Can't Keep My Mouth Shut - The Dark Twisted World of Internet Catfishing & Its Effects

Episode Date: October 19, 2020

Have you ever been a victim of internet catfishing? I'd love to hear your story - DM me on Instagram: @nixalina

this podcast contains strong language and discussions about relationships and sex it may not be suitable for younger listeners this is the sex in singapore city podcast and i'm nixalina watson hi hi everyone back to another awesome episode of my podcast and once again super proud and happy to have my co-host of She Said, He Said in the studio with me. So welcome, Paul Foster. Thank you very much, Nick Salina. How's it going, everyone out there? Thanks for tuning in as always. It's really nice to hear really good feedback from Nick Salina when people write in to her to be like, we really love, you know, you guys, how you banter, how you

talk about things. So it's always good to be here. I love it. Yeah, and they like how we have minor disagreements on some topics. Absolutely. But we remain friends and the battle of the gender continues. That's it. That's it. So bring it on. Bring it on.

What have you got for me today? Yeah, this is an interesting one. It's actually a little bit different from mine because we do a lot of relationship stuff together. So this one is the dark, twisted world of catfishing and its effects. Oh, good one. Because that's... Uh-huh. I feel like not many people talk about this unless you've watched the actual TV show, Catfish.

Yeah. And again, I think it's always nice how we start an episode to kind of explain what it is. Because, you know, I mean, at one point in time, I didn't have a clue what that was. In fact, when I first started watching the TV show, I still didn't know what that word meant. You thought he was going to go on a boat and start fishing for catfish, right? Like, look at this big boy we got. Oh, this is going to be a beautiful... Who's tuning in to this?

Yeah. So let me just quickly say then, so I've got the Urban Dictionary definition, which we all know is pretty much the new Bible. Yes. so cat the word catfish is a fake or stolen online identity created or used for the purposes of beginning a deceptive relationship nice i think you using urban dictionary is much better me trying to explain a word or a term in my in my own way that's nice that's very clear and i like it because it says for the purposes of beginning a deceptive relationship i like that part two i like that part two usually it's just oh is someone creating a fake identity online yeah

yeah to yeah correct that that could that's easily just a troll to to start shit up and whatever but this you're right in this place when you're in this place when you're catfishing yeah you're yeah so i was actually trying to start a relationship i was catfished back when 2008 i think this is gonna this is a story it's gonna blow your mind far back this is before even catfish was even a word at all right so I didn't know what was happening yeah so I was at uni and I just um it was like Facebook had been around for a little bit I think yeah I didn't have Instagram by that time yeah oh my god I'm so old I lived before the gram we all did this was the era of myspace oh yes so i was talking to this hot guy on myspace he i was going for a rocker stage

and he looked like motley crew you know extra he was he's beautiful he's very beautiful but like very clearly rocker dark hair and like hang around in camden and just a musical singer that i was in a band of course such a cliche so so we're talking on myspace and then we swapped numbers and then he i kept asking to like maybe we could do a video call or a skype and he always swerved and um then i was asking like you know for facebook and he never had only myspace and then um me and this person we got so close on the phone that like I gave him my student address to send me flowers for my birthday never met him anything and like even like if I said oh sing something for me down the phone because we had voice calls all the time yeah and whatsapp

text messages I think it was whatsapp I'm trying to remember how old I am now no no whatsapp in 2008 not yet no it was it must have been msn messenger yeah do you really yeah it was msn yeah okay yeah so we done normal calls and text messages and msn and myspace obviously in private messages as well i gave him my address but he would never um do any skypes with me it was skype skype was around uh yeah 2008 it must have been because i i got really upset because he wouldn't video me right okay so he eventually sends me a black and white photo of himself and this was we've been talking for of like a while maybe a month or two months and I'm like that photo is not the same person and it's black and white obviously for a reason I'm like it's not the

