Continue with caution. James’ catfishing catastrophes…

To ‘catfish’ is to lure someone into a relationship by adopting a fictional online persona

It’s a lot easier to create a false identity from behind a monitor. Hiding behind someone else’s images, catfishers lure users into a false sense of security. The catfishers may obtain explicit images and personal information from users only to later use their newfound power against their victims. Alternatively, other catfishers go as far as meeting with users. Trusting teens arrange to meet people they’ve created cyber relationships with only to be greeted by unfamiliar and older faces, a scenario accurately depicted in the movie, Trust.

I met with James, a frequent user of dating apps and resultant victim of catfishing. James tells me about the most notable time he’d been catfished: ‘It was a few years ago. I arrived at a rundown apartment block to meet a man I’d been speaking to for a couple of weeks. The man buzzed me through the block’s front door, and I made my way up the internal stairwell. The man who greeted me was of Oriental Asian descent and looked about 20 years older than the white man in the photos, the man I thought I’d been chatting with. I knew instantly I’d been catfished so darted back down the stairs. I was worried the front door would be locked but luckily I escaped. I ran all the way home, checking my back constantly. I was terrified.’

James recalls numerous more accounts of being catfished. ‘On Grindr you get given a rough location of other users. I’m speaking to a guy at the moment who’s incredibly attractive in his photos and constantly tells me he can see me when I’m working out at the gym or queueing in line for a coffee. I’ll look around and won’t be able to see him anywhere but I can see that he is located nearby on the app. I’m certain it’s a catfish. What’s worse is that this guy has [nude] images of me. He told me he lives between two addresses on my road. He’s trying to play with me. It does put me on edge a bit.’

Stories like James’, alongside those plastered across the press, demonstrate cases of catfishing whereby we can assume catfishers want to hurt or control their victims. James is cautious when meeting people online and can’t comprehend the objective of people like those in the stories above. James likes to think, however, that most catfishers ‘play up to the role of the person whose pictures they’re using because they want to be like the person they’re impersonating’ or that they’re ‘simply looking for some pictures of attractive young men’ rather than to intentionally manipulate their victims. James has accepted that catfishers are rife online, and that if people intend to meet others online, the only thing they can do is ‘continue with caution’.

Slumped back on his chair, James tells me, in a cool manner, ‘I have undoubtedly shared personal information and images with a multitude of catfishers, but I try not to let the thought bother me.’ Instead of dwelling on the past, James offers this advice to those using the likes of Grindr:

‘Ask for an image of them holding a specific object. Also, make sure you connect with them on social media; that will at least whittle out the lazy catfishers, those who haven’t bothered to duplicate accounts. And then, before you go and meet anyone online, tell a friend where you’re going.’