Can't Keep My Mouth Shut - Storytime - I was 'Catfished' before Catfish was a thing, then met the REAL man

Episode Date: September 27, 2021

I can't even fathom that this is a real story, but yes, yes it is. *sigh* Please DO NOT do what I did, but instead take my tale as a precautionary one.  P.s always trust your gut instinct.

This podcast contains strong language and discussions about relationships, sex and love. It may not be suitable for younger listeners. This is the Sex and Singapore City podcast and I am Nick Salina. Hello, it's me. Hi gang, it's Nick Salina. Happy Monday evening. I cannot believe I have not done this story time yet. Fuck me, it is a weird, twisted fucking story. I can't believe I've not shared it.

And when I thought about it, I was like, the world needs to hear this. So this story time is thus. I was catfished for six months before catfish was even a thing and then I met the real man okay set the scene I'm 19 I think Facebook has only just existed but yeah you heard right imagine a world where there was no Facebook. I was 19 in that world. I'm at university and I am on MySpace and MySpace was big back then. Like, yo, your MySpace profile. Oh, well, poor MySpace. You did not keep up with the social platforms, did you? so yeah on my space and found this profile okay hot guy hot guy I was going through my like

rocker stage and even though I was up in Norwich in Norfolk in the UK at university um for those don't know it's like a three or four hour north drive up from London I was still traveling down to London every now and again and I was like thinking I was really cool and into rock bands in Camden. Poor Nicks. Anywho, so there was this super fucking stunning rock guy in a band on Myspace. Let me change the names for privacy reasons. Let's call him Ricky. So I started talking to Ricky and added each other, direct messages each other. And I was like, oh, my God, this guy's so hot. Obviously, my students spend a lot of time at home in my house in between lectures and whatnot. And, you know, just loved talking to him. And eventually

we end up changing numbers. This was before WhatsApp, I think. So we're like texting each other and we're sending messages on MSN, MSN Messenger. God, I haven't gotten all these names right. It's how fucking long ago it's been. So basically, I then say, I want to like um i want to see you you know i we were having like actual phone calls and we were talking loads and i loved his voice and i loved how much he wanted to talk to me he lived in london and said he used to go out with his band in camden all the time but didn't like live in camden lived outside the area um yeah we were just chatting chatting chatting and being somewhat slightly damaged I think at that time from a previous relationship I kind of fell all in like

I think I was super desperate for any attention to validate myself so this hot guy comes along wants to talk to me all the time wants to call me like for hours in bed yeah I sucked it right up so then I'm like send me a photo um send me a photo on myspace send me a photo like view send me a photo of what you're doing and there's always reasons why he wouldn't text me a photo and I started to get a bit like pissed off about it at the time I was young and this was pre social media really so this idea of catfishing didn't even exist right so I had no idea what the fuck was going on and I I guess was super naive and just believed every story he told me about why he couldn't send me photos or why you know he couldn't see me so it got to the point

like I even gave him my student house address like how fucking dangerous is that by the way do not do that ever but I gave him my address to he because he wanted to send me birthday flowers and these beautiful lilies arrived um yeah it's fucking weird to think back oh my god so yeah we're talking won't send me a photo talking won't see me I have to come down to London so I like going to London for the weekends anyway he always found reasons why he couldn't be available that weekend anywho sends me eventually months in sends me a black and white photo to my phone of his face not the same guy not the same guy and I remember looking at the photo trying my best to make I guess excuses in my head like well he's made it black and white this was obviously

before photoshop and shit as well so all you can do is put like a black and white filter on it I think it was before Photoshop. I don't even know when Photoshop was invented, but it certainly was before all the apps on your phone, right? So it was just black and white. It could tell it wasn't him. I'm like, that's not the same person. He's adamant it is.

And he said, look, I just cut my hair. Because the Ricky guy had really long rocker hair, right? You know, like imagine Motley Crue style. And this guy had really short hair. I still bought it I still bought the story that he sold me even though I literally had evidence in front of me when he finally sent a photo that it's not the same fucking guy but then I was thinking oh well his MySpace ones are like model shots of the band perhaps you know this is what he looks like in real life. And I still went on with it. So how does this materialize? So what

happened one day? Very random, scrolling on MySpace. I see Ricky's profile. But it's not the Ricky I know profile. It's a completely different fucking profile. In this Ricky profile, it's very much his profile there are photos on there and there are song links and video links to the band and yeah um that seems to be the real ricky i cannot believe what i'm fucking seeing so i'm like what do i do do i message the ricky i'm texting do i message this new ricky like there are now two very different profiles they both had the same profile photo which is how I saw it immediately but the new one was completely different way more content on that so there I am on my space shitting myself like what the fuck don't really know what's going on message this guy

ricky i'm like hey um we've kind of been talking for six months like i guess not online dating but we're like really close and i don't really understand what's going on i was literally my heart was in my throat waiting for said ricky to respond he reads it and responds and he's like I'm so sorry I don't know what you're talking about so then I was like I have like your number and you know you've been calling me and you sent flowers to my house um don't really know what's going on and he's like yeah um I have a girlfriend I have a girlfriend and that's not me do you have the number so I send this guy the number of him who's pretending to be him he's like oh my god I know who that is it's my ex-girlfriend's younger brother you heard that right Ricky

the real one, Ricky's ex-girlfriend, her younger brother, is now pretending to be Ricky on MySpace to try and date online over the phone me. What the fuck? So I'm like, I'm not going to text this guy I don't even want to call him Ricky anymore right let's call him Johnny I'm not gonna fucking text Johnny at all now this Ricky is like leave it with me um like so so thank you for messaging me so thankful I'm really really sorry about this like seemed like the sweetest guy he's like let me text my ex-girlfriend now we're still on really good terms do you mind if I give her your number I was like yeah no not at all so the next thing you know the ex-girlfriend let's call her Natalie reaches out to me um and was like hey Ricky's just told me everything like I'm what

the fuck I'm so sorry um yeah that's my younger brother I can't believe he's done this type thing and I was just like I guess I was just relieved to know that my gut instincts were right And I was like, I didn't even have much hatred for Johnny for scamming me. I just didn't feel like I didn't understand why he did it. And I didn't get the outcome. Like, what was he what was he ever going to achieve? Because he looks nothing like Ricky. So Natalie, the sister, actually even sent me a photo of her brother, Johnny.