same person so I am randomly on like I let him talk me around and he says oh I've had my hair and this that and the other but at the time and a lot of women will resonate with me here I was kind of just desperate for attention right so I kind of let him blurb me out with telling me it's the same person even though deep down I knew it wasn't and then I'm randomly on myspace and I see the guy the rocker photo the real the real one and I'm like oh my god so I then message the real guy robin and i'm gonna say to robin i was like hey um this is really awkward but we've been talking for like two months and someone's i love like using your photos it turns out so then robin messages me back and was like um yeah you're not the first girl to tell me no but also he knows who

it is oh wow so robin's ex-girlfriend brother ah the younger brother i thought you're gonna see it's just his ex-girlfriend no no no this is convoluted okay ex-girlfriend's younger brother so they're actually like still really close friends the girlfriend ex-girlfriend and robin yeah but the younger brother has been using robin's profile and everything to to talk to women okay well how young's young like how no like not that old enough to fucking know better i think like 18 20 okay yeah because i was 21 and he must have been maybe he was younger than that yeah early 20s late teens i think we're all out so in the end i ended up talking to robin who put me in touch with the ex-girlfriend okay and then we got on so well i went down

to london to hang out with her and robin oh wow yeah and never met the younger brother you should have done that you'd be like can i go back to your family place and just like don't tell your family i was just gonna come along i didn't like meet the brother i did stay with her but her the brother was at uni so he wasn't around so yeah but it was really odd because then we were like hanging out we was out in camden and it was all really weird because it was like I was like, Robin, I feel like I've spoke to you for months. Wow. But I've just met you.

Wow. But the ex-girlfriend also knew what was happening. Well, only once I told her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so she, yeah. So you guys should have taken like a selfie and sent it to him to be like, hey, check out my new friend. We've been hanging out.

It was so weird. The whole thing was fucking weird. Wow. Did you ever confront the guy? Yeah. Okay, and? No, like just, oh, sorry. and then I got blocked.

So he admitted it and he's like, okay, whatever. Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure his sister or Robin would have said like, you know, we're hanging out with Nick Salino at the weekend. Right, right, right, okay. Yeah, it was a bit odd. But like, yes, this was way back before I even knew I was on the receiving end of being catfished. Yeah, I don't even think the term catfishing and catfish

was coined in 2008. I don't even know. We need to go back and find out. No, I don't think it was. Because this was, yeah, I mean, I must have been in an early batch of when people started doing this online yeah yeah yeah wow you're a pioneer yeah i'm so proud but what's like really odd is you always think i'm a really intelligent person i'm very savvy on the internet there's no fucking way i'm gonna get catfished you never know though no like i'm

sure i've spoken to a lot of people who reach out to me um who aren't who they say they are not not not just not just to start a dishonest relationship though um but my story is someone used my picture um like on tinder or you know one of the one of the dating apps um but you know my name was peter so it's my picture but my name is peter and he made me a bit younger which is always nice um and look this was only this would have been like maybe six years ago right something like that i think it was like yeah it's like 2013 2014 um was you in a relationship at the time i was i was so so i was but the funny thing is and i'm i was already recognizable here in singapore yeah the work i do i'm you know i'm in the scene in that sense so i always found it very strange

that he took a picture of someone that is recognized in this country to use as his profile picture and the reason i found out about it was because i had friends who were messaging me going someone's using your picture to be this person to be peter but they're talking he's talking to me but he's not trying to be like paul foster he is being himself but using your picture so and when my friends were telling me this i was like listen get get him to like like meet him get to meet him get to meet him like sort it all out and funny enough i think the anniversary of me posting this a screenshot of the conversation just came up the other day and my friend eventually was like oh yeah because somebody like oh i are you look like you're so nice to cuddle i would love

to cuddle you tonight kind of thing she's like sure like you know that's me come on over and then he'd be like oh you know i don't know whether i don't know whether you know that would be the right thing like i think you might be disappointed and she's like but why your picture is so hot and he'd be like yeah well and and to his credit for that conversation he came clean oh did he and she said well okay i am who i am talking to you but that's not my picture so uh but this is after a while and then he did send his pictures to her and he's not a bad looking guy um apparently he started that account because his ex-girlfriend cheated on him so he was trying to create at the end cheated on him through this particular dating app right so he created a profile to see

