and domestic abusers – one of the first items on their agenda is to isolate you as much as possible.

That’s not always in the form of direct control – i.e., intimidating you into not seeing your friends and family, which a person would already have to be pretty broken down in order to accept.

However, a more skilled manipulator – and indeed, any catfisher is a sneaky manipulator – will utilize more subtle tactics to try and come between you and those you love.

They’re “Falling in Love With You” Too Quickly – or Love Bombing You

As wonderful and lovable as you may be, people don’t just fall in love overnight – or even super quickly. People can be attracted quickly, they can feel lust quickly, they can like someone quickly – but it takes time and regular bonding and coming to understand one another, to develop genuine and lasting feelings of love and commitment.

A catfisher will flatter you, play on your insecurities, shower you with attention and affection, and tell you they love you very early on, and well before it could really happen. They want to make you feel so good that you’ll let your guard down, and therefore give them what they want – then, as soon as they have what they want from you, they’ll just ghost you.

This isn’t love, it’s love bombing – and the latter is just the opposite of genuine love.

Deep Down, You Just Know Something Feels Off – and Maybe Your Loved Ones Do, Too

Sometimes, your intuition will tell you things that your head doesn’t yet know, and your heart doesn’t want to admit. But that internal warning signal should never be ignored – it’s always there for a reason. Even if you aren’t really dealing with an actual catfisher, there is something wrong with the interaction you’re having with somebody, and your instincts are trying to tell you something important.

Friends, family, and loved ones might be suspicious, too, if you are telling them about what’s been going on. They are likely to look at it more objectively than you, because they don’t have the feelings for this person that you do – and in fact, their feelings are for you, and for your well-being. If they are all concerned, and are urging you to slow down with this person, listen to them – even if it turns out it’s a false alarm, a person who’s good for you will understand your wanting to get some answers, and verify their identity before proceeding forward.

What to Do, and How to Protect Yourself if You Suspect Catfishing:

Here are some safety tips you can follow online, which can be applied in general, to protect yourself against catfishing. Don’t worry about alienating someone real who you would actually like to get to know – the right kind of people will understand your desire to protect yourself, especially when you also mutually understand their wanting to do the same things, and you set your boundaries with kindness and tact:

• Don’t go too long (like more than a few days or a week) without having a phone or video conversation with them initially, or – better yet – meeting them in person. For meeting someone in person, meet in a neutral, public place with other people around, and where you can control your own ability to arrive and leave there.
• Be cautious about sending photos before you’ve established who they are with a live conversation or in-person meeting. Some catfishers will steal photos from one person, and send them to another potential victim, basically impersonating you with your photos. Definitely don’t send nude or other private photos of a sensitive nature without knowing who they are first (people have been blackmailed this way). You can have photos on your profile, as these are generally expected and also give your profile more credibility, but the caution is around further photos sent via text or private chat, and off of a dating site.
• Take new relationships comfortably slow. One thing you’ll hear in common across so many stories from survivors of domestic abuse, is that their abuser wanted to move the relationship along really fast – typically love bombing the victim, declaring they were in love with them, and pressuring them to make major commitments to them early on. There’s a reason for that. That doesn’t mean you have to be distant, but think in terms of moving at a pace that feels comfortable for the two of you.
• Mention new relationships – and even new people you’re talking to regularly – to others in your life whom you love and trust. Sometimes others – looking at the situation from a more objective vantage point, and also with an eye towards concern for you – can spot red flags that you might overlook, especially if you are smitten.
• Anyone can be catfished, so don’t assume that it cannot happen to you – it can. Highly intelligent, well-educated, and sophisticated people can be, and have been, catfished – because everyone, regardless of their advantages, has insecurities and emotional buttons that catfishers and other wrongdoers can exploit. Also, men and women are catfished at similar rates, with men being slightly more likely to report being catfished. And of course, people of all ethnic backgrounds and walks of life can fall prey to a catfishing scam.
• If you’re suspicious of someone you’ve been interacting with, conduct reverse image searches on any photos of them – seeing where else these photos pop up on the web can be revealing. Look carefully at any social media profiles, too, to see how far back they go and how much personalized content there is – or is not – on there. If anything feels off, limit or even cease communication with them and do not engage (remember, manipulators are very slick at talking their way out of things), immediately stop sharing photos and revealing information with the person until if and when things are resolved, and you have further answers on this person. Never send any money to anyone you have not met in person, and known over a long period of time – no matter how convincing or dire their narrative sounds.
• Ask someone for information that they should easily know, if they are who they say they are. For example; ask about places they like to go in the city they claim to live in. Ask about details of the job they claim they work at. If they claim to be away while deployed in the military (a common excuse for why they can’t meet you in person), see this guide to spotting military impostors (understandably, actual veterans who have served don’t have much patience for people who lie about such).
• If you’re on a platform with this person, like a dating site, report them if you reveal that they’re a likely catfisher.
• If they are a catfisher, don’t buy their excuses and sob stories, or let them manipulate you into feeling sorry for them, or feeling like the bad guy here. They lied to you, they deceived you, they had no regard for you – they are the bad guy here.

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Thank you, dear readers, for reading, following, and sharing. Here’s to spotting and avoiding those with insincere intentions. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” and subscribe, if you have not already.

Check out my other blog, too – Free Range Life, at https://freerangelife.net.

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