To Catch A Catfish

I thought I'd give you a little update regarding the whole Catfish saga of Mr #2, or the fictitious 'Seb'. For various reasons I can't go into on here now, I can't give you the full update, but I can tell you about one aspect of the ongoing drama which has gone even further to reinforce my disbelief and amazement at the power of social networking. For those who have just tuned in, yes, this is essentially a blog about a girl going on dates with boys. But very early on, a situation presented itself which showed the darkest underbelly of the world of internet dating, which you can read here:

So, we've established I was being groomed by someone who had stolen an innocent man's photos to pose as a single man online. We'd then, through the awesome power of friends and Facebook, found the poor sod whose photos had been stolen, and whose life was largely being used to entice unsuspecting singletons such as myself, a feat which too this day I still find unbelievable. And that, I thought, was that...

...That is, until a month or so ago when I received a message through Twitter that made me go cold. It quite simply said 'please can you message me. I am the latest idiot'. What the fuck?!?!? Since Seb-gate was still very much in the forefront of my mind, I messaged the girl back, known on here as Miss D. What immediately transpired was that she had messaged me the very morning that her mother, suspicious that her latest online beau might not have been all he cracked up to be, had googled his full name, the rather unusual name of Sebastian Pritchard-Jones. What she found, however, was not reinforcement he was who he said he was, but my previous blog entry naming and shaming him as a total fraudster, and told her daughter to read what I had written. I can't imagine how she will have felt just then, but I don't think it will have been nice. 

Devastated at this discovery, Miss D had rung him up immediately, called him a c***, and then tweeted me. They had been planning a trip away together, and until then, she had had had absolutely no idea he was leading her a merrily miserable dance. And why would she? He was a clever, manipulative creature, who had finely honed his act of making people believe what he wanted them to believe. This character is every online dater's nightmare. Once the realisation had settled in, I spoke to Miss D more. She sent me an extensive email of everything he had told her: names, places, anecdotes, habits, likes, dislikes, and the most frightening thing was every single detail was one I knew inside out. This was the finest rehearsed routine I have ever heard in my life. A monologue. A character. And Miss D had had exactly the same thing. It later transpired that the day I had told him to leave me alone, the day after THAT perfume bottle picture, he'd smoothly moved straight on to his next victim. The fact that I had maybe, possibly, potentially saved Miss D from a bigger hurt through my blog is reason enough that I started writing it in the first place. But the fact her mum found it on Google and that Miss D was able to get in touch by Twitter even more reinforces my sheer amazement at the power of the web. For every moment of fear and trepidation the internet gives me, the joy, surprise and warmth that comes back is threefold.

I have absolutely no doubt we are not the only two women he has done this to, and, judging from CT's experience (the guy whose photos were stolen), I'm sure there are other men too. This seems to me the well-versed patter of someone who wants their own relationship for a foreseeable shelf-life before, for whatever reason, the other party gets bored, suspicious or hurt. And I have no doubt that this is still going on now, although I would assume they've been savvy enough to change names, photos and dating sites. Who knows? The fact that online dating sites have no way of guaranteeing that their users are who they say they are will always concern me, but it is nothing you can ever really know for sure until it's potentially too late.  I take some solace that in all my internet dating experiences to date, this has been beyond exception, and the chances of encountering something as remotely as fucked up as this again is incredibly rare. But there is always a chance. After all, he knows who I am, because I am as genuine on these sites as I am to my friend and family, what's to say he couldn't find me again and spin me a whole new enticing yarn. As for everyone else? Well, it's the internet...I need say not one word more. On with Mr #14!

Catfish Catch Up

For those of you who haven't been up to speed with my recent dalliances in online dating involving being 'groomed' for a month by someone who had stolen an innocent man's photographs, before reading on, have a little read of what happened here:

For those of you who do know the story so far, you may be interested to hear about recent revelations. After spattering my blog all over social networking sites in an attempt to get some answers, I was utterly astonished at some outstanding detective work amongst my Facebook friends. 

One of them recognised the background of the silent disco photo as being in Milton Keynes shopping centre. After posting this observation on my wall, within hours both her and another friend had managed to locate the man in the photos and had sent me links to his profile. This I am will absolutely in awe of, and Kathryn and Louise, you seriously are wasted if you're not currently working for CID. This innocent man will be known for current purposes as CT.

