The time I met a beautiful blo....oh wait, no, I got Catfished!

So, for some inexplicable reason whilst I was bored but wanting to write something, I decided to put it to Twitter to choose on what topic. Though I did slyly make a suggestion about something that happened to me once that I thought might get a few nods of approval – as I thought I’d written about it before, but I hadn’t. What was it you ask? Oh it’s a bit of a gem….I once got Catfished.

To set the scene, it’s about 5 years ago. I’m a young fresh whippersnapper. Ok I’m not, I’m a mid-20’s (ish, oi don’t laugh you prick) bloke who lives in the same place I live now, with the same hairstyle, single etc. i.e. not much has changed. ANYWAY… I’m still tweeting my little face off, merrily on high, loving life.

I had a mutual follower for quite some time who I’d seen tweet a few times about things like music, which I had the odd brief chat about, and some other nonsense which I remember sparked the odd bit of ‘ubermegaultrabantz’, you know, as I do. It just so happened that this follower was named Hollie, who was a blonde with an, erm, shall we say, attractive physique who over the course of Summer had posted a couple of pics wearing like skimpy tops and cut-offs, she had a shoulder tattoo and some wording down her ribs (OI I AM NOT SHALLOW OK!! IT JUST HAPPENED THAT WAY). I remember I was at home watching a film or something and checked Twitter to see she’d tweeted something along the lines of anyone bored and fancy a chat – I thought fuck it, if you want to win the lottery you got to buy a ticket, or at least reply ‘yes’ to a tweet, either or. So I did, next thing she’s sent me her number and said to call, so call I did. She lives in Wolves, that was on her profile, so the accent matched up, i.e. I could hardly understand a fucking word she was saying, but of course I knew I was speaking to someone I thought was alright, so I gave my verbal nods with absolute gusto and made sure whenever I had no idea what she was talking about to laugh and go ‘aww that’s BRILLIANT’. A tactic I’ve adopted to anyone I speak to on the phone these days. The call was fine, wasn’t awkward and a bit of a laugh, she was a nurse in Wolves who was big into music and had a Soundcloud as fancied herself a bit of a singer. Don’t we all.

We said bye and that was it, no harm. Then later on we started texting a bit, then she gave me another call the next day, and had another chat. Well, this carried on for a couple of weeks, texting and chatting – I figured there’s no harm, it’s nice to speak to someone who makes me chuckle (presumably, still, not quite sure what she’s saying some of the time). She’s explained her plan is to move to London and then to really push her music out there, which makes sense. Lovely stuff I chortle, to no one, she’d hung up minutes before.

Skip forward a month or so, and I get a text from her saying she’s found a place in London and work have agreed to her transfer! Buzzing, I say, probably, I can’t remember. And that was set, she was moving down in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile whilst this went on, she knew I was in Brighton and had said she’s visited a couple of times and would defo when she moved down, in fact her mate was down here and owned a bar I was partially familiar with. We had a brief twitter exchange and said hi etc, he seemed alright. She also said she was moving in with her mate who was already in London, a girl called Jess. Oh, I should note these are the names, I’m not hiding them or changing them or using silly nicknames like ‘Miss pants sniffer’ or ‘sir cheesealot’ or ‘BIG’ like I’ve seen some people do, on the basis that with a first name YOU STILL DON’T HAVE A CLUE, NOR CARE, WHO THE FUCK THESE PEOPLE ARE. (pet hate, stupid online nicknames). Add into this mix there’s another girl on Twitter who is Hollie’s mate, and they have a lot of interaction about how much they love one another. It’s a wonderful time to be alive, presumably.

She moves down. She’s in London, lovely. She’s living with Jess. Cool. Meanwhile I go for a job at work, I don’t get it (‘Don’t cry for me, for there are no more tears to give’ – is that a quote? Because if it’s not, it fucking should be. You’re all welcome) and she calls me to say sorry blah blah and says she’s going to cheer me up, and low and behold she sends me a pic, like all good women do. However, in hindsight this really should have been a metaphor for someone to just slap me in the face and call me a right pillock. I remember looking at it, it was a pretty blonde in lingerie but something just wasn’t quite right with it (alright lads, keep it in your pants) with no tattoos. I text her saying cheers looking good was it taken just now, and she’s like yep – which I then replied about oh where’s the rib tattoo gone? She kind of did that ‘lol’ reply (WHICH I FUCKING HATE, HATE HATE HATE ONE WORD REPLIES WHICH ARE LOL!!!!) then said something and I thought oh fair enough. God I wish I could remember what it was, but I just went with it.

