The Dating Detectives - The BFF & The Cell Phone

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

Ivy and Chloe met in the 6th grade and were BFF's from that moment on. Their friendship withstood the test of time, and as the two women grew up, got married, and had kids, the one thing that didn't change was their friendship. All of that changed when Chloe's new boyfriend entered the picture, leaving Ivy with a cloned phone and a stolen identity.  Click here to join our Patreon! For only $5 a month you will get 2 extra episodes a month, monthly virtual live events, and access to our community page! If you've been dogfished and want to share your story on the show, email [e-mail] or contact us through our website using this link This episode is sponsored by Miracle Made. Get your incredible, temperature maintaining, silver infused sheets for 40% off, PLUS a free three piece towel set, by going to trymiracle.com/TDD and using code TDD at checkout. This episode of The Dating Detectives is sponsored by Dipsea. For listeners of the show, Dipsea is offering an extended 30 day free trial when you go to DipseaStories.com/ TDD Looking for a new podcast? Check out Two Girls One Ghost for ghost stories and comedy!  ***The following Program contains names, places and events that have been anonymized or fictionalized for the purposes of protection and safety. The following Program is provided for entertainment purposes only and any commentary from the hosts are strictly conjecture and should not be held as making any definitive statements about the truth or identity of any particular individuals or circumstances. If you or a loved one are involved in an abusive relationship, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for support. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The following program contains names, places, and events that have been anonymized or fictionalized for the purposes of protection and safety. The following program is provided for entertainment purposes only and any commentary from the hosts are strictly conjecture and should not be held as making any definitive statements about the truth or identity of any particular individuals or circumstances. If you or a loved one are involved in an abusive relationship, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-723 for support. Happy Monday, you guys. Happy Monday.

We have a very exciting story because it's a different kind of story, but man, it's insane. Dogfish nonetheless. Oh, yeah. You guys know what a dogfish is by now, right? It's someone who's not quite a catfish. Like, they are who they say they are, but they're lying. And that can happen in any relationship, whether it's romantic or even just a friendship. Like this week's story, it's kind of crazy, though.

You'll freak. We have our first friendship dogfish story. I know we're the dating detectives, but we want dogfish stories of all kinds. So as always, definitely send us your stories no matter what, even if you don't think it's long enough. Because sometimes if it's a story that we love, but we just don't need to do a whole episode, we'll share those on Patreon. Oh, do you put a new Patreon episode out this week? Yes. Oh, we have some good ones. There's some good stories on the Patreon. You guys got to go check it out. It's just $5 a month. And then you can subscribe and you can. You get the two bonus episodes, and we talk about some of those other stories, and they're wild. What did we, the girl, we had a story where somebody dated a dogfish and then. Well, she married. There's somebody married him and forgave him. And then forgave him. Yeah. So that's a good perspective. We had some love stories to palate cleanse for me. Yes. Since I need reminders that love is real. Actually, I don't need reminders. I'm actually, I need reminders that I need reminders that I,

need to be a little careful. That was actually a really good story. So join the Patreon and we really appreciate your support. All of our Patreoners are amazing and we just love it. And thank you for just, I mean, just listening to our show, I guess. We're so excited to be here. So thank you guys for all of your support that you give to us. Yeah.

Well, shall we let our guests take it away? I think so. Let's totally get into it. Also, just trigger warning, content warning. There's definitely some talk of physical abuse. and some grooming and sexual assault of a minor. So know that going in. Hi, Ivy.

Hi, Ivy. Welcome. Hi. Thank you so much for being here. Oh, I'm good. I love right before we got on, you were saying you and your friend found our podcast. So thank you for finding us and coming on.

We binge this thanks to TikTok and YouTube. Oh, that's good. Wow. That still makes me pinch myself. But anyway, what's the deal? Take us away. So yeah, I think my story starts in sixth grade. It's a little bit different than you guys might have covered before because I didn't have a romantic relationship with this person. This person was my best friend for 20 years. And we met in sixth grade at church camp. And we just clicked instantly. We were in the same dorm group because we were the same age. And we ended up going to the same church for years after that. We went to the same middle school and then we split off for high school. But just stayed. Yeah. Because. we were so connected with church. We saw each other every week. Yeah, had sleepovers, that kind of thing. So

anyway, we got really immersed in each other's lives pretty. Were you like the friends that you don't, like you come in the back door in each other's houses? Yeah. Oh yeah. And like, it was pretty much assumed that on Friday nights we were going to be at one or the other's houses. Yeah. And so Chloe and I just, we met that way and then kind of just stayed friends forever. And our group expanded over time. But you have your girl groups, but you know, there's always like those two that are like connected, you know? And like we'd share looks across the table like when we went out like, oh, we're going to talk about this later, you know? And so what's like that nonverbal communication? Super close. So there's something like female friendships. We'll talk about it more at the end of this,

but we've all talked about how female friendships are very intense. Yeah. Oh yeah. I don't know. Not that men don't have friends. I think they should have more intense friendships. But we definitely connect on like an emotional. Yeah, they're more like, let's play ball or do, you know, something. Yeah, and girls sit next to each other and not talk, but watch a game. Yeah, and girls were like up till 3 a.m. talking under the covers, yeah. So yeah. Yeah. Definitely that kind of traditional friendship. Yeah. And then we come college, so we lived in a really heavily military town in Alabama. And she was actually at this point being raised by her grandma. And she decided early on that She was kind of going to break some cycles and join the Army.