whether he could intercept her as well or speak to her to to catch her out i guess or something like this and right he said look my i have low self-esteem i have trust issues now that that that really broke me and this is like this is my kind of way to like communicate with with other people because he didn't like the way he looked so it's it got like really to be like who the fuck is this guy to yeah like oh wow okay this is his story now um and it went from me actually trying to catch him like i was gonna set up a whole like invite him out for a date we'll set it up with you there and now i'll come up and be like oh hey hey nice to see you like oh hey and you are just to be like see his face like holy shit just you know to catch him out and i was

gonna get my my my camera guys i was gonna film all this i was gonna like film it and make it be like you're busted kind of deal but then i heard that story and i was like listen tell him like i want to i i do i want to meet him i'd like to sit down with him and actually like have a conversation and just just just listen hear from him listen to him yeah and all that sort of stuff so i guess you never know no what people are going through in that sense but it did i went i did a 180 i changed because in the end nothing nothing bad happened but you know i was still like i just wanted to ask him like why my picture why don't you just take a random yeah good looking guy's picture from like brazil or canada or sweden who's just not recognized here and then use that

as your yeah as your profile pic i just that's all i really wanted to know but yeah uh peter if you're listening i'm still ready for that chat if you ever need you know someone to talk to slide in his dms yeah my uh my pitch has been used as well i was a dental nurse from newcastle wow um yeah um plenty of fish that's a step that's a step up and then they were like i'm really shy so message me first and i was like well that fucking bitch ain't me yeah i'm so shy this is back in the uk yeah so anything here since you've been in singapore though um no okay but yeah not in well i haven't been catfished in for for a very long time but before i moved someone

And also create a Facebook profile called Nicola Burke. So and what they've done is taken all of my photos from my Facebook page, which only my friends could see. So this is what really freaked me out. So it had to be someone on my list, on my page. And what they were doing, they were also adding all of my friends. None of this made any sense. I'm like, if you're going to set up a fake profile, don't go and add all of my real friends. because they know that's not my surname so this nicola burke whoever you are had i then yeah that

really freaked me out because i was like when was this this was probably like seven eight years ago and did you know if this nicola burke was like writing to like guys to be like hey and trying to do anything not that any stories told me that people were just like oh i thought it was your second account yeah but no but that's you know i have that's as far as i don't know if i've been they're the ones i've seen you know myself yeah i mean but again we got we get off we got off lightly that nothing happened in these situations but no there have been bad stories where people have had full relationships with someone they thought like long distance relationships with someone they thought looked like person a yeah but you know they were a totally different person

so maybe we should address this the two different sides and so maybe we should talk one about the person doing it the catfisher oh okay and then the catfishies the person on the receiving end or perhaps you know like how to stop it and whatnot okay so what you know as you've explained you saw one minute you're like i'm gonna like catch this guy and you're like angry i'm gonna Give him a piece of my, you know, feet of my knuckle sandals. No, no, no. I don't want to go violent. But, you know, I'm going to talk to this guy.

Oh, I've got to rough him up. Yeah. And then it was, oh, I want to talk to this guy. Like, completely changed. Yeah. I wanted to help this guy. I wanted to get his self-confidence back up. I wanted to, like, teach him dating 101, relationship 101.

I wanted to, like, hook him, set him up and say, go. Go out there, my son, and do it the right way. do it the right way he's obviously had an offer to go and see this chick she said like yeah come over and then he's like oh i can't right yeah so what do you think goes through their minds because when you get called out yeah well like you set up this you know fake profile to to create as it said deceptive relationships with people right yeah but then you can't physically meet them that's right so what's the point in that sense right yeah because then then at some point he must have been i here's an idea i think perhaps they think if they talk long enough if you get to know me long