On Sunday morning I wrote perhaps one of the strangest emails that CT will have ever received. 'Hello, you don't know me, but I feel like I know you. Don't freak out now, but have a little read of my blog...' 

Would he reply? I know I would...but this is just too fucking weird right? Right!

Sunday night, as if by magic, CT got back in touch, and I can safely say he was as totally shocked by what was going on as I was. It turns out that many of the details I had been told, personal details, about his life, likes, loves had been lifted straight from his life. Other details had come from elsewhere. But in any case that, and the fact that I had been sent around 80 photos documenting his life over the last few years, was enough to freak him the fuck out. I've been duped by some sort of pathological liar, he's had his life stolen. Both really rather shit. So where now? 

I then went about sending CT every photo I had been sent from 'Sebastian' in an attempt to piece together how he could have acquired all these pictures. I sent him as much of a dossier as I could, including the last few digits of his phone numbers in case CT could identify it as maybe one of his so-called friends who would have had access to all these pictures. But what we then found out made us both feel physically sick.

CT emailed me back with Sebastian's exact telephone number, and said it belonged to a 'woman' called Amanda, whom he had been messaging back in 2008 through another website. He had never spoken to her over the phone, but like Seb, she'd cancelled meetings on a number of occasions. It turns out we had both been speaking to the same person. But was it a man? Was it a woman? Was it a couple? CT only has one photo that Amanda had sent him, but it's enough of a start to move this witch hunt on a notch...

So now we are desperately trying to track down anyone who may have also been duped / messaged / conned / lured by either of these two 'characters'. So, here is as much as we know:

'SEBASTIAN PRITCHARD-JONES' (not his real name, of course)

Age 35

Most recently used the dating username SOUJOURN

Apparently lives in Marylebone and works in a primary school in Westminster

Speaks with a Welsh accent

 

'AMANDA' (also we presume not her real name)

We are pretty sure this picture has also been stolen for purpose, so if you recognise her as someone you know, please also let me know.

The phone number both of them have definitely used is 07*** 228 114. They may have also used a phone with the number 07*** 068 375, the number used to send me threatening messages.

If you have either been chatting to either of these people, or someone with a phone number that looks like it may be the same, then please please PLEASE get in touch...CT and I know we can't have been the first and we certainly won't be the last, and we want to stop this person before anyone else gets hurt, conned, emotionally involved or have their time wasted. For all we know, this person could even be dangerous. So please, we ask you kindly, spread this around your social media, copy in @C_T_S if you're on Twitter. It helped me track down the innocent man whose photos have been stolen, I know we can find out more about what this person(s) has/have been doing, and to whom. Your help has been invaluable thus far, so let's kick this virtual witch hunt up a gear.

Dating Update

***12/07/13 - since this update was originally written, we have since identified those who had their photos used without permission, and I have removed the majority of them out of courtesy to those pictured***

Dear blog readers. Hello. I am sorry I have not fulfilled my promises this week with documenting date #5 and I owe you an explanation. One of the rules of Fifty Two First Dates is that if we meet someone worth seeing, we put the other dates on hold. Well, let me re-introduce you to Mr #2. Remember him? The one that stood me up because he ended up in hospital? You can catch his write up here.

Well, he has been taking over the last few weeks of my life in epic style. I would like you to meet Sebastian P-J, known as Seb, or affectionately known as the boy with the disabled eyes and the Sticklebrick hair:

Seb is 35 years old, has an older brother and sister, lives alone in his own 4 bedroomed house in Marylebone, and works as a primary school teacher in Westminster. His ex girlfriend Laura used to work in A&E and tragically died of breast cancer a few years ago. Since then, he has been on his own with the exception of an alleged affair with a daytime television presenter. 

He likes to paint, makes excellent roast potatoes, adores his 3 year old niece Tilly, used to play the drums in a band and last year did a photographic challenge during which he had to photograph himself doing something new every day. 

Seb is sweet, sensitive, the life and soul of the party, and on paper he is quite possibly the perfect boyfriend. 

And reading all of this back now, the same warning bells I had at the time are ringing again.