And I was so proud of her. She had these big dreams. I was going to stay local, go to one of our schools. And so it was actually for the first time in our adult lives or in our lives at all, we were going to be in separate places. She was going to go off to Tennessee to join the Army. And I was going to stay back home in Alabama. And we're apart for about a year. And we keep up.

But we're not. At this point, I've met who I will eventually marry with my husband. husband. And so I'm, I'm like off here dating him and she's out in Tennessee and busy. And I guess now is the first time I don't get that peak at her life anymore. So I don't see what she's doing day to day. And after she's out there about a year, she tells me that she'll be coming back home and that she's not joining the army because she's met a guy. And he's, He swept her off her feet. He's got some money. They've moved to Nashville. They've been living in the cities. He's kind of got the blitz and the glam. And he's proposed. And so they're going to call. And this is out of the blue. She like calls you and is like, I'm getting married actually. Yeah. And this becomes sort of a pattern with her is that she would kind of maybe fall off the map. This is like the first big time. Because in high school, you know, when we were dating guys, like we would run into each other. It wasn't like we could keep that from each other. We wouldn't keep that.

that from each other. We saw each other all the time. But when she left and I was in school, it was the first time I felt like she was keeping maybe some secrets from me. Anyway, come to find out they had actually been dating most of the time. She was gone. He had actually convinced her early on before she left not to join the army after all. And so I was like kind of one of those situations where it's like the back of your neck, your hair starts to stand up just a little bit. It doesn't ring quite right. Like, something's off. Why was it a secret?

Why is he talking you out of this lifelong dream you've had? You know, I was just, I think at the time, more than anything, I was so surprised she wasn't joining the army. Like, knew for sure her whole life. That was a dream she had. Was there any part of you that was like, oh, maybe she didn't tell me because I would ask a question she didn't want to answer. And I absolutely think that some of that is.

In a lot of ways, I was like naive, but I was always the first. that when someone said or did anything that was just off, I was like, well, that sounds dumb. You tell about it is. Yeah. So, I mean, nicely, of course, that I definitely would have told her, because I did tell her even when I did find out, you know, I wish you had told me and, you know, maybe you guys could have done, like, you could still get married and join the army. But anyway, but other than that, I was also excited then that if she wasn't joining the army, she was going to move back closer. So we were going to be back in our hometown together. He was going to get a job near to there.

And I was also engaged at this time. So we're planning on our weddings and stuff. And I said this next part was like, if you've ever seen Bride Wars where Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway are debating because they want to have their weddings at the same place. And so they're like, you take this date and I'll take this date and stuff. We kind of had a conversation like that. It was like all of our friends are the same. And so if we want everyone to be in our weddings, not have it on the same, you know, and let everyone financially recover.

Yeah, so you have to coordinate. Yeah. So we got together. That's very nice of you. Yeah. And then around that time, my soon-to-be husband, he found out he was going to deploy. And so I decided I didn't want to get married first just for him to leave for the first six months of our marriage. And so she took the date before and I was going to wait and have my wedding the six months later.

So she moves back and we immediately catch up. Like we're going shopping. We're out to eat. She's met my fiance. We're now almost to the wedding. It's this whole summer in between. So they were going to get married at the end of summer and they came home in May. Okay.

So she comes home a couple months before the wedding and this is not long after she told you. Like by the way, I'm actually coming home. I mean like I'm coming home and I'm getting married and yeah. But as the weeks go on, I can't ever meet the guy that she's engaged to. Oh, that's weird. He's never around. And so finally, I'm like, where's Justin?

Like, I want to meet him. I want to meet the guy you're marrying because this guy that swept you off your feet, you know, it took you to this linsical city for a year, you know, all these dreams you dissolved for him. Yeah, changed your whole life. Show me the guy. And, like, there was always an excuse. So we go all this way. haven't met him all the way up to the wedding. That's so bizarre. So my best friend of 15 years or so

at this point is getting married and I haven't even met the fiance. I haven't met Justin at all until the day of the wedding. And so I see him and is he the same guy in the pictures? Like yeah, same guy in the pictures and stuff. And it's, I mean, it's not that he was unattractive, but I didn't think there was anything to write home about. I didn't see like the instance. attraction. And the day was just off. So, like, as the day goes on there, a few weird things he does. He tells her at the beginning, I'm only going to kiss you four times today. Like, like, I only want to do this. So, like, if he didn't want the photographer making him kiss her over and over again in public, even though it was their wedding day. And so he tells her and the

photographer, like, four kisses, that's, that's it. That's all I'm doing, which is super bizarre, right? I would feel terrible. That's very weird. And so that's kind of the start to the day. And so another bridesmaid and I, we kind of start talking and we're like, what's going on? And she just didn't seem happy. Like the morning of she was crying and swearing at people. And like it didn't seem like someone who like woke up to marry the love of their life that day. And so as friends were concerned. You know, so I talked with another bridesmaid. and we're like, you see what I see, you know, that kind of thing. And we pull her aside with her sister.

