What Drives a Person to Live a Lie Online?
Dear Abby,
I’m writing because I feel embarrassed, confused, and honestly a little foolish, and I don’t know how to make sense of what happened.
For quite a while, I was part of a Facebook chat group centered around shared interests. Over time, I began having regular one-on-one conversations with someone from the group. We talked almost daily-about our lives, our families, our hopes, and the things that stressed us out. It felt easy and natural, and I believed I was getting to know a woman who genuinely understood me. Eventually, I developed real feelings for this person. Even though we had never met in real life, the emotional connection felt very real to me.
Recently, I discovered the truth: this person was not a woman at all. The photos, the stories, the identity-they were all fake. The person I trusted was actually a man who had been pretending to be someone else the entire time. I was being catfished.
I feel hurt, but more than that, I feel unsettled. I keep replaying our conversations in my head, wondering which parts-if any-were real. What bothers me most is not just that I was deceived, but that someone could invest so much time and effort into pretending to be a completely different person.
My question for you, Abby, is this: What would make someone do this? Is pretending to be someone else online a sign of a mental or emotional issue? Or is it possible that this person’s real life is so unhappy or unfulfilled that they escape into playing the role of someone they wish they could be? I can’t understand how deceiving another person could bring satisfaction, especially when it inevitably causes harm.
I’m trying to move forward, but I’d really appreciate insight into why this happens and how I can process it without losing my ability to trust people in the future.
Confused and Catfished
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