Catfished, Take Two!

A few months ago, a very handsome young man continuously looked at my OkCupid profile without writing me.  Under his profile name read M/32/Available (which in the world of online dating usually means someone is in an "open relationship).  He had a snarky adorable smile with lovely little dimples and stylish dark blond hair.  Upon reading his profile, I learned that he had a girlfriend, but was in an open relationship with her.  He wrote that if you are looking for "fun dates, and even more for post-dates," to write him a message.

This is not what I'm looking for at all, but I sent him a flirty message anyway.

"I notice you've been looking at my profile," I wrote.  "It's a nice profile, it deserves to be looked at," he responded. 

This began a long thread of hundreds of back and forth messages.  The communication was open and he presented as caring, intelligent, fun and flirty.  He had a PhD in something I hardly understood and he had a lot of fascinating things to say.

His story went like this:  He had a girlfriend that he deeply loved, but his sex drive is much higher than hers.  It was her idea to open up their relationship for casual sex with others, so that he can be fulfilled sexually and still stay with her.  In a month he was going to travel to another country for a month, then return for a few months, then study in another country for a year.  He and his girlfriend had already decided to break up before he left to study abroad, however they would stay together for the next few months before he leaves.

I knew this was a messy situation to get involved in.  But as it sometimes happen for me, I began doing a little fantasizing.  Maybe I would meet this handsome, well educated man and we would begin some kind of strange and compelling romance.  Maybe he would come home in a year and we'd both magically be single and have a relationship. 

However the rational side knew that even meeting him was a silly idea.  If we hooked up casually and I liked him, he has a girlfriend now and that would just be bad new bears for me.  I kept him at a distance but continued some virtual flirting.  

After a month he left for his trip.  I was going out with a few people at the time and not really thinking about him.  But a month later I was looking through old messages and saw one from him.  I looked at his profile, and instead of saying "Available," it now read "Single."   

I sent him a little message, "I see that you are single now."  He responded that he had just returned from his trip, was still with his girlfriend but they had decided for sure to break up when he leaves to go study.  He told me that he had great sex with his girlfriend when he returned from his trip, but his sex drive was so high that he was left unsatisfied. 

At this point our flirting became more intense.  I felt free to be more wild with him, knowing he was leaving soon, knowing his girlfriend was fine with him being with other women, knowing I most likely wouldn't get attached with this framework in place.  Sexy talk turned to sexy pictures turned to him saying he really wanted to meet me.  (Note: his sexy pictures were only body shots.  I asked numerous times for face shots but he magically ignored my requests.)

I began to think that I wanted to meet him.  My curiosity and excitement of the taboo of it all began to take over.  He called me one night when I came home from being out with friends at 2:30am... We talked for 2 hours.  He was smart, interesting, a great listener.  I felt comfortable with him and was really enjoying our connection.  He told me that he couldn't stop thinking about me, that for the last few days he was constantly checking his email to see if I wrote him, looking at his phone to see if I've sent him any sexy pictures.  We made tentative plans to meet a few days later, but I expressed my concerns.  "I'm worried I will like you if we meet, and then it will become a tricky situation.  This whole thing is strange and complex, but I'm also intrigued and really enjoy communicating with you."

"Well," he sighed, "I am going to throw another monkey wrench into this equation. You know the profile you wrote me on?  Well that's not really my profile."

"What do you mean?"  I asked, feeling my heart beating faster by the moment.

"I met this guy when I was traveling through Eastern Europe.  He told me that he was looking to move to America and asked if I thought American girls would find him attractive.  I told him I would put up an online dating profile with his photos to see if girls would write to him.  That's the profile you wrote me on.  I never write to people from it, but you wrote me first so I responded." 

"So that's not you?  The pictures you've sent me haven't been you?  What else isn't true?"  I asked, feeling totally freaked out.

"No, that's not my face.  All the body photos I sent you are me however."

"Well then why would you put on his profile the blurb about the open relationship?  Is that even true?"

He responded, "Everything I've told you is true, except that's not my face.  I used to have the blurb about the open relationship on my real profile, until a family friend visited it.  I really didn't want that information getting back to my parents, so I took it off, stopped signing onto that profile and added it to the fake one.  I can send you a picture of my face if you like."

"Sure, I'd like to see what you really look like," I responded.

He sent me a picture.  I wasn't attracted to the guy at all.  I told him that I found him cute just to be polite and talked to him for another 20 minutes then told him I had to go to sleep.  It was nearly 5am.

That night I couldn't sleep, feeling strangely violated but also silly for getting involved in a situation like this.  My rule of thumb has always been to meet people sooner than later to avoid something like this happening.  He had duped me but once again I allowed it to happen.

The next day he wrote me like nothing had happened.  I told him I needed some time to think about all that had gone down.  Eventually he checked in and I told him the truth, that I wasn't attracted to him like I was to the pictures he put up of his "friend."  He said he understood and wished me good luck in the dating world.

Of course I'm left with a creeped out feeling... But I'm also left with some questions about attraction... In terms of the mind, heart, soul and then of course, the body.  Now let's say he didn't have a girlfriend, and we were just writing, having great conversation and chemistry.  I'm thinking he's this hunky dude, and then he turns out to be not such a hottie.  What an awkward position I was put in, actually questioning my own superficiality.  But I think that's important to do, to question what attraction is and can we love the insides in a romantic situation so much that the outsides cease to matter? 

To end this whale of a tale in a humorous and ponderous manner, I will quote the great Adam Carolla, who is an avid Catfish watcher.

"As you know I watch this show Catfish on MTV and... I've seen most of the episodes, and it's one of those, you know exactly how it's gonna end.  Cuz nobody looks like their online picture and everyone's got a fake name.  It's a couple of things.  I've always broken it down to, Catfish is, if I had to just describe it in under 150 words, it's uh, "She's my soulmate, she's the love of my life.  What?  She's fat?  Fuck that bitch!"  That's how the whole thing goes down.  It starts with soulmate, it goes to oh, she's 30 lbs heavier than her picture, and, moving on.  That's how it works."