I got catfished

The summer of 2015 was intense: sitting on my couch binge-watching every single show on Netflix while keeping my eyes glued to my phone.

My eyes were glued to my phone because of one reason and one reason only, Tinder. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I found myself entangled in the words of a man I’d never met. Simply, I fell in love.

His name was Brian. He was a 24-year-old, home care nurse from Massena, NY. He lived on a ranch filled with horses whom he took care of.

He was my dream guy, and he wasn’t real.

Brian reminded me of the stereotypical bad boy every gay guy searches for. He was the pulsating, sweat-dripping image of masculinity, and the best part was he actually was gay.

I was a swooning mess. But I mean, look at him. Wouldn’t you be too? (You can say no, but the SU Yik Yaks prove your thirst is real).

After about a solid month of back-and-forth communications between the both of us from May to June, things started to get…weird.

Around early July, I began to notice patterns. Whenever he texted me the messages would send from a regular cell number, but whenever he sent pictures, they came from the app, TextNow. Brian, like any good catfish was busy whenever I wanted to talk on the phone. Whenever he attempted to call me I would hear on the other end was static.

I was growing quickly impatient, and then it happened. The day came when he asked me out on a date.

To accommodate for my busy rehearsal schedule mid-July for a production of Legally Blonde, Brian invited me to dinner and asked me to bring along two of my cast-mates from the show.

I got all dressed up and invited my two best friends, Derek Sager (Bridgeport, NY) and Tiffany Smalls (Potsdam, NY) along with me. We set aside two hours for dinner, on the same night as an important dress rehearsal for Legally Blonde.

The three of us waited. And waited. And waited.

He stood us up.

The weirdest part is, to this day, I’m not even mad he stood me up- I’m furious he invited my friends along and stood them up too. My friends, who have never done a single thing wrong to another person in their lives… were stood up by this impostor. That infuriates me.

Brian and I stopped talking around the end of August. He tried calling things off on his terms, saying “things aren’t working out the way I’d like, so I think we’d be best as just friends.” Considering he was the one who stepped over me all Summer long- I did what any angry man stuck in the sweltering Upstate New York summer heat would do.

I lied and told him I was talking to another man who made me happier.

So long catfish.

To get some closure I put both his pictures and his phone number through a backwards Google search.

The pictures, brought back no results. But, the phone number brought up an address, an old farm in Massena, NY. Although I have the address, I have yet to go and visit myself . I desperately want to contact Nev and Max of Catfish, as they’re currently casting for Season Five. But honestly, I don’t know if I have the stamina to handle the man hunt on top of my first semester course load.

So, what do you guys think?

I’ll leave you with the wise words of a friend, Kyra: “As much as it can seem innocent, you never do know what people who are looking at your photos on social media are doing with those photos.”