We pulled Chloe aside. And we're like, hey, we don't care how much money we spent on our bridesma's dresses. We don't care. We will make the announcements. If you want to go, like, you don't have to marry him. And she does tell us that he's an asshole. She straight up tells us during this conversation that Justin is an asshole, that he doesn't treat her very nice, but she was like, I love him. I want to, you know, stay with him kind of thing. And so

she does, she gets married that day. Quick break, because I need to know, you guys have to be honest with me. Is there a spicy or romantic scene in a movie or TV show or book that you go back to, you know, more than once? Because I have some of those. Recently, I really, that scene from Bridgeton, season three of Bridgeton. It's popped in my head a few times. It's like in the carriage. I never saw that. I've heard that show is very like erotic. It's romance to the max. I'll just send you the clip from the carriage. Or, you know, better yet, I could just send you Dipsy. Look at that transition. Look at that. We're talking about Dipsy guys. Dipsy's an app with tons of spicy audio stories and audio books. And it's female founded and it's created by women for women. But there's stuff for every. everybody on there and I'm obsessed with it. And if you're really into romance or even if you need a little palette cleanser after our episodes and some fun, spicy stuff, this is where you should go. It has over a thousand spicy audiobooks, all made by a team of professional writers and top tier narrators that are really good. Like, I've said it before, but when I first started

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slash T-D-D-D. Dipsy Stories.com slash T-D-D. All of that is in the show notes, and you should let me know if you listen to anything good. Anyway, so they get married and we, as friends do, we start discussing my wedding and then, of course, baby plans. And I notice some people it's really strange. Like you guys are 19 and 20 getting married. You don't go into talking about babies. But we live in Alabama, big church culture. We met in the church.

That's kind of what you do. Yeah. And then also at this point, I graduated college a little bit early. my husband already had, he was in the military, so we had kind of, you knew your life. Yeah, and we had an income and a way to have housing and stuff. It wasn't, it wasn't too far off from us getting, getting married and all of our friends were, we were ready. Hey, when it works, it works. Yeah, and we're still married. So that's good. So we're up to my wedding now. And we all, we talked about it, but it wasn't like, Chloe and I, I just like want to preface this and say,

Chloe and I weren't texting each other like, I'm having sex tonight. I'll get pregnant this day. You'll get pregnant this day. But there were general conversations as friends do. Like after I get married and we start trying for a baby. And I was like, yeah, we were planning on starting to try for a baby. And so by the time my wedding comes, she's pregnant, but she's just a few weeks along. And I get pregnant after my wedding like immediately.

So like I said my husband sneezes on me and I get pregnant. So we were, hey, that's lucky. Oh my God. It was fun. So our due dates ended up being just a couple of weeks apart. Like, I mean, crazy close together. And so we go through the summer and come the end of that year, she is ahead of me, but we end up in the hospital at the same time to give birth. So my daughter ended up coming. really early, had a lot of health issues. And so while she's full term and ready to go and this is exciting, this is her first baby, and she's down the hall for me, I wasn't matching her energy at that point. It was not the experience we thought we were going to have as we'd been talking as friends. We're like, we're going to have our babies close together and do all these things. No, you were going through a lot. It was really different. And so I was trying to stay pregnant at the time. It was like any minute we could keep my daughter in, the better it was going to be. And she was excited.

And it's not that I wasn't excited for her. It was that I had other stuff going on. And so she gives birth. Everything goes great. Her daughter's healthy, beautiful. Love her. I end up getting transferred to another hospital and give birth early. And my daughter ends up needing to stay in the intensive care unit for six months.

Oh my God. And so while she's starting out motherhood, really, and I absolutely, I want to make this very clear, I absolutely would not have wanted another experience for her. Like, her labor went great. I would not have wanted anything different for her. I was definitely not in a place where I was like jealous of, I mean, it's not that I didn't want that, but I wasn't unhappy for her. I was really...

I can sense, yeah. I think any woman that's... been through anything like what you're describing. Even not, I haven't had kids and I get it what you're saying. Like, of course you're happy for her. But I wouldn't want to necessarily, you have to protect yourself and what you were going through. You needed to focus on that and maybe talking to her about her journey just wasn't the one that was right for you in that moment. And it wasn't. And I, and I can admit, like, she would text me pictures of her daughter, you know, sitting up and like doing something that normal four-month-old babies could do, and we were struggling with my daughter at the time.

Yeah. And so, like, maybe sometimes I did not answer her text back. And so that kind of became a little contentious there for just a little bit. So up until now, the red flags that I'm experiencing in Chloe's life or with my relationship with Chloe really have been about Justin. She herself, up until now, I don't feel like has done anything to me. Yeah. That would make me stop being her friend or in this really long friendship or anything. But during this time, kind of the first crack really begins to appear. So we're already kind of not communicating the way we used to because the situation our girls are in. Then I get a call from her one day. And it's a butt dial. And it's her talking to another friend of ours about how she thinks I have not been a very good friend to her since she's

given birth. She doesn't feel that I'm... That's a convenient butt dial. That I'm supporting her motherhood journey. There were a couple of things said in this conversation, but really what it came down to was I'm pretty focused on my daughter in the hospital and I'm not responding to everything and she doesn't feel like I'm happy for her. And that was really one of the first cracks. And so I do tell her, hey, I overheard you talking to our friend about this.

you know, what the hell, you know, kind of thing. And she apologizes. And we work through it. I mean, it's just you forgive. You kind of let things go and stuff. And I say I understand that she may not understand me at the time. Our experiences are just different. And just as in the same way that I would, I don't know how to relate to a mother whose child has been hospitalized for two years. I wouldn't know what to say to her. And so I understand that she may not understand my position either. I mean, truly. And I think any long-term relationship, there will be times eventually you're going to butt heads. And so this was just one of those times that, or I felt like it was just one of those times. This is normal. Things happen. Girl say things. You know. So we kind of move on from that. And the year and a half goes by and we end up having another baby pretty close together. So at this point we have all of our girls who share pretty similar birthdays. And,

our friendship continues on. You both have two girls? Yes. Oh my gosh. So we were just like the girl pack going everywhere. And so we would have playdates with the kids and our friendship continued on pretty undisturbed for a couple of years there, you know, kind of sweet spot. Now during this time, my husband is heavily involved. You know, sometimes he'll come to playdates. He'll drive us somewhere to the movies or something. Justin is never around. I never see her husband. I never see her husband. Oh my goodness. And as far as the years total, I can count on one hand the amount of times I saw her husband. She did everything alone. He was working all the time.

