Have You Ever Been Catfished? The Ugly Side of Online Dating
Andres C. Escobar | December 9, 2021
Catfishing is a practice associated with deception in an online relationship to gain emotional, confidence, and in some cases financial benefits.
Catfishing and online dating scams are becoming more common in our society as we are shaping our relationships towards a more modern and open approach where we look for a suitable partner that fulfills our expectations. In the attempt of doing so, people engage in a self-presentation process where they try to be as good as possible to leave a proper impression and have different people to choose from. This leaves doubts when wanting to know someone because it might be too good to be true or it can be authentic.
These platforms are demanding our trust in return for a superficial attachment that provides us with love.
Catfishing shows us the importance of the degree of manipulation and deception online sites contain as people tend to show who they are not in reality. Research shows that our awareness of potential scams in online dating sites has increased as 35% of catfishing victims present post-psychological and emotional distress that creates feelings of self-doubt, embarrassment, trust issues, lack of self-esteem, and sometimes monetary loss.
Catfishing itself is an online dating process where there is a perpetrator and a victim — the perpetrator is the catfisher, and the victim the catfishee. It is practiced due to a variety of reasons ranging from insecurities, anonymity and revenge to mental illness, harassment, and identity exploration. It is important to acknowledge that catfishing is always misleading because the catfishee in every case will face the negative consequences of the relationship that, in the best of cases, ends in deception, and the worst-case scenario, ends in heartbreak, financial loss, and self-questioning.
The first phase of catfishing aims to maintain daily communication with the catfishee to establish a trusting atmosphere where they have lots of things in common that seem attractive to the catfishee; this lasts between 6-8 months but it depends on every relationship. The second phase is trying to hook up and potentially meet. However, the catfisher creates barriers in this phase to maintain manipulation of the catfishee while asking for money to cover “unexpected circumstances” that avoided them from meeting. The final phase is when the victim sends constant money to finally meet the catfisher, but due to the avoidance from the catfisher’s end, the victim starts thinking twice and questioning the intentions of his or her “partner.” They then break off the relationship after a high emotional and financial cost. This means that if you are being deceived you are being catfished.
You can imagine feeling played by someone you didn’t even know, which is a very painful process where people start showing signs of anger, denial, self-blame, and accepting their vulnerability. This is caused because, as humans, we are actively seeking support and nurture to fill our social desires which reinforces and rewards human bonding when we connect with others. This ends in a release of dopamine and oxytocin that are known as “happy hormones,” and when these systems are activated, they suppress parts of our reasoning — we are more likely to trust the object or person that has our affection, and we are less aware to the consequences of the behavior of that object or person.
Despite the clear consequences of catfishing, research has found that in the U.S., 66% of internet users seemed to think online dating was dangerous for the group that was active in online dating sites, followed by 43% of people that didn’t participate in online dating who thought it was risky. Nonetheless, 52% of people did not think it was a dangerous activity even though there are concerns about safety and physical risks including STI, financial loss, emotional breakdown, anxiety, and depression.
Sadly, catfishing has taken a lot of people’s desire to find their significant other, and in my experience knowing people that had been catfished in Colombia, I can say that after that happened to them they have been more careful about their online relationships and can read people’s intentions better through the phone. After what they went through, they realized how naive, inexperienced, and vulnerable they were, and today every time they have an online relationship they take “safety measures” to avoid going through that again. Some of their strategies were to set a meeting spot and during the meeting time, they would hide and see if the person they were talking to was real; if it was real they would go meet them and if not they would leave. Other strategies were trying to set topics that certain genders know more about as they could see the inconsistencies in their texts.
To summarize, even if you haven’t been catfished I think this article can help you acknowledge how vulnerable we are once we develop feelings for someone and how that can negatively affect us. Therefore, I hope this brings clarity to online daters and people who are inexperienced in relationships because once you are being misled, you are being catfished.
As online daters, you need to be careful of who you hook up with and know your boundaries towards these platforms. It is better to be calculative before you get to know the person you are talking to.
Second, in any circumstance, do not send money regardless of how bad and sad it sounds if you haven’t known the person long enough to have this level of trust.
Finally, just take care of yourself and be mindful of how you can be at risk, and act fast before it is too late. Despite the lack of authenticity and reliability of these platforms, once you break the anonymity part of the person and get to them, this is where you can start opening up.