I was like, this is what he looks like. And then she was like, I promise you, he is a really nice guy. He's just like not very good with with girls. And he's always looked up to Ricky. Ricky's obviously very attractive, very cool, very popular guys in a rock band, you know, very unlike what Johnny's like. So I guess Johnny kind of idolizes him a little bit. But I was like, babe, this is so weird for me because I thought I was talking to Ricky for months. and you know your brother even has my student house address and sent me flowers and she's like

what the fuck serious I was like yeah and of course I was texting him photos as well not nudes and before we go there 19 year old next was still quite innocent okay but I was sending like selfies, I guess. And, you know, my MySpace photo vibe. The only people that even understand what I'm talking about is those who are on MySpace doing those like special MySpace profile photos where you think you look really cool and edgy. So I was still doing that back to him. And I honestly, in those six months, I'd invested so much fucking time talking to him. And we kind of really got on I loved the way we spoke I loved the stuff we spoke about and I kind of thought we did have an actual connection and I know it sounds really strange because you know obviously

you've not met the person but yeah so to find out it was some some ex-girlfriend's younger brother just blew my mind but the story my friends gets even weirder because guess what me and the sister Natalie, we decide we quite like each other and we're really fun. And we add each other on Facebook when it eventually comes. And we decide to hang out. So one weekend, I went down to London from Norfolk in the UK to stay with Natalie. So the guy who catfished me, I went and stayed with his sister and she was so cool and it was like it was weird she was like yeah just come hang out my house I think she was a student at the time as well like you'll love my friends so I went down for like two nights stayed and crashed at hers met her girlfriends then we

went out one night in Camden and yeah I then met Ricky in person I was like this is so fucking weird so all of us are there in London he's like with his band and his best mate and we're all hanging out drinking and all I could think of was like I thought I've been talking to you for six months and I've just met you you have no idea who I am and you have a girlfriend what the fuck but it was one of the coolest nights ever we had a great time a great time and I don't think her younger brother even knew that I was coming down to stay. I certainly didn't tell him. I think I eventually texted him and was like, I know who Ricky is. I've messaged Ricky directly. Like, don't fucking talk to me again. I was pissed off with him. And I just thought, what a fucking,

like, it's weird, like, weird, weird, weird. But other than that, as per casual Nick Salina, I just brushed it and went and hung out with his sister and the real Ricky. It's like, will the real Ricky please stand up? He was, by the way, really hot in real life. It's just a crying shame that he was taken. But then, plot twist again, Ricky's best mate, another guy in the band, took a liking to me. and so tried it on with me all night and eventually I think like a few weeks later he actually come up from London to Norwich to stay with me at my house

oh my god yeah I mean I didn't vibe him I think after he left Norwich I was like yeah this is like not sorry it's not gonna be a thing um because also like it was weird I fancied Ricky originally and Ricky was the only one I've ever fancied so I don't really want to date like your best mate and I didn't want to date someone's younger brother who like it was all a bit odd yeah but I got severely catfished before catfish even existed and I ended up hanging out with the real man who who was catfished to be someone some somebody else does that make sense I was saying no anyway you get the story and this is why uh ladies and gentlemen i fucking love the tv show catfish i don't know if you've ever watched it but just search catfish tv show

it's compelling it's also why i understand when people aren't catfished because i get it and i understand why people will seemingly dismiss their very logical rational like you are not this person to cling on to any kind of relationship you are forming with this person so yeah I do I get it because I knew this wasn't I just knew it wasn't him but I so desperately wanted it to be him that any excuse this Johnny made as to why he couldn't see me or why he couldn't send me proper photos I just lapped them up because that was the easier option than facing the truth that he weren't Ricky and the only thing that made me face the truth was when I found the real Ricky so yeah rather than being sad at home alone as per me I go extreme and I go and party with the

real one and hang out with the catfish's older sister and all of her friends and then have a little mini fling with the real Ricky's bandmate. Sure. Okay. And anyway, that is the end of this episode. Please do DM me on social media. If you've had any catfish stories, I would love to compile an episode of like Singapore's catfish stories. You know, I think it's probably going on way more than we know and i am now fucking 101 expert on catching catfish this isn't just on social my friends i mean all the dating apps i will be able to tell you in about five five to ten seconds oh that's a bit brazen isn't it like nicks calm down all right 60 seconds give me a minute i'll be able to tell you if that profile is real or not under 60 seconds and that

is the end of this episode peace out Thanks for listening to the Sex and Singapore City podcast. This episode was produced and hosted by me, Nick Salina, and recorded at the Splice Car Studio in Singapore. I'm available to listen to on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google, and all major podcast listening apps. Do subscribe to enjoy a new episode every Monday evening. Please do give me a five-star review.

it helps other people also find my podcast for more awesome content and features to read you can check out my website sexandsingaporecity.com that's sexandsingaporecity.com i'm also on social media simply search at nixalina n-i-x-a-l-i-n-a to find me don't be shy come say hi Thank you.