Working like traveling or like working in just not there? Traveling. She suspected at times that maybe he wasn't where he said he was. So things like that started. I mean, their marriage just didn't look like mine, I don't think. And so kind of start to maybe piece together that life in her house just isn't. kosher. It's just not fun all the time. And I will say in these years, I definitely see like, my smiley bubbly friend is no longer my smiling bubbly friend. Her personality is definitely shifted. But we're still friends, you know, but like her personality is just, it just wasn't what it

was when we were younger. You know, she's lived a little bit more at this point. So a tradition and our friendship at this point had been going to Taylor Swift anytime she came to a venue near us. And so for years, every tour she had, if it was in a state or a stadium near us, we would go to it. And so we're in 2017 now and she's going to reputation or she's doing reputation. And so we get tickets and we're so excited. And like, this had been such an established tradition in our friendship that we even went to 1989 pregnant. Like we were both pregnant. Oh, wow.

Pictures. I want the picture. And so we're not pregnant. this year. We decide we're going to go out shopping before the concert and get some, like, pretty dresses. If you remember the reputation era, it was like snake skin and emerald green and black sequins. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was like super. It was edgy. It was edgy, right? And so we decided as much as Taylor Swifties and Swifties can be edgy. Right. Yeah. We were wholesome edgy. We were wholesome edgy. If that's a thing. But we decide we're going to go shopping and we're going to get some black

dresses for reputation and we're going to enjoy ourselves because we just had these babies and mamas were out for the night. And then also at this point, I learn at the beginning of our reputation weekend that it's Justin's first time ever watching his own children. What? What? It's not babysitting when they're yours. When they're yours. And so my husband, of course, at this really hands-on guy, he has our girls, no big deal. Justin is blowing up Chloe's phone, our whole weekend. He's like, what do I do? She's hungry. Yeah. And do you have to, like, if the concert's on Saturday, why are you going to be gone Sunday, too? Like, she should have been like, she should have been like, just put it on your nipple and wait until it latches. Yeah, just, just set it there and it'll do something.

So he's blowing up her phone the whole time, you know, where are the diapers? Did you, you know, shave this block of cheese yet? So we get through that. And I can tell she's, stressed by it, but she really wants to have a good time. And so we get to reputation and we're outside the stadium and we take a picture of us in our dresses and we send them to our husbands. So I send mine to mine. She sends hers to Justin. And my husband, he texts me back and he goes, oh, you guys look so hot, you know, whatever, I miss you. Like fire emoji. Solid response. No notes. No, no. 10 out of 10. Justin. text Chloe back and says, and this is burned in my brain, you two-dollar horse.

Oh, my God. I'm sorry. What? No, he didn't. What an asshole? Ew. She doesn't immediately show me this text. She just breaks down in tears in the middle of the concert. And I'm like, are you okay? What's wrong? It's something that she shows me. And I hate to say it, But for like a good portion of the reputation tour, we were in that deep girlfriend chat. Like, you need to leave this guy. Like, this is not great. This has been kind of a long time coming sort of thing. And she, we kind of conclude that weekend with she's going to leave him.

I had done some work for some attorneys before. And so I was going to get her connected with some resources to start a divorce process. Hey, you guys, we're talking about miracle made. Listen, you guys have heard me talk about how my husband is a hot sleeper and I'm a cold sleeper. And Miracle Maid Sheets are the one thing that has been a game changer in our bedroom. That's PG. The one thing? And listen, listen, we live in Florida.

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And so she does. She starts a process of divorce. He's making a ton of money. And so he has to pay her alimony with the kids and the way the laws were set up. And because he had been divorced before, we felt like Justin knew all of the ways to delay the process. So while she was getting alimony and stuff, it seemed like at the time her money was going back into paying the attorneys. or paying whatever she needed to have done in the divorce process. So my husband and I, during her divorce process, we kind of help her out a little bit,

financially help her find a place she can afford with what income she'll be getting. Around this time, too, I'm writing more professionally. And so I start working on a children's book. And one thing I haven't said so far is that Chloe was a fabulous artist. She could draw anything she saw. She could paint anything she saw. You send her a picture or a portrait. She could paint it for you. And so after I decided to work on this children's book, I know that she's looking for money. And this is just friends stuff. No one come for me. I knew that it was a job she could take and I could pay her cash. So it would help her through what she was going through, right? Yes. Yeah, of course. Totally. Totally. And so I give her my Instagram information because my page is also starting to pick up and she knew how to make Instagram like business page and stuff. So she's actually getting that set up for me and we decide she's going to illustrate this project. That kind of ends up falling apart. But not before at this point,

she now has my Netflix passwords, my Hulu passwords and my social media passwords. So let's just tuck that in our back pockets. I'm making mental notes right now of everybody in my life So that kind of comes back up later. And then in this year, her divorce is final. She's free from Justin. She's not married to him anymore. And she has the alimony. She can kind of start to move on with her life. And so she starts dating again. And so reputations 2017, the divorce occupies most of 2018. We're in 2019. And so she starts dating again. And the lover era. She's going out. she's dating and behaviors definitely start changing here. So I'm living a different life. And this is when I, again, I start to feel like it becomes obvious. We're growing in different directions,

but like I'm not accepting that myself. And so my friend is in this new stage where she's single. And because she moved in with Justin, as soon as we were done with high school and it just started college. She didn't even like date through college. This is like the first time in her adult life that she's out, right? And she's really partying it up. She's enjoying this. We're still really young. So I think the year that she got divorced, we were 24. Oh, yeah, young. Still young to have your divorce under your belt, you can still party. The thing was that she still had kids. And so I kind of became the default for where the kids would go. Oh.

