I Thought I Knew Him Until I Googled Him

He seemed like a great guy on our first date and even more amazing by our third. Turns out, I had no idea he was “reverse catfishing” me. Thank goodness I found out before I wasted even more time. Here’s what happened.

  1. What’s reverse catfishing? As you know, catfishing is when someone lies online to try to impress people or get dates. It can get pretty hectic, with people faking their profile pics and pretending to be completely different people. This guy was doing the opposite: he was faking who he was in real life, pretending to be my perfect match, but when I Google-searched him, I realized he was so not my type.
  2. I always google-search dates. I know it might sound weird or stalkerish, but I like to search the names of my dates on Google. I don’t do it right away after meeting a guy, but I think by date number three it’s good to check out a guy online. I feel like it’s reasonable to want to learn a bit more about the guy by that stage. I want to be sure that we really do make a great match. There are fakers everywhere!
  3. I learn a heck of a lot about guys in this way. For instance, on social media, there are loads of things a guy’s profile can tell me. This guy’s profile was telling me that he’d totally lied about not having female friends. His Facebook timeline was littered with lots of women who were posting on his wall as though they’d been friends for ages. And as for his friend list, it was full of half-naked women in weird poses – you know, those porn-type spam profiles. Ugh.
  4. He’d totally lied to me. He hadn’t just lied about his friends. He’d pretended to be totally charming and respectful, but his Twitter feed had sexist comments on it that he’d posted. On one of our dates, he’d said that his biggest turnoff was bad grammar, yet the guy made so many grammatical errors it was ridiculous. What the hell was going on? Had he tried to be the guy he thought would impress me?
  5. My investigation revealed more. He’d boasted on Facebook about how many times he’d been blocked for posting inappropriate content. He seemed so damn childish! Oh hell no.
  6. Who was the real guy? Was it the sweet, kind guy I’d been on three lovely dates with? Or, was it this sexist, inappropriate guy on social media? I know that everyone’s internet existence varies a bit from who they are in RL, but the problem with this guy is that his RL persona was just too different from who he appeared to be online. It was disturbing.
  7. I feared the online self would come out to play. I could’ve tried to ignore who he was online (yikes), but I feared that sooner or later that online self would show up in RL. How could he hide such strong views and childishness forever? He was putting his best foot forward when dating me, but that wouldn’t last longer than a few months max, and I didn’t want to waste so much time with the wrong man.
  8. We just weren’t a match. Period. Some male friends told me I was exaggerating and taking things out of context, and that I was running with crazy assumptions. But I stuck to my guns. This guy and I just weren’t right for each other. His social media accounts proved that to me. He wasn’t someone I’d be proud to be listed as “in a relationship with” on Facebook.
  9. I second-guessed myself, though. He called me up and asked me out to our fourth date. He had a fun picnic planned that sounded really sweet. Had I made a huge mistake? I had to come clean, though. I told him that I’d looked him up on social media and that I didn’t think we were compatible. Maybe if he explained things we could find a way to make this work? Nope, I was kidding myself.
  10. He told me I was crazy. He tried to tell me that he didn’t think much of social media and – wait for it – he “didn’t really take it seriously.” What does that have to do with anything, FFS? Then he got mean. Apparently, it’s “crazy girl behavior” to look up a guy on the internet when you don’t even know him. WTF?
  11. What about what he’d done? He’d totally tried to fool me by trying to be my perfect guy in RL. It’s normal to want to show people your best self, but come on! And then to call me crazy for looking him up? That’s a low blow.
  12. He acted like his social media was private. It’s not like I snooped through his emails or hacked into his Facebook account, FFS. I just viewed his social media profiles in the same way the rest of the public could. If he felt so violated, then that crap shouldn’t have been there for everyone to see. If he was so embarrassed about it, then he shouldn’t have posted such crap.
  13. I’d rather be called crazy than have nasty surprises later. Screw him. I think it’s everyone’s right to know what someone’s about, and at least to talk about it and be honest when confronted. I want to know what I’m getting into before I take a leap and date someone seriously. I don’t think that’s so crazy.
Giulia Simolo is a writer from Johannesburg, South Africa with a degree in English Language and Literature. She has been working as a journalist for more than a decade, writing for sites including AskMen, Native Interiors, and Live Eco. You can find out more about her on Facebook and LinkedIn, or follow her on Twitter @GiuliaSimolo.
close-link
close-link