A month passes, we speak a bit, she’s now been signed to a record label based on her Soundcloud which she’s buzzing about. Meanwhile bar bloke in Brighton has been asking me who am I to Hollie, it’s all a bit awkward as I’m not really anyone, I ask the same, he says they used to hook up when she came down. Fair play to that man, I mean by looking at him REALLY fair play. Jess has followed me on Twitter, and has lots of bantz with Hollie. Hollie’s mum has randomly followed me, she doesn’t say much, the milf. Hollie’s best mate follows me too and I can see their tweets where it seems they recently went to a Beyoncé gig together. I’ve decided by this time we need to hang out, as it’s miles better than these chats and texts and whatnot, especially as London isn’t far. She agrees, great. We make a date, 2 days before though she can’t make it as her shifts are crazy and she’s called into work (Nurse, London, works all hours).

Bear in mind we’re in contact daily, and there’s talk of liking one another and all this shit (Yes yes, it was years ago, I’ve learned. OR HAVE I. I have, shut up and stop laughing). Her Twitter followers have increased from like 100 to about 1500, which doesn’t mean a thing but she’s buzzing saying her music is getting her the attention, I ask what label as I ‘know a little about music’, you know, like a grandad might say. So I go to check it out, it’s cool, Tinie Tempah is on the label, I look through the roster excited to see her name, but funny, I can’t. I check the sub label to make sure, nothing. I google the name and not getting much. Maybe they haven’t gotten round to updating it, no bother. Well, some bother, as by now I’ve got a very sure feeling something isn’t adding up, the pic thing was bothering me, she also ‘tried’ to get Skype working for me but couldn’t, and not arranging a date to meet was frustrating me. I got annoyed at her, fucked her off, so we didn’t speak for a little while.

Then it all goes a little mental. She tells me out the blue on Twitter she’s coming down if I was around for a drink or something, whilst her Twitter followers have gone from 1500 to 40k. 40k?!?! How the fuck does that even happen! Jess her mate tells me she’s looking forward to meeting me too as she’s coming down and that Hollie really likes me. Hollie’s mum doesn’t say much but likes one of my tweets, that naughty little treacle. The bar bloke see’s this and he’s tweeting her about what a big night she’ll have if she visits him and I should come along too.

 I wake up the day she’s due to come down – and my Twitter has gone mental, but all from this bar bloke. He’s DM’d me saying what exactly was going on with her, as she’s promised him she’s staying at his and they will hook up– and I can’t remember how it went, but I said about how they used to go out anyway so if they were hooking up then fine as I’d cooled off a bit. He then told me they hadn’t ever met, she just used to flirt with him online but encouraged him to make it obvious they had been a thing on Twitter. But she had told him her and I had hooked up a few times which had driven him a little loopy, I was like wtf, NO. I then go and speak to her best mate and ask about what Hollie was like at the Beyoncé concert, where she says that about an hour before she said she couldn’t make it but her cousin was going instead, so that she was with her cousin who sounded a bit of a weird recluse, and had never actually met Hollie but just responded to her tweets. Then about half an hour later the bloke then tells me to call Hollie, and look at her Twitter. So I call, phone is disconnected, odd. I check her Twitter, it’s been deleted, very odd. Her mate Jess is deleted, and her Mum, the absolute salty potato is also deleted. Then he shows me to look at this other @ which I do, it’s Hollie – except it’s not. It’s some other name I genuinely forget, who is absolutely KICKING OFF at Hollie asking why she’s stolen all her pics and has called the police! Police then actually get involved and have found out who it is and shut off ALL her social media. Turns out she really was from Wolves and a nurse, but had never moved to London and looked a fair bit different, also had a Soundcloud but was awful, and apparently had bought her followers – she also created Jess and her mum (the bloke and best mate were real but had never met her). It was pretty crazy day I must say.

All in all this was probably around 4-5 months in total from start to finish, and whilst I had some nagging feelings, I genuinely thought as I was speaking to someone who I got on with, and ultimately it was my choice to carry on chatting away and whatnot. It just got so out of hand, but she had some things that I just hadn’t considered, Jess/Mum creations, the move all the other stuff, it just kind of convinced me she was real, well not convinced but enough to keep me keen. Ultimately it’s also a symptom of me being single, and dare I say it, fairly alone. It was nice to have some attention at a fairly rubbish time in my life, but never did I expect that to happen! However the beauty is, I’ve certainly learned my lesson – I’ve only been catfished 8 times since. I jest, I have not once, and I’ve learned to look for signs (that yes you’re probably all very familiar with now, and the TV show is pretty good at it too) but as they say what doesn’t kill you, makes you look a total fucking idiot. And women, see, you too could reach this lofty aspirations!