And so at first it was fine. And then she starts dating one guy and I'd watch the kids, no problem. Then she starts going on several dates in a row with the same guy, but he was never a boyfriend. So. Yes. A situation ship as they say. Situationhip. They were talking.

They were talking. They were talking. They were talking about that. Yes. And so she drops the kids off one night to go out with this guy and does not pick them up that night. And never mentioned anything. Like she just left her baby all willy-nilly. She didn't pick a what?

And now you have to explain to her kids. You're like, oh, yeah. Yeah, mom's just not here. And so I get her girls tucked in bed. And I knew that she was just out on a date. So as I've told the story before, people are like, why didn't you just call the police? Like what your friend was missing. She wasn't, you know, and I was like, I knew. I knew. She's probably just sleeping with the guy, right? Yes. I would think. Right. And I knew she'd stayed out with this guy she was on a

date with and I knew that's what she had done. And like in the really truly in the back of my head, I knew she wasn't missing. And she was really kind of taking advantage of the situation. Wasn't answering calls. Wasn't answering texts. Anyway. So she shows up super early the next morning. And she's like, so we got to hooking up. I fell asleep. You know, whatever. And so I let go that night and then it happens two more times. And so I kind of tell her at that point, I need to know where you are. If you want to spend the night, that's cool. Just tell me though. Like, I'm not above keeping your kids or something. It's when you just disappear that it kind of freaks me out, you know? Yeah. Another sort of crack begins there. Communicate, at least just communicate,

like, hey, I'm hooking up with this dude, but like, just keep my, like, something. Yes. And like, my kids just need to not be in the house today. Let me know you're not dead. Just let me know you're okay. It's respectful. Also, I mean, I'm assuming she's not like paying you at all or anything. No, of course. Of course not. Of course not. And we're almost into 2020 at this point. So we were beginning to help pay some of her utilities and stuff. So I knew she could pay me. If someone can't, if someone needs help with their water bill, of course they can't pay for 20 year. But then they should be extra considerate. Yeah. So we have that conversation where I'm like, hey, you can't just ditch the kids or whatever.

She sort of goes so far the opposite way in her response that she doesn't share with me when she's going out at all anymore, which was vaguely, vaguely my concern before that if I didn't keep her kids, I wouldn't know where she was. But for the next half of 2019 into 2020, she's quiet. So I don't think she's dating. I don't know about it. What I do know is that during this time, the situation ship has ended. And so I'm assuming that this period of quiet is because she just hasn't met anyone else yet. And so we're hanging out, though. We are like still getting our nails done, that kind of stuff.

Her financial situation starts to change. She's still kind of taking cash jobs and getting alimony, but she's seen. more in trouble. She's asking for more help more often. And so at this point, the only thing that she's really covering is her rent. We're helping her with phone bills, water bills, light bills. She's using our streaming services, which, I mean, whatever, but like, that's where we're at going into 2020. So March 2020, one of my daughter's birthdays is in March. And of course, March 2020, that date is recognizable for a lot of reasons because it was when the world shut down because of COVID. And so we are hearing news that a lockdown is imminent. And so we're preparing for that,

but we also want to celebrate my daughter's birthday. And so we decide because the lockdown is imminent that this will be like our last hurrah before COVID really does shut the world down. And what's crazy is we planned a birthday party on one day and the lockdowns went like now. the day after. So whatever. Oh my God. Yeah. So it was literally the last time we were going to see our friends and family for a while.

And so we plan this big bash and we're inviting everybody. Of course, Chloe and her kids are invited. Also, keep in mind, I'm still living in our hometown. But during this time, she's moved about an hour away from me over a state line. Oh, wow. So she's over in Mississippi at that point. And I'm still in Alabama. So while we're still close and within driving distance, we are in different states, which becomes an issue later.

So she calls me while she's on her way from Mississippi to Alabama, like on her way to my daughter's party. And she's like, so I'm getting a ride. And it's my boyfriend. I'm sorry. Okay. Okay. And she's like so. Exactly.

Thank you. And then as the conversation continues, I come to find out that the last six months of silence hasn't been because she's not dating. It's because she's been dating this guy and didn't want to tell me about it. Okay. Well, why? Because she knew you wouldn't like him neither? 100%. So that comes up to.

So yeah, she knew I would not like the guy. So she's like, let me just bring him to her daughter's birthday party while the world is ending. That'll end well. that was 100% the conversation that followed. So she's telling me and I say, I tell her immediately on the phone. I'm like, I don't trust the situation all right. Like, I'm just going to level with you. He can give you a ride, but he can't come to the party. Like, I don't know this guy. Yeah, no, hell no. Totally. I'm 100% not comfortable with it. I'm sorry. And so she's like, okay, no problem. So she texts me when she shows up and the party's at my parents house. And like I said, we live four doors down. And so she's like I said, we live four doors down. from my parents at this point. Really awesome. So there are four doors down. The party's at my parents' house. And so she texts me when she gets there and she's like, I think I'm at the right house, come out, make sure. So I go out to the driveway to grab her. And she gets out of the car and I lock eyes with Tyler, the new boyfriend. Okay. He has to be cute. So he is not,

how do I say this? He's not my type at all. However, he is vaguely, resemblet of, I would say, Justin Mamoa. If you shave... Jason Mamoa? Jason Mamoa. There we go. Sorry. Is he that big and tall? That fellow.

