Controvery of a Catfish

As I sit to write this it’s a composition I am not quite sure where to start. From the top? From the fruit of my love for someone I met over a decade ago who has since gone on to become the kind of human I can’t help but respect and wish more than anything could be able to love in the way that he deserves? It’s hard to say where I should start and I don’t really want to name anyone in particular while I talk about this so I am going to use initials for each person. For myself I will use ‘S’ and for the REAL person I have had feelings for after so long I will use ‘RJ’ for the CATFISH I will use ‘CJ’

To begin, I should probably admit that I wanted it to be RJ so bad that though I noticed several red flags; enough to even follow my cousin’s advice and contact MTV’s Catfish and ask them about ways to get ahold of the RJ or possibly confirm if CJ was, in fact, RJ. The thing about this was the way that CJ presented himself and the amount of knowledge he had made him a prime candidate for believing. He knew so much about my online past with RJ and our character creations. He even had information relevant to other affiliates both RJ and I knew and even cared for to various degrees; friends, exes, co-creators, etc. Here’s where I point out that RJ is a very talented wordsmith and mixes fantastic music. He is incredibly talented and someone that many of our mutual friends respect, despite rumor mills that run rampant all over; there are a few things that make him unique and highly regarded. And, so when CJ showed up pretending to be RJ it was easy to become beguiled.

As time went on, I began to realize that some things were inconsistent about CJ. I wanted to call him, have some video chats on apps such as Discord and if things kept progressing well – eventually even meet. As I believed this was a person I had known for a long time thinking it was RJ. CJ began to go into rages and be accusatory, to gaslight me, to make allegations against my character and then to ask me to do writing in text-based format that was debasing and when I vocalized my disgust with the continual provocation of my boundaries and having myself treated with such tactfully manipulative behavior; it became clear that this person, CJ, did not have the same character traits as RJ does.

And yet every time I attempted to break free of this CJ became even more tactical. Hoping to try to frame things against me to appear like I had done something wrong for defining my boundaries and asking for transparency with a person who was telling me they considered us a real item and was constantly making allegations against me that I was not even entertaining.

After the first six months of continual abuse, CJ having brought in another person to ask me to write scenarios within an RP setting, decided to admit he had been playing that role of that supposed third party also whom we shall call K for the sake of not naming innocent parties. But this was only after offering to try to publicly shame me for written fictional content between two consenting adults; which I did voice upset with writing time and time again, but feeling coerced not to break it off since this person stalked me with numerous (at least four as well as emailing me) profiles on Discord and also on another website, I felt like I could not just break up with him without him stating outwardly that I would regret it and to add him back before he got angry.

Typical narcissistic gaslighting.

And because I did try to reach out to the real RJ but he is very busy with his life, and could not prove the catfish was not RJ made it easier for CJ to continue with his illusion.

I even noticed that he spent more and more time not speaking with me and he offered for there to be an open relationship, despite knowing this was not my style of arrangement and that I was asking for a real relationship with someone since I was dating with intent or to just be left alone. There was never any real relationship with CJ, and now looking over the truth since RJ came to speak with me in the past twenty-four hours; I was warned not to believe anything CJ says further and RJ made it clear he was concerned for my welfare and would never do such underhanded things – which is why I knew to keep trying to reach out to him no matter how many doors I had to go through, but mostly I feel like letting others know what to watch for and how easy it is to have someone find details and try to present themselves as someone you know and care for, and how far some people will go to play this kind of game.

It’s a horrible reality to add to the dating scene and a new way of injuring others. This person didn’t just victimize me but also RJ since his good name was used and CJ behaved in nefariously narcissistic manners. To make matters worse, CJ even told me of other situations where he catfished other members of a community and wearing the guise of the same pseudonym. This person did not care to do anything but defame others in their predatory online game and, when outed, thought they had the right to be angry for it?

You would think this would have been the end of it once they were found out for what they were, but instead they have continued to try to coerce me by threatening to post the screenshots of roleplay content onto other social media pages of important influences, but you see for me that bears no real consequence and validates the entirety of my claims as this person has now used 5 different Discord accounts, 7 accounts on another website, and 3 different emails to attempt to continue their stalking and harassment of me despite my wishes to be free of it.

As a result, I have reached out to Discord Trust and Safety regarding the multi-account harassment and hope they will do their part to end this person's toxic charade.

At this point, I do have legal grounds but my real purpose for this is to inform people of how easily this can occur. And the levels of toxicity it can undertake, and, so the moral of the story here is anyone can experience this.

But for me it is heavier to note that my feelings for RJ are, in fact, true and I would love the chance to meet him after all those years; he’s a real friend through and through.