enough you'll forget about paul foster's photo and you'll know peter yeah yeah and you'll forget about looks and just love me for yes for my intellect and my wit and my charm and whatever else yes yes i believe that that might be something that they i don't know because what then why the fuck are you doing is it just bored loneliness is it escapism yeah i mean again to peter's credit he came good early early enough yeah he was like okay well i just needed this because if i put my picture up no one would have swiped right to to at least start the conversation so i just used that to like start the conversation so maybe that's where he was going towards and right then if you've got that opportunity to meet someone who's like okay well i need to tell you

that maybe you know that's not me but as far as i know with the majority of the times you're right they just wouldn't admit it and they'd they'd still drive the conversation to the point of like um let's keep this going but like virtually or remotely but never also see each other which is super strange like i've never figured it out no how that was ever going to work because also then And surely if you ever do come clean, even say it was, I don't know, six months of the most amazing, intense virtual relationship, the person on the receiving end is going to not be okay. Yeah.

They're not going to be like, fuck you. Yeah. Oh, you silly sausage. I'll see you tomorrow. Are they? They're going to be like, see, you've built the relationship. You've done all the hard graft. And every time you keep doing this, it's just going to have to stop.

you're gonna have to find a new person yeah i think though i think you know i think there's one guy that's like uh let's go for a date and then they set it up at uh dining in the dark oh that would be the way you do it though i'll take you out let's meet yeah but let's go to dining in the dark you know it's all good that that would be the wow so tips for you i was about to say you're just fucking encouraging her mate because i didn't even think of that yeah yeah these guys like yes use paul's photo and nope yep done taken but no yeah i'm with you i maybe maybe they're lonely maybe they're broken maybe they they just um they want to chat that's all they want to do they want to chat and it's not maybe they're not out for any sexual or physical

gratification maybe they get off on just doing it that way and that's that's enough i i get there is of course the other more because you're always so innocent in your thought process and i don't think that innocent no no that's a nice that's a nice way and obviously yes i always think that there is usually some it's usually a scorned ex or a scorned friend or a scorned partner you know or like a cheating you know idea as well and say i'll create a profile of a really sexy woman to then try and fuck with my ex's head example wow okay yeah so i feel like that's you know i've put the dark twisted world of catfishing because that's really the depths it goes down to the depths catfish do we see that i am awake so you're like if you watch the tv show

catfish a lot of them is someone you know wow and they're like oh yeah well you did this to me once wow and like even like collecting any evidence of shit as well just to be like fuck you like got your dick picked brother exactly yeah yeah yeah yeah it gets out it gets twisted man and it's like that i feel like that would be the worst thing is when you find out it's like your cousin or you know or like or like you've sent you think you say you've got over a relationship and it was really messy then you think you've met someone online you feel like you've got a blossoming relationship going and it turns out it's your ex and then it's mentally fucking that's fucked up yeah it's fucked up okay wow okay yeah that is very dark and twisted

oh then you got the money stuff yeah i was gonna say so that the more scandal one is like yeah eventually working up the trust and the connection to be like oh man i i i you know i've lost a couple of shifts this week so i'm getting a little bit low on cash do you think you could send me some and obviously it's a little bit at first but it yeah it builds up right or could you buy me something i need this kind of thing and you know i'm waiting for my next paycheck to come in i've heard stories of that where it's more uh scams for for yeah for money and it's choreographed in such a way that it's like you said a little bit a little bit drip feed and adds up yeah and it will all be like the relationship would already be there you'll be very chatty texting whatever

so it's not like day one send me money because then you know as the catfishy you would be like fuck off but what it is is a slow burn absolutely and that's actually a good leading into being the person on the receiving end i have obviously just said how i was on the receiving end and i never thought i would be so i can totally get how you can be catfished but it how how do you do you there's certain things to look out for where you can stop that happening well i i think when you were catfished that was you know quite some time ago now and things are a lot more advanced like you shouldn't be being catfished now no in 2020 like after a while like i said jump on a video call like you can literally you know but then they'll say oh my video yeah there's always some