Oh, bless it. Is he tall like that? Oh, tall, tan, muscular. My type. Well, he's mine. You're right. Yeah, more for us. But I will say one of the reasons I found him

unattractive and you ladies will totally relate is when we made eye contact for the first time. shivers down my spine. Oh, why? Oh, my God, why? Femtution, Femtuation. It was the way he looked at me in that moment. He was not smiling. He was like very stirred. And I knew, I knew inherently just inside my gut, my heart that he was upset, that I was separating them for the afternoon. It was just, I knew immediately that this was not the nice person. I just knew. If you like our podcast, but you also like some paranormal stuff. I have a podcast that I really think you're going to like. So would you believe me

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And can I just say, one time I was listening by myself, it was an episode about like a hotel that was haunted. And I heard more creepy noises around my apartment than I ever had. And I had to take a break, but I finished it because it was that good. So maybe I'm haunted now that I listen. If possess kids crawling backwards up walls or campers entranced in fairy orgies or creatures chasing drivers down back roads is your thing. Tune in to two girls, one ghost, wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes are released every Thursday and Sunday.

And now you can join Sabrina and Corinne every Tuesday on Patreon and share your own haunting tale live on their campfire stories. Join the summer wean trend and satisfy your spooky itch with two girls, one ghost, but be warned, side effects might include a haunting or two. Listen at your own risk. So he drops her off at the party, and we go back inside and I'm like, whatever, out of sight, out of mind. And the party continues. Nothing really of substance happens at the party until my husband's gathering all the trash from the presents, the food, and he goes to take it out to my parents' trash can at the end of their driveway. And he looks down at our house, four doors down,

and Tyler is parked in our driveway, just sitting there. Ew! Like a creeper? It's so creepy. Ew. He doesn't, we don't live in the middle of nowhere. So, like, he could have gone to the movies. He could have gone to a mall.

Why, go get to be weird. Go sit at a Starbucks on your phone, like a, normal person. Yeah. And so my husband Dylan pulls me aside and he goes, there's someone parked in her driveway and he tells me the car and the guy. And I'm like, that's Tyler. That's the new boyfriend. I'll talk to Chloe about it because what the heck, right? So I pull Chloe aside. Party is winding down. And I tell her, I said, you know, Dylan just went out. He took the trash out and Tyler's sitting in our driveway. And I said, I'm uncomfortable. And so she kind of blows that. off. I will say I know she's frustrated with me for some reason. And then she kind of plays it off.

Like, that's just how things played out. He wasn't planning on parking there, but he didn't know what else to do for the afternoon. So he just kind of blamed it there. And so by the end of that day, again, I accept the explanation. I'm like, okay, well, he didn't come into the party. We didn't interact. He wasn't around the kids. Like, again, I can let this go. So, they leave and then the next day COVID shuts down the world and they were also discussing at the time closing down the highway between our states so even though she and I are living close together there is a possibility that in the weeks to come that we wouldn't be able to drive to see each other again and so with that in mind the next week after the lockdown begins I get a call call from Chloe. And she's over the border in Mississippi. And she tells me that Tyler has assaulted her. Well, okay. I mean, I'm not a psychic, but I'm not not a psychic. Yeah. We wish we could say we were more surprised. More surprised. Yeah. That's so awful. That is terrible. So she sends me a picture and

he, he did. So her eyebrow is hanging. off of her face. So it looks. And so I call my husband who's still at work and I tell him what's going on. He comes home. We kind of start to brainstorm. And he's like, well, if you guys are going to go pick up Chloe, which was kind of the consensus we were coming to, was that we were going to go get her.

And then she would have time hanging out in our house during the lockdown. And that would kind of maybe demobilized. Tyler from being able to just show up wherever she was going. And so we're trying to calculate how to make that all work and also do it safely because we're not police. Yeah, of course. And she's also telling me actively not to call a police. So she's like, I just need to. Oh, so many stories like that. Oh, gosh. Well, her kids are living with her? Yes. Yeah. So you'd have them too. I mean, their involvement makes it even harder. Yeah. So she's waiting and we come up with the idea that we're going to go. We're going to take this other military friend with us. So we're not alone. We're going to make the drive pick her on our kids up, get her back over. The highway will shut down. So we're like Mission Impossible here. Yeah, for real. And also she needs medical care. She's hurt. So we make the drive. And when we get there, we pull up on her streets. And as we're talking on the

drive there, it's like the more we drove, the more we were like, should we be alone? We don't. What if Tyler has a weapon? You know, like things just start playing out. And so we decide at the last second, we're going to go ahead and call the police. And so the police show up and they go with me and I have two officers behind me and I go and I knock on the door. And Chloe opens it and immediately she's pissed off that the police are behind me. So she's like immediately, she's like, you call the That's the first thing out of her mouth is I told you not to call the police. You called the police. This is going to be a bigger mess. And the police are also reassuring her because they're also looking at her and seeing an injured woman. She is very clearly hurt. And they're like, it's going to be okay. We need to get inside the house now. Because once they see that, all bets are off. It's not like you can keep them out of it.

