Am I A Catfish?

I love watching MTV’s Catfish, and I especially love watching Nev bring couples together and expose liars.  It makes me sad that so many people feel like they are not good enough, and need to fake parts of their lives. It’s all too easy to forget that this program isn’t just entertainment – this is something that affects a lot of people and can ruin relationships – present & future.

According to datingadvice.com more than half of online daters believe they’ve seen someone with fake information on their profile, while over half of Americans admit to faking information on their own profiles. I think we would all say that we present the best version of ourselves online, but where do we draw the line between editing ourselves and straight up lying?

If you’re using a photo of someone else, that would make you a catfish. What if the photo is of you, but it has been photoshopped? – is that still a lie? And what if the photo is of you, and hasn’t been edited, but you’re wearing full makeup, fake lashes, fake tan, contact lenses and a wig, resulting in a photo that looks significantly different to your usual face?

I’ve had guys turn up for dates several years older than what they looked like in the photo they had posted. I felt like I can’t really accuse them of anything, because -technically- they didn’t lie. But the next time someone reached out to me, I was immediately sceptical. Online life puts a lot of pressure on us when it comes to our appearance and on our dating life – so it’s easy to see why people feel the need to alter their appearances or even to fake things, but this is leading us down a spiral of mistrust towards our new potential partners. Would it be better to share the uncomfortable & ugly details of our lives instead? Or would that just foster online bullying? Am I a catfish for putting filters on my photos and leaving out information about my bad traits?

It’s a tricky topic, because everyone looks better online. Just because you work your angles and carefully edit the information you share, doesn’t mean you’re a catfish – everyone does it! Right?

Next up, All The Things I Learned When I Started Putting Myself First