excuse right there's always some way you could do it but if you don't have a laptop if you don't have a phone my webcam's broke yeah something there's something yeah yeah I mean and like anyone can get pictures of anywhere and stuff like that but I mean after a while you just I don't want to say like live your whole life being suspicious and like never of course you know wanting something that's supposed to be good but I think after a while if it ain't working in that sense you've got to be like listen man this is this is strange um i know but it comes from i generally think it comes from a i'm gonna say desperation a need to have attention to be loved and and a lot of the people that become gullible and susceptible to being catfished also have a

void to fill maybe yeah and it's like if i think back to her well i was infatuated by the photo you know i'm like he's a singer it was the whole like the package on paper yeah yeah yeah and that mentally overtook the person in real life but even the phone calls and stuff we did get on really well i gotta be honest you know we had long ass phone calls but when i look back i'm like i'd never seen a video this guy yeah he was a singer i'd never heard sing you know and and and the photo he sent i could tell it wasn't the same person i still gave him my home address yeah which is kind of fucked up to get some fucking flowers you know i'm like oh my god that could have turned out because i usually give the next door neighbors one at least and then when i go

oh they did it the wrong place oh yeah thanks because they can see the name oh yeah it's all good yeah that's a really good that's actually a really good trick yeah yeah damn it yeah but no i'm like fucking hell how in innocent i was innocently minded i guess because it wasn't a thing then yeah yeah the thing you sometimes you don't know until you've been stung yeah you're like oh shit okay um and again good thing it happened so long ago when you were younger so it kind of prepares you for life in that sense um but then look it still happens though it happens more so now because in a way i was saying like how it should be easy to like find someone out they don't but also some of these guys are so good at what they do they build up that character

and all the yeah the profiles enough that you're actually genuinely like oh that looks you know they've got loads of photos they've got loads of things and this is instagram dating apps facebook every possible platform yeah um but yeah it's it's it's i think i think you should always be a little bit wary and yeah if you can jump on a call a video call i think a video call is definitely a good way to go yeah yeah and like i said there's enough out there that you can like genuinely see if someone's got a real profile somewhere yeah one of my girlfriends recently was um a long distance with a guy they hadn't met but they'd met on tinder and he was in vietnam at the time and he wanted to video call her and she was like i'm a bit like worried and it's gonna be a bit

awkward i was like no no this is good if he wants to video call you it means he's real yeah it means and i said also he's probably wanting to verify you're real exactly because once again it's whatsapp photos it's tinder photos it's whatsapp chat i mean even voice notes yeah right okay oh my god they sent me a voice note their voice sounds really sexy yeah you still don't fucking know if it's that person so video call did she end up doing the video call yep or did it go well oh great see that's good yeah i mean i've heard the other side of the thing where you know my friend saw a picture on a dating app and was like yeah she's pretty hot all right you know they got to talking and she came over that night or whatever and you know just to hook up

but when she came over he was like damn it she obviously used the old photo because she looks different you know a few more pounds yeah and at that stage of the night he's just like oh well we'll just turn the lights out and uh do what we gotta do so needs must yes it so not really a cat fish maybe more like a no but it's that's the level of it a guppy a guppy have you yeah have you seen the women with makeup and then you take them swimming that kind of stuff online fuck i mean i would be terrified as a bloke this is like this is why you should always take a women swimming on your first date that's a good call yeah your face has melted they look like oh my god just a different person yeah yeah yeah yeah wow and even that i know it's not a catfish

as such but he is in the realm because her photos will all look like that and and video call she does look like that yeah technically yeah yeah yeah and that's the thing you don't know until you actually physically do something yeah you take off the hair the eyelashes the makeup and all the like the filters where they slim their face now and all that jazz the real person is like that's like that's like that guy who sued his uh wife his ex-wife because their children came out not as good looking as he thought they should because he's quite a good looking guy and he actually i think at one point he might have even thought that she cheated on him yeah because she's like these can't be my children we're both so good looking and then it ended up that he found out she