Exactly. But you did the right thing. And I hope you know that. Oh, and looking back, absolutely. And to anyone listen. Do not go on a rescue mission like that without professionals. You are not the professional. And then no, because you take on liability also. Yes. And danger. Yeah, look at McKinsey with all the knowledge.

Tell me, I know some things. Yes. And so the police, they're like, it'll be okay. We're going to get you out. You know, they're reassuring her too. So we get in the apartment and they pull Tyler out to the driveway. They're going to separate them so she can pack a bag and get the kids ready. and another patrol officer with more deputies, I guess, they show up and they start talking to Tyler in the driveway.

And the two officers that showed up with me or with me in the house with Chloe getting packed up. So at this point, I do notice one of the officers leaves behind me and he goes out and he confers with the officers who are in the driveway with Tyler. then he comes back in and whispers to the other officer. And then the officer that left before that pulls me aside out into the hallway. What is he? Gosh. He tells me that Tyler, of course, has a completely different story about what happened here today. Sure.

Yeah, of course. Okay. And he tells me straight up. He says, I know you and Chloe are really, really close. But your friend is lying to you. And what happened here today was not a one-sided situation. What does he mean? So according to Tyler, and he had recorded the situation because he...

Video or audio? Yeah, he videoed it. She had been beating up on him for most of the day. They were getting into arguments and she was like slapping on him. I will say the slaps I saw, not that this makes it any better, the slaps I saw weren't anything that could take this man off his feet. but she was assaulting him. So he would say something and she would be like,

shut the fuck up and then slap. Oh my God. So I see that. But then again, I'm still justifying this in my head because I'm like, even if she was doing that or they were getting into some argument, I don't know what caused it. There has to be a reason for her behavior,

which is totally unjustifiable. But that's what I was telling myself. And then also, even if she did that, he as a grown man doesn't need to turn around and clock her eyebrow off her face. Like that's where I was like, I mean, he's fine and she's hurt. So I was like, thank you for letting me know. I go and I talk to Chloe and kind of fussed out a little bit like what's going on,

what happened. And she's like, it was just a fight and it wasn't a big deal. But then like he really hurt me. And I can see that she's really hurt. Also, during this conversation, it is really. revealed to me that he has, they've not only been dating for six months. He's been living there for six months. They're living to, oh, wait, is this the place where you're paying for the lights to be on? Thank you. Yes. Exactly. And I did not know about this guy. I've been paying her utilities all the time

he's been living here. And he has a whole ass job. So really frustrated, very concerned about what's going on. I definitely feel like I don't know what's happening for a lot of this. And so at this point, everything that seems super chaotic. And my husband is just like, we need to get home. They're going to shut down the highway soon. Yeah. Oh my God. I even forgot about that. Yeah. We're still dealing with a pandemic in the middle of all of Chloe's life crisis here. So eventually this wraps up. We get her and her kids in the car. Chloe comes back with us. We get her over the state line. She's in her house. We're hanging out with the kids, everything. And for a couple of days, as we're getting her figured out, and it felt like sleepover week.

For a few days, it's like our friendship's sort of back to what it was in the old days. Our girls are getting together and they're sleeping and they're in the bunks and they're having so much fun and Chloe and I are staying up late talking and it just felt like our friendship was kind of back. And then during this week, we're also taking what I perceived to be really concrete steps to end her relationship with Tyler. So we figure out how to block his number. she gets a hold of her phone carrier,

and they even walk her through how they would block him from, like, just the carrier service from being able to reach your phone. So if you block someone on an iPhone, it will still send them to your voicemail. And then it will go in your voicemail to a filed folder for blocked messages. Oh. No, I'm writing this down.

But if you block... It'll say blocked messages, yeah. Yes. But if you block from the service provider, they can't even call the number. How you blocked from the search? Like if I call Verizon and say, hey, block this number? Yes.

Yes. Yeah. So she called and they said, so if he tries to call again, it'll tell him that the number is disconnected for him. Now, that doesn't mean he couldn't call from another number or like a texting app or something. But at least from that, he couldn't just call her and blow up her phone anymore. So we're doing that.

She blocks them on social media. And so I think everything's good. And so we get to the end of the week. And she's like, okay, I think. I've waited it out. I'm going to head home. And I was concerned. She tells me that her neighbor told her that Tyler had left. So he was no longer at the house. His vehicle hadn't been there in a couple of days. So she felt like she could go home. And so I'm thinking, okay, you know, I definitely don't have the best feeling about it. I felt uneasy about it. I felt like the week had started

to go really well and then started to feel like this conversation was off. And she's bringing the kids back home with her to us. She's also taking, yeah, she would take, I just have to keep checking in that she doesn't keep leaving her kids with you. No, yeah, no, not for this. So a few days goes by, and then she sends me a text message. And I can remember what this, again, things that are burned in my brain. I can remember what it said.

It said. What did I say? So I did go home to Tyler. And I love him. And I know that you just won't understand. Oh. Oh. And this started the first.

formal friend breakup. So I called her immediately and immediately I tell her I love her. I love her kids and this is really difficult for me. But my family's been upended by her decisions multiple times now. My finances have been affected by her decisions multiple times now. My husband took vacation time to help deal with her situation. I can't keep doing it. And so I told her it's not. It's not. And I said, if you keep making decisions that keep putting us in this situation, I can't be your friend anymore. And it was just really difficult. And her response, this always gets me. When I think about it, it's still kind of frustrates me. But her response was just, it's the non-apology. It says, I'm sorry you feel that way.

