CATFISHING

CATFISHING

I’m not a huge Omegle person, but from time to time, you can find me browsing the interwebs, traversing the bumpy, pillar-like landscape of obscene images, to the pre-pubescent tweens of yesteryear.

My camera is always dark, not blocked, just dark, and my face, my face is always hidden. I’m a voyeur, but an abashed one at best, one foot in the door of the unknown, the other safely nestled in the tangle of extension cords under my desk. I don’t know, I have a semblance of a normal life, something that pertains to a loose description of an angsty teenager rebelling in the mirage of the American dream, but we don’t have to get into all that. We don’t have to get into divorced parents, or crippling porn addictions, or anything too shameful. That’s not what this story is about.

You surf through the dicks and shit enough on a regular basis, you start noticing the cyclical patterns associated with the experience. There’s the teenage boys with obnoxious laughs and the high school couple judging each person they come across. There’s the musicians, singers, talent-wanna-be’s who think they’re building their brand, when really they’re just another jerkoff on Omegle begging that somebody somewhere gives a fuck. There’s the hot chick lying on her bed looking bored as hell, but not-so-secretly hoping she runs into her prince fucking charming, her white (or black, or yellow) knight with a presence like Moses. He raises his monitor and sea of dicks splits in half, and the glorious internet pathways that connect us for the sake of globalistic imperialism guide two wayward souls together. The two then live happily ever after in the realm of cyberspace and phone sex, while the rest of the losers keep searching, keep looking for that one person that will save them from themselves.

Look, I’m not saying people aren’t deserving of love and happiness, and whatever form that takes in the modern era. In fact, I would go as far to say that love evolves, relationships change with the given technology. Much of the interbreeding of society, the melding of culture and the rising tide of growing empathy must be attributed to the development of the grand wide web. I’m just fucking jaded. I’m just jaded from catfishing. Because I thought I had love, I thought I had the modern, contemporary, anti-conservative, pro space-liberation, neo-matrix bullshit that they told me was impossible. My whole life they told me that my internet world was fake. That it wasn’t “real” life. And I believed it; I thought I was this phony hiding behind a screen, living a fucking lie. But then I met this one person, this one person who made me think that it wasn’t me that was fucked up, it was everyone else. We had that grandline, that electric connection of two peas in a nuclear reactor. But alas, catfishing occurred.

It started off innocent enough. Just chatting, no video, tense exchanges of tiny details of our lives that alluded to greater suffering. If you know, you know. But with time, we both wanted more and more, or at least I knew I did. I wanted to consume their life and become one with them, and grow out of the identity that was slowly becoming me. Like I said earlier, I’m not going to get into all that bullshit of “reality,” or whatever the hell you want to call late stage capitalism is. No one has time for politics anymore.

We slowly became friends, sharing stories with no specific purpose, little vulnerable details that painted the fuller picture of who we were. The more I got to know my friend, the more I realized that we were oh so similar. Our fears, our hopes, what we wanted to be versus what we were, there was so much overlap it sometimes felt like we were the same. By this time, we had transitioned off of Omegle, and were now texting each other. My friend wanted to video call, but I refused. I was shy. I wasn’t confident in my appearance. I was the type of kid who grew hair out long and let it hang over my eyes. This didn’t deter my friend. They promised that no matter what they would accept me. I recorded the conversation (they didn’t know I was recording):

“[redacted], this is really out of nowhere… but I want to see you. Not just on skype or discord, but in person, you know, like irl. I know you’re insecure, and I’m scared too, but I… you’re my best friend. You’re the person I care most about in my whole entire life. You’re the only one I can talk to. I promise, whatever you look like, even if you smell bad haha… I don’t care. I don’t like you because of all that bullshit everyone else cares about, I like you for what’s in your head, for what’s in your heart.”

And what the hell could I say to that? I couldn’t say no. It turns out, my friend only lived thirty miles for me. We agreed to meet at a halfway point in a town called Montville. The night before, we agreed not to talk, and my stomach was a mess. I tried masturbating to calm myself, but it just agitated me even more. What if, despite everything my friend said, they hated me? What if the honesty and vulnerability we had shared meant nothing in the face of the bodies which we couldn’t handle? If they rejected me, for who I really was in flesh and blood, I didn’t think I could go on. I know, right? Dramatic. Sorry some of us suck at this thing called life.

But I did go. I got on that bus (after shitting my brains out), and counted each stop in my head. I counted the steps off the bus to the shitty diner we had googled together. But as I reached the door, my heart filled with a surprising surge of confidence, the type of can’t-lose-shit mentality that I never had. I opened those sweet, stained-glass doors and I owned that entire fucking restaurant. I was fucking invincible.

No one even looked my way. I strode forward, with a soldier-like gait I was emulating from WW2 movies I’d seen. My eyes were on the prize. I was going to be me, the best version of myself that I could be, and if that wasn’t enough, then that was that. Then I would move on, go forward with my life.

And that’s when, I heard a small voice behind me:

[redacted]? Is that you?

Poof. Just like that, confidence gone to shit. I turned with the suave of melting ice cream, eyeballs grinding in their sockets to stay forward. Me, a being of utter will, trapped in a predicament of my own makings. And there they were.

I don’t want to go into details about what I saw, but let’s just say it wasn’t what I expected from my (former) friend's voice. A queasy smile ran across their face, with a little nervous wave. They beckoned for me to come forward. My body instinctively recoiled.

That was enough. I was out of there. Without saying a word, I began my stoic march back, this time not bothering to count my steps. I could feel eyes peeling into the back of my head, with each step further and further, and I knew if I looked back, like Perseus, Medusa would turn me into stone. When I reached the street, I started running, intent on doing the whole fifteen miles. But like most people who spend all their time on the internet, I was incredibly out of shape. I did five minutes before I googled the nearest bus stop.

My phone was blowing up with notifications.

[redacted]?

[redacted]????

Where are you going? Did I do something wrong?

What happened?

Are you okay?

Please [redacted], please come back.

Breathing heavily, I sat down on the curb of the sidewalk. There was this miserable feeling welling up inside that the adrenaline was keeping a cap on, but it was only a matter of time before it welled over. I went through my contacts, skype, discord, any form of communication I had had with my friend, and blocked them on everything. Feeling a little better about myself, I continued onward. It was a long walk to the nearest bus stop (half a mile).

And yeah, I guess that’s why I’m jaded about this whole experience. I spent all this time building up this person in my head, and they weren’t nearly as hot as I thought they would be. So now, I’m back to scrolling through dicks like the rest of these fucks.