had plastic surgery yeah to look as beautiful as she was so yeah and then he divorced her right yeah yeah he took her to the fucking cleaners that's it and he won i believe i think he did because again deceptive yeah something which is a bit unfair to be honest because you fell in love with that person for who she what she she was is in the present not who she was no in the past so and also anyone can have ugly kids that's called spade a spade yeah that's nature ladies and gentlemen yeah if i have an ugly kid i'm not gonna look at phil and be like yeah get the fuck out it's it's probably me i mean nature or karma yeah it could be a mix or one or the other it's a very odd thing to say right my kids are so ugly that i'm gonna sue my wife and

them divorce you that's it yeah yeah which is terrible but um but he but there's a level of deceit there that he felt he felt catfished by his own partner i guess so i guess because he met but he met her when she was the way she was so yeah that's maybe that's like next level that's like yeah yeah it depends how because if he said to her like have you had any plastic surgery and she was like no then deceit yeah if she if she said yes i have then it's like then yeah where's your shock yeah yeah but i mean if you saw the before and after photos there was a shock big difference yeah it's like she had a bloody good plastic surgeon that's all i'm gonna say i was like what's the number wow yeah

jeez so to the person on the receiving end then to try and stop catfishers getting away with what they're up to you're saying the main port of call is a video call i'd say that would be your yeah i'd say that would be the easiest way to ever find out yeah what's going on regardless of if they've had the makeup on they look so much better yeah you can still at least see that that's that person yeah and at that minimum on that basic level so and you're right there's a and i think someone who keeps putting up so many excuses about so many things like after a while you've got to trust your instinct yeah yeah and because i knew like i knew it weren't the same person in the photo i got sent i fuck it and the reason i got sent the photo was because i kept harping on about

wanting a photo okay yeah and it was like i eventually eventually got it and it was in black eye and i just knew but i still still let him talk me around and i think if you if you have any inkling that this person you're talking to is not who they say they are yeah definitely trust in that if they if they find excuses yep they're like why can't we if we can't i mean you know it's just and you can call it off if that's that's the ultimatum right be like well if i don't see we're going to go anywhere with what we're doing then there's no point and yeah that that that could be it at the end at the end of the conversation right and just like fine if we're not even going to see each other then then there's no point because i mean what's the next

level of getting intimate with each other if you're not even like if you're virtual i mean at least you're gonna have to see each other to maybe explore that kind of relationship until you can actually physically meet yeah yeah so yeah and it doesn't have to be immediately but it you're gonna have to see each other at some point that's true surely yeah yeah whether in person or whether on video at some point so i'd say that would be the your your your safety net yeah and don't give any fucking money to someone you haven't fucking met yeah jesus christ stop doing that don't wire any money to anyone and don't fall in love with someone you haven't even seen in a video call yeah or don't give your number to someone who you're a friend with on

messenger when they don't write the same way to you like they've always written because that's happening a lot right people are getting all their accounts hacked like you know if your friend is not your friend when they're writing to you like hi can i have your mobile number please like i've had that so many times yeah i'm just like and you can you can yeah you can you can do a lot of fact checking you can just be like you know you can just talk to them you realize that that's not the person so guys don't fall for scams catfishes anything like that i think uh have a little bit like like like nixon i just said you have a little bit more faith in your instinct and and and and call things out if you have to i think yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and if we get it but if you do have

a very interesting catfishing story we'd love to hear it yes because because i mean there's some crazy shit out there i know you know and obviously me we we've we've broached this subject tonight but we have us ourselves haven't had any interesting really really interesting dark stories about it but if you know one or something happened to you we'd love to hear it send it to us and um we still want to have this opportunity to try and maybe get someone in to like actually have a yeah like a live podcast with us where they're telling the story live with us on air It would be super cool. Yes, we want the darkest catfish stories known to man.

Yes. And the darker, the better. The big fuck-off catfish that you catch in, like, the Mississippi, you know, and, like, they feed, like, a whole, like, family of ten rednecks. That kind of juicy catfish. That's what we want. And on that note, we will end this episode. Have a good one, guys.

Thank you, darling. See you all later. Ciao, ciao. Thanks for listening to the Sex and Singapore City podcast. This episode was produced and hosted by me, Nick Salino-Watson, and recorded at the Splice Car Studio in Singapore. We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google,

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