The Liars Part 1: Gender, Catfishes, and Online Relationships

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Is pretending to be another gender online OK?


Would it bother you if someone you'd become quite friendly with online turned out to be the opposite gender to what they claimed? Assuming this is only friendship nothing more; maybe you've swapped a few pms or emails thinking they were a particular gender. Maybe done a bit of low level flirting. 

Would you feel a bit betrayed or would it not bother you? Does the gender of a person online even really matter?

Gender doesn't matter to me, but honesty certainly does.

Like really, I don't care if you're a girl, boy, gay, or straight. Heck, you could be into hentai and I wouldn't give two shits. But if you do lie, please, for the love of god and all that's good please don't let it get to the point where you start living in a lie.

MTV has this show Catfish. Maybe you've heard of it, maybe you haven't. (Catfish, not to be confused with Cat-Fish the sex position...)

"A catfish is someone who assumes a false identity on the Internet using various platforms including but not limited to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and *cough cough* apparently Wattpad. Someone who pretends to be someone they are not online to create false identities, particularly to pursue deceptive online romances." Thank you urban dictionary.

Here's a conversation with one of my followers who inspired me to introduce you guys to this type of peron.

JackSmiles: I was trying to think of a certain type of person for you but... I actually couldn't think of a good one apart from fake boys.

 Oh and another thing that gets me is 'shared' accounts.. oh lord.

MorkieLuver (aka mwah): Shared accounts. Interesting. Go on...can you elaborate a little more?

JackSmiles: It's the ones like 'the_emo_boyz' or 'dem_sexy_guys'.. honestly I could name like 150 but apparently 8 gorgeous looking tumblr boys all share the same account! They look like this:

Jayce: 16 Straight Single Massive flirt, pm me girls ;) I like surfing and the beach

Josh: 15 Straight Shy but nice if you get to know me.. I love basket ball

Chad: 16 Bi (but prefers girls) Huge flirt <3 …

[followed by another ten names and descriptions really similar]

Then they put as their status... 'ask for one of us if you want to chat ;)' SO ARE THEY ALL LIVING IN THE SAME ROOM?! I just.. can't deal with that. No. Yeah uhm.. No.   

MorkieLuver: Like honestly how many "attractive" guys (not to mention that they're like the same age) actually go on wattpad or even tumblr in the first place. So I highly doubt like a whole bunch of guys just came together and made an account... I get you dude. I'll totally try to add that in my book.  


The guy made a good point. I'm pretty sure a group of 10 attractive guys (gay or straight) would make an online profile to meet girls or guys. If they were as 'good looking' as they claim then, well damn they would be out getting their freak on. I highly doubt they would spend the majority of their time behind a computer screen. But if I just happen to be wrong, then dress me up and call me Sally I'd like to meet these people.

There have been times when I go on shared account profile and they'll have like a bunch of guys in the background/profile pic and they'll be all like "Guess Who Is Who teehee!?".

Adding random pictures of people doesn't give any valadity to the fact you are obvisoulsy lying. In reality it just shows how much trouble you'd go through just to try and make your lie more "legit".

How to tell if someone is lying about their gender:

-First, online liars tended to avoid the topics about which they lied in their profiles. If they lied about their weight, they avoided using food-related words. If their photos lied about their appearance, they wrote more in their self-descriptions about work and other achievements to deflect attention away from the lies they produced about their looks.

-Second, liars tended to use fewer words in general. The less said, the less likely they are to be caught in a lie.

That's why the catfishers/liars generally put vague profile descriptions such as "I love basketball, been playing for forever! <33!!!

Oh really now? How long have you played? What position? What leagues?

Catfisher: No comment.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. Fool me a third time, bitch what the eff is your problem...

-Third, liars stayed away from expressing negative emotions. They wanted to exude a positive image, and that meant leaving out anything that could be interpreted as a downer.

Now this whole 'Catfishing' thing is a two way street. It shows you're either

A) too naive to see someone is blantaly lying to you

or

B) too thirsty to even care. (Please refer to my earlier chapter "The Relationship Seekers" for more info on this particular person)

It's one thing if your partnered in real life and you want to have fun in world but starting and maintaining a relationship based on text conversations and visual pixels is fleeting and completely absurd. And if your that hard up for attention and the visual pixels turn you on then you deserve to get taken by that sweet little fairy girl who's real name is Bob from Utah and breeds cows for a living

 There would be too many questions going around my head around why they lied abot their gender. What were they hiding? Were they originally planning something sinister? Were they chuckling to themselves for conning me? etc.

How to avoid liars on the internet: 

Simple.

Don't trust anybody online for who,or what, they say they are....works for me.

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