One thing that did concern me about Seb was from an early stage, his flirting technique needed a bit of work. He could be seedy. So each time he crossed one of these tasteless lines, I would tell him to stop being a sex pest, and to be-fucking-have. And, like any sensitive man would, he'd get back behind the line he had crossed. 

In typical 52 First Dates style, I agreed to meet him for a date, these reservations aside, because I had to meet my quota, and you can only judge a person properly when you're sat across a table for them. So, a few weeks ago, we arranged to meet on a Monday in a pub in Soho. And this is where is all began...

Monday afternoon rolled around, and an hour before we were due to meet, he texted to cancel on the grounds that he had had a disclosure at school. One of his pupils had told him that she was being abused by her father, and he had spent the afternoon involved with the police and social services. I think you'd have to be dead inside to not agree that sounds like a pretty rubbish day at work, so we decided to reschedule for Thursday that week. If you've read my previous blog entry, you'll know that I actually went on the date, but he hadn't turned up. And later it emerged that he had snapped a cruciate ligament during football training and had ended up in hospital. Wow, this boy really is unlucky!

The following week we started speaking on the phone. He would text me throughout the day and ring me every night. He would send me photos of himself, some doing kooky things, some of him on holiday, a couple of him lying in bed. He obviously wanted me to fancy him, and as you can tell from the photos, he's rather lovely on the eye. I was going to turn a blind eye to the borderline narcissism until I'd at least met the bugger. 

We'd chat for hours at a time, getting to know each other, finding common ground, taking the piss, developing our own in jokes and getting all the more closer. I won't lie, I was startingto fall for him. He had a story for everything, which with the benefit of my retrospectrometer bears all the hallmarks of a pathological fantasist. But for every sweet comment, funny photo, sensitive anecdote there was always a little question mark and yet another subtle little attempt to get me to give him a little sleazy titillation.

Over the space of about 2 weeks, I must've spent over 20 hours talking to this man. He told me about the death of his ex girlfriend, his best friend who was brain-damaged, an alleged affair he had with a poopular daytime television presenter, the practical jokes played between him and his brother, I felt I knew everything about this man. And in return he knew about my job, my hobbies, my previous relationships, skeletons in my closet. 

Looking back over our conversations now, for every hours on the phone, there was always one little seedy undertone. I can remember him casually slipping things like bra size, anal sex, and even menstrual cycles into conversation. But because they were all anecdotal, or heavily embedded in the in jokes or the sensitive side of things, the alarm bells tinkled a little, but it was nothing I felt I couldn't handle. These are topics that come up with friends, and after all this time, were were becoming friends, friends under a sort of pressure cooker intensity. But every time he tried to eek out something personal from me, my views on contraception, my personal cycle, I would bat them away out of the park and he'd be left with nothing. Reading this back now, I feel sick to my stomach. With the benefit of hindsight, I can see now that all this investment in me was for those tiny little seedy snippets.

You might think I'm mad in saying this but by now I still wanted to meet the man behind the smooth Welsh tones. I needed to check that Seb in real life was who I thought he was, and any such salaciousness could be spotted in person, and nipped in the bud. 

By this time my curiosity had already got the better of me, and I'd tried to find him online. But to pour fuel to my already-increasing suspicions, I could find no trace of him. Not even using journalistic tools used to verify identities. And I am, if I do say my self, pretty fucking good at finding people online. Everyone's on there somewhere, whether it'd for an old school photo, a Just Giving donation, or a vox pop in the local press. 

Nevertheless, we arranged to meet on the following Friday night and I was determined to get the the bottom of this. However, come Friday afternoon, he cancelled again, this time with the best reason yet: his brother, a policeman, had been having an affair with a colleague's wife. The colleague then found out, a fight broke out, the colleague winds up in hospital and the brother ends up in custody. Oh, and her baby might well have been his brother's. So Seb goes home to look after his devastated family, and once again I'm left high and dry and wondering what sort of a dramatic life this guy has. 

Anyway back to the story. I am now hearing daily warning bells like tinnitus, but to honour my blog, and because I'm ashamed to admit I was still gradually being more and more charmed by this man, I was determined to meet him to find out once and for all what was going on. 

