With the new phenomenon of Catfish I decided I should weigh in as well. Catfish is a documentary-reality show on MTV following the lives of people in online relationships. The creator Nev Schulman and Max Joseph decided to make a series out of it since their movie, also called Catfish, had been a huge success. If you haven’t watched it yet, you must!
The reason for its success is because thousands, if not millions of people around the world consider finding the one online, which is perfectly fine. As I’ve written before my boyfriend and I met after years of chatting online, but it was never a relationship via phone or email. I was extremely smart on how to go about whether someone was a fraud or not. These people who are featured on Catfish– not so much.
If you do the online dating, here is my personal guide which can now become your personal guide on what to do and look for:
1. Get pictures from them. Nothing you’ve seen already on their profiles. Also make sure that he sends you a picture holding a piece of paper saying whatever you want written on it.
2. If you met them on Facebook for instance stalk his page like you’re the CIA. Look at comments, friends, pictures, dates of the uploads on pictures. Anything to make sure this is a real person with real friends/family.
3. What I learned from Nev is you can paste their picture onto google image and see what comes up. If multiple files pop up there’s another red flag.
4. Check their credentials. If they state they work for a certain company, use your friend google and find out about it and ask in-depth questions about his position. If they get agitated then a red flag should raise.
5. Just texting and not talking after having asked more than 3 times is an issue. If you have time to text you have time to speak. If you have time to pick your nose you have time to speak. There should be no excuse after the third time asking.
6. If the “man” you’re talking to sounds like a chick probably is a chick.
7. Skype! FaceTime! Whichever, must be done. They might say they don’t have a camera or can’t afford one, but there’s a way to make it happen. They can buy one from Walmart and return after a few days or so. This is just to be 10000% sure this is the real person.
8. Their excuses to not meet or talk on the phone should be very carefully examined. Many excuses can range from breaking a finger, to a family member dying to them getting in a car accident. These are plausible incidents, but people don’t usually have that much bad luck.
Those are 8 key pointers if you decide to go in that direction. Let these guide you and trust me you won’t be disappointed in the end when it turns out to be a flop.
