My Catfish Story

Before you even think it, no, I did not email Nev and Max from MTV's show Catfish about this here experience! I want you all to just read, laugh, and be amused by my naivety.

So late 2008, as I've already mentioned in a previous blog, I've been online dating for sometime now and back then was no different. Except now, there is Tinder, POF, Bumble, etc, that kind of makes things a little more harder to be cat-fished unless you're an idiot...like me.

Anyways, I met this guy on Tagged, yes, we ALL remember Tagged, don't we? Geesh, talk about LOOKING to be cat-fished eh?

Well back in 2008 I met this guy who we will refer to as "Lance" on Tagged. He was from Cairo, Egypt and I really enjoyed talking to him. We would text back and forth, talk on the phone early in the morning (because of the time difference), and we just had a genuine connection.

The only red flag there was is that we NEVER video chatted, and I didn't think to bring it up.

I had done long distance relationships in the past and so the distance wasn't alarming, nor was it a deal breaker for me. I'm one of those "willing" types.

Willing to stick it out, willing to give you the benefit of a doubt, willing to forgive you, and so on.

Lance and I talked for about 4 months consistently before talk about visiting each other came up. Lance asked if I would like to visit Egypt and I told him "yes, of course"! I also explained to him that I was a student with no money, but that wasn't a problem, as Lance was offering to pay for my entire trip.

You see, according to him, his family had a lot of money (this didn't come up until the talk about the ticket...I ain't no GOLD-DIGGER!). He assured me that his father would take care of all the arrangements. We started making plans for me to come summer of 2009, and let me tell you all how I was ALL on board to be kidnapped (LOL, this is what I think about all the time now when I reflect on this experience).

Okay so, look how GOD continues to intervene in my life. I swear to you, I CANNOT make this up!

So like a month or two after Lance and I started making plans for me to come to Egypt, I received a message on Facebook from this lady who told me I shouldn't trust Lance.

You see, Lance and I were Facebook friends, and so we exchanged lots of affectionate things on each other's Facebook wall from time to time, so for someone who knew Lance but didn't know me to contact me, wasn't so odd.

Let's call my guardian angel, Shayla.

So Shayla continues trying to convince me that Lance wasn't who he said he was but I wasn't taking the bait. As she's going on ranting in my Facebook inbox, I'm thinking this is some jealous ex-girlfriend trying to take my man.

So Shayla says to me that she had met Lance online as well and that she had been chatting with him for weeks! She said they were to eventually meet up but he never showed. She said she did some searching and she happened to come across a profile with the exact profile picture at Lance's!

Once she said that, she had my FULL attention.

She then sent me the link to the other page, and guess what? The page was LEGIT.

Lance was a CATFISH!

And here I was thinking I was going to someday be some kind of Egyptian princess, living in the lap of luxury for the rest of my life (a girl can dream, right?)! Instead, I was about to kidnapped and probably turned into some kind of sex slave!

Man, oh man! I couldn't believe it!

The REAL Lance's page was legit because there were family members that were on the page commenting and liking photos and real persons with real Facebook accounts were being tagged and everything!

So, I decided to go back to MY Lance's page and take a thorough look.

Lance had about 100 friends (pretty low for even a loner), most of whom were women around my age. How did I not pick up on this? Oh, I know how! I was too busy being wooed over the phone by his sexy voice! That's how!

I thanked Shayla for contacting me and then I gave Lance a call. I told him what I had come across and he confessed....yup, just like that!

No excuses, no further lies, just the truth.

Then he sent me a REAL photo of himself, and let me tell you, it was best he had kept me thinking he was the real Lance, because THAT catfish ladies and gentleman was a sight for sore eyes, and my eyes were working JUST FINE! He actually looked like a CATFISH! Have you guys ever seen one? Well, here you go:

I couldn't hang up the phone any faster. I blocked and deleted Lance, and I deleted my Tagged account!

Things were just getting too crazy for my life!

Happy to report though, that I have not yet been cat-fished again! 10 years strong! Yay for me!

#catfish #lies #deceit #kidnapped #sexslave #Egyptian #princess