Then, out of the blue on Tuesday, came some rather sinister messages one night from a strange number. The conversation went as follows:

07507 *** ***: New number peeps (20.32)

Me: Who is this? x (20.42)

07507 *** ***: You were great xx (21.01)

Me: Who is this??? x (21.12)

07507 *** ***: You know (21.24)

CTS: No I don't...this is your new number (21.43)

07507 *** ***:  I hear you are seeing somebody (21.51)

Me: Who is this? (21.52)

07507 *** ***:You fukin no who. Lets start where we left off xx (22.47)

Me: No I have no idea who you are. You either tell me who this is or stop messaging (23.04)

07507 *** ***:Don't mess with me Claire. Played hard to get b4 (23.08)

Me: Who is this? (23.08)

07507 *** ***:You know who so let us stop fucking around with the other geezer (23.10)

Me: No I do not know who this is. I don't have your number and I have no idea what you are talking about. Leave me alone. (23.10)

07507 *** ***:I will find out who he is. If I can't have youre nor can he (23.12)

Me: Who the fuck are you? (23.13)

07507 *** ***:Small the world but it pays to be street wise (23.14)

Me: Tell me who the fuck you are and how you have my number or I'm going to the police (23.17)

At no point had I ever told anyone I was 'seeing' someone, and my first instinct was that Seb had bought another phone to try and frighten me. This was all very wrong. During these messages, Seb called me and caught me in some distress that these messages, and the first thing I did was to check that it wasn't him. I just knew he had something to do with it. I just knew. He was mortified at the accusation, denied it fervently, and then offered to help by sending the number to his brother-in-law, another policeman on duty. 

He also queried whether this could be one of my skeletons come back to get me, something I knew was an impossible option. But then he offered to send a cab to collect me and I could stay in his spare room if I was frightened. Ding-a-ling-a-fucking-ling. Not on your life sunshine. 

I tried calling the strange number back and it rang and rang but no answer and no voicemail. The next day I tried the same and the phone was off. This bore all the markings of a PAYG phone, and one I suspected had been bought for purpose. And the more I thought about it, I suspected he had used something I told him in trust to scare me, and then he could sweep in and look after me.

The next few days were pretty horrific, he was still calling and messaging, one minute offering to look after me and the other expressing such horror that I was still questioning who he was. I knew I had to find out the answer to draw a line under everything. Everything I knew about him was just so intangible, nothing I could use to verify his identity. 

I was driving myself mad. 

Here was this handsome man who had been increasingly adoring of me, and yet the alarms were still clanging all over the shop. So today I finally asked where he worked. If he had nothing to hide, he would have told me. But because of these messages that had apparently spooked him too, he refused. 

"I'm not telling you that, its personal".

More personal than sharing pictures of you with your loved ones?

More personal than that time you did her "up the bum" and you both ended up in A&E?

More personal than telling me your ex's dying wish was to have a child with you?

This cemented my thoughts that he was to blame for the strange messages and that he wasn't who he said he was. 

I confronted him, and I said he either had to give me some proof of who he was or to leave me alone. I mentioned all of the failed date attempts, all at his behest, and said he had no intention of ever meeting me. The photo I then received told me everything I needed to know.

Why on earth would you buy someone some expensive perfume when you have never met them? Why? 

But even more bizarrely, look at the reflection in the bottle. 

Just look. 

That, my friends, is not the tall, dark, handsome Welsh stranger that had been messaging and calling me constantly for a month. Oh no. That is a total stranger. I have been joking all along about the film Catfish, and it turns out I have just been living it myself. 

I confronted Seb straight away only to be told I was being paranoid, and then I got a number of messages telling me what a fuck up I was, how I was wrong in the head and how he wished he'd never messaged me. His change of tone confirmed everything I needed to know. I now have more than enough reason to believe I had been being groomed all along. I won't lie, when I thought I was potentially fucking up something with someone I loved the sound of, I felt terrible. But now, I feel relieved. I am trying not to dwell over the hours of chats we have had over the last few weeks because I do feel incredibly violated, despite my constant vigilence of holding things back. 

I hate that I have given so much of myself to someone who, if we're being honest, I did have some reservations about from the very start before he started to win me over. Even as I type now, he has just messaged me, 6 hours on, telling me how he was falling in love with me, trying to get me back into open conversation. 

I will be having him blocked.

