[FNxN]

Hi everyone,

I have a catfish tale to tell that happened to me over the course of about 9 years. Yes, I realize that is a long time to be messed with, though to be fair, the last four years my suspicions had grown. This particular catfish is one that was actually also mentioned by another poster here about 4 months ago (Huge Catfish story sic). The details in his story match up too much to be coincidence.

How I got into this person is much like a lot of catfish stories you hear about, the person you interact with is almost too good to be true. We would talk about interests and where we're from which turned out to be that we were both American expats living in northwestern europe. Also the games we played online matched up, mostly World of Warcraft and Eve Online for example. Eventually they sent a picture and bam I was in, a pretty redhead with a brilliant smile. To be sure I was a lonely guy at the time, barely any RL friends to speak of, very little relationship experience and moving between online communities. Unlike the other story mine didn't involve much sexual tension with the catfish until about a year and a bit more ago. But by then I knew something, or rather a lot of things just didn't add up with this person and I was for a lack of a better expression cashing in.

So as we learned from the other post, this person was at it for quite a while. Something like 13-15 years worth so I wasn't the first victim but one of the last in that form. But I'm sure that even after being exposed this summer (2017) they are now building up a totally new identity to continue this junk with new victims. As was stated in the other post, this person had some serious issues going on, real or imagined for effect; Depression, (Selective) Adult Mutism which is an incredibly rare condition and a perfect excuse for never wanting a skype or phonecall. Other things included, ADHD, OCD, Paranoia and PTSD (witnessing the death of their "soulmate" when they were 18 which might actually be their trigger for all of this and I have a theory about that last bit but that's not for this post).

The lies this person used were mostly in the details, but the underlying general pattern or trend in their doings was probably real or true. When I learned of the true nature of this catfish from her 'ex' I was of course blown away for a good amount of hours. He told me this person would tell him about pretending to be other people to others, a catfishception if you will. There were all sorts of tells that I should have picked up on like the constant online presence, barely ever leaving the house, I mean they'd go "dancing" on some weeknights 8 times a year or so. But also strange out of the blue outbursts, random single word messages in steamchat that they'd assume you'd know what to do with and would get miffed or even on occassion mad as hell when you didn't get it. Tangential conversations, topic A would be discarded in a flash for topic B leaving you wondering what the hell just happened.

During all this my family had to endure tragedy. My mother was diagnosed with stage 3 esophigal cancer which had spread to her lymph nodes in her chest and neck. Her chemo and subsequent what's-the-point-to-this-treatment attitude took a toll on my father and me. Then after her chemo was done and the main tumor killed off my dad started to complain about his back, soon he couldn't sit, lie down, walk without excruciating pain, turns out a tumor was tearing a spinal disc apart. He simply gave up and passed away in 2015. This accelerated my already depressed mom's condition, the cancer probably came back around or in her heart and she passed in 2016.

During all this the only person I could turn to was this catfish and I really poured my heart out to them, and they actually supported me in that period as best they could. The relationship we had in the last three or four years had moved on to a friendship, one where I was still quite in love with this person but also very wary of their doings and leavings. Just after my dad passed away I decided it wasn't worth it to persue this person romantically anymore and kept going through the motions nevertheless to placate their own suspicions.

Still they were a good friend overall, I felt I could talk to them about all sorts of things in my life and they shared a few things about themselves. I don't obsess over this person, I moved on the week after I learned about the situation from her 'ex'. I told myself "I f'ing knew it" and shut the door.

Yet even now I feel sorry for whoever this person is but also anger at what they've done, not so much to me but to others who went much deeper into the lies. There's a trail of damaged men and I assume some women left behind this catfish, we're talking over a hundred probably.

Here's the thing. After these 9 years it leaves me wondering, all the times we laughed at events, while watching movies (synched up over Steam) and enjoying stuff. The support I received with my family drama of losing two parents in a span of 13 months. The bond we had over games, various interests etc. Was that real or was it all part of the lie? I felt a genuine friendship at the very least, especially over the last four years despite my misgivings.

I need to find some sort of closure for that last piece of the story.