So now I have reason to believe that nothing he has told me over the weeks has been true. And I would like to make explicitly clear that every photo on this blog of an attractive thirty-something man with glasses I genuinely believe were used and abused without the subject's permission. 

Not only do I feel that my trust has been violated, but I feel desperately sad that there is someone out there whose photos are being used to lure and groom unsuspecting women. I should know, I've had over 80 of them. So if you recognise the man in the photos, please let him know that I in no way hold him responsible for this callous and calculating behaviour, but if you recognise the person reflected in the perfume bottle, please be very, very careful. 

As for me, well I guess I need to get back in the dating game and not let this affect me too much. I always heard horror stories that shit like this happened online, but I never expected it to happen to me. And now it has, and I am oddly grateful to have been able to resolve it and move on. So #5 here I come...and this time, I'm ready for pretty much anything. Don't underestimate Miss Mini-Marple...

Mr #2 - Stand Me Up, Buttercup

The preamble:
Mr #2 came about from t'interwebs, natch. But given my past experience in online dating, the email exchange from Mr #2 was brief to say the least. It went as follows:


Mr #2: Yeah you'll do. Now are we gonna mess about on here for weeks and gradually then upgrading to texting one another or are we just gonna meet up and go on a date?
Me: Well I was hoping with a little more small talk than 'you'll do' to be honest. Come on, give it at least half a decent shot to let me know you might be vaguely interested in more than just my picture...(which looks nothing like me, I stole it from someone else's page)
Mr #2: Impulsive. Spontaneous. Where did it go? Listen up, your pictures look hot, your wording is clever, you have a chops that likes to cheek - why deny yourself a date?!
Me: Fine. Be like that then. Just tell me your name, what you do, and where in Central London you'd like to meet next Monday.
Mr #2: Mr #2
Primary school teacher.
Anywhere central from 5pm next Monday.
0770 **** ****


And so texting commenced, including some rather bizarre picture messages involving rice cakes, origami birds and him being, well, topless. At one point I feared for the date after I managed to drop the ultimate clanger via text: 'so, is that why you're single then?' 'no, it was her breast cancer that is why I'm single'. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit! Fortunately he saw the funny side of it and was pleased we'd got that out of the way before we met. As was I! I am ashamed to admit that despite his brutal honesty, cavalier attitude to picture messaging and bull-in-china-shop flirting technique, my hopes were up a little on this one. He sounded like a lot of fun. And he seemed to rather like the sound of me too. Cue butterflies. Big ones, ones with wings so thick you might've mistaken them for moths if they weren't so colourful.


The man:
Age: 35
Profession: Primary school teacher and full-time Welshman
Random factoid: Last year he took a photo a day of random challenges, one of which was to wear a bra. Any excuse...

The date:
Monday rolled around, a couple of texts of anticipation exchanged, venue planned. Then an hour beforehand, he texts to cancel. Oh. The reason being a bad day at school, which later turned out to be disclosure on a pupil's parent. Fuck. That really IS a bad day at school. After considerable apologies accepted, the date was rescheduled for Thursday. The texting ensued again, the time and venue arranged, a knight in shining armour promised, and I had to dig out my second date dress of the week. An hour and a half before the date he rings to confirm everything, and then texted to tell me how lovely I sounded. Zoiks! He's keen! So I headed off the venue, ordered a drink, and waited. And waited. And waited. An unanswered text and an unanswered phone call later, I shame-facedly left the pub on my own and went home. In my 30 years on this earth I have never been stood up. And I won't lie, it didn't feel very nice. Someone I don't even know went and squashed my butterflies with their size nines.

The verdict:
All in all, this was a bad date. And it does still count as a first date because I turned up. It's just a shame he didn't...

Update:
In the last couple of hours my date has got back in contact with almost indecipherable painkiller-induced texts. It turns out I'm not a dreadful judge of character, nor is he a devious manipulating man-bait sort sometimes found lurking about on the internets, as I'd possibly thought. He managed to snap some cruicial cruiciate ligaments in football training and wound up wounded in A&E whilst I sat nursing a warming lime-laden beer. So tomorrow he goes under the knife, and I feel oddly smug that he hadn't spotted my idiocy early and bailed. But give him time, I'm sure if the date does finally go ahead, he'll work that out then. But until then, I'm golden...