No. And of course I am pissed. I am like, no ownership just sucks to be you, basically. I'm literally, thank you. Yeah, and I was like, so of course I'm pissed off because it's like after these years of friendship, everything we've gone through, everything she's gone through. I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm sorry you feel that way.

It was pretty much like, sain hour, bitch. And then the next few weeks, I'm sure people can relate. It was like a morning period because it felt like someone died in my life. Like all of my wedding pictures that were framed around my house because she was my maid of honor in my wedding. And so she was in my pictures that were framed. I had like a big canvas above my fireplace that had her in it. And so it was also the process.

It felt like a big divorce in a lot of ways because I was also having to scrub her from my house, from my life from like my social media. She was on some of my stuff. So like taking down those pictures, like all of the stuff you would do. really after like a really bad breakup. And so I went through a morning process. And then I would even say that like my family even kind of did because they've also. It's like they lost a family member. And they've watched her grow up too. And so it was just difficult. Oh, that must have been so hard. Well, also because you were, you've already mentioned that you were concerned about her safety

with this guy. And then it's like, but now you have to do what's right for you. your family, but know that she's probably not in a great situation. No, and her kids too. You lost them. Yes. And that was like, and my kids, like, I would, they miss their friends. It was a whole morning process there for a little bit, but then life carries on. You know, you start to move on. Work actually starts picking up for me around this time. And so I'm busy, but separately, a couple of weird things start happening. What happened? What do you mean?

After the breakup, I got a phone in January of 2020. Whatever the iPhone was in 2020 that it was that year. Whatever, whatever it was. And so come March, my phone starts acting super weird. So you know how like at the end of an iPhone's life, it starts like, it starts getting hot. It starts getting, you know, and like it doesn't. the battery doesn't last, so you have to have it plugged in all the time. Yeah, or randomly, it'll just be really slower. Do not say another word. Oh, my God, shut up. So my phone is just

acting super freaking weird. And it's, not only is it overheating, it starts shutting off. And so there are random intervals I have to take where I just shut my phone off so it'll cool down. I know what she won't say. Oh, wait, I'm like, I mean, I have thoughts, but I don't know if I actually have thoughts. We'll get There, we'll get there. But it doesn't hold a charge anyway. So I think I have too many photos on my thing. But it's also COVID. And so any other time your phone starts acting like fucking and weird, you go and you get a new phone. Well, it's COVID. It's non-essential. And again, we're also taking it super seriously. And so I was just dealing with a busted phone. Also, my Instagram notifications start acting really weird. You know, those red bubbles that come up on. your Instagram notifications, I would get a red bubble and then go click on my inbox and nothing would be there. And so I'm kind of like OCD about how like I want the notifications cleared. And so I eventually even figure out how to go into my settings and turn it to where like the Instagram red bubble thing won't come up because I just don't want to see it. And the message

like notification will not go away. And so those couple of like weird things start happening. I just think it's like a malfunction. I've also had this business page just a little bit of time so I'm not thinking about it and the year kind of goes on so at the end of 2020 my phone has acted super strange for nine months at the end of 2020 and we are some of the first people who have access to the vaccines and so we get the vaccine and we decide in the new year that we're going to take a trip for our anniversary and so we settle on Miami we're going to have like a super fun time we get to Miami and for whatever reason, when I get to Miami, all of those issues I've been having with my phone for the last almost 10 months now, however long it's been, hit like 11.

So we're on the beach at some point and my phone starts overheating so much in my pocket that I have to pull it out because it feels like it's burning my thigh. And so I turn it off and it has like a overheat warning. Right. It's like the worst thing. Of course in my head, I'm like, we're in Miami. My phone's just getting hot. It's also been. And I'm, I am starting to think I need to replace the sucker at some point. We're in Miami. And of course, I am going to take pictures and videos of this awesome thing. So I'm like taking pictures and videos and I go to take like a selfie video. You know, then like my phone shuts off. Oh, okay. It goes entirely black, cannot get it back on. We're plugging it in.

And you know how even if your iPhone is dead as a doornail, when you plug it in, something lights up. The little Apple guy. Yeah, it's either the Apple logo and it comes on immediately with your home screen. Or it's the battery telling you. My phone was not doing anything. It was completely dead. It's gone.

So we use my husband's phone for the rest of the, of the night. And when we get back to the hotel room, he calls our phone carrier. And they're like, we can't, because sometimes they can remote look at things. And so they're like, we can't get into it. We have no idea what it's. It's dead dead. So the next day, they gave us an address to a brick and mortar store for our phone carrier. And they're like, tomorrow morning, go in there and they'll hook you up. So we get up the next morning and we go to the phone store. And the clerk plugs it. And the clerk plugs it. in at the front and he can't get it on either. And he's like, I don't know what to do. Of course, this kid's like 17. You know, he's just, he's just working. Get a 12 year old to run a Verizon

show. They've got it. Pretty much. That's, yeah. And so he goes, well, let me take this back and it back to my manager. I'm like, sure, you know. So he goes, he takes it back and they're gone. At some point, it becomes a suspiciously long amount of time. Yes. Like long enough that my husband and I were like, what the hell is going on? So the kid comes back with the manager. and he sits us down. And he said, okay, this is crazy. But he says, we finally got your phone hooked to one of our computers, and we think your phone has been cloned.

Cloning, yep. What? That means that someone's, yeah. I thought you met LA was going to be like, bugged. So it was cloned. And they said that everything. in it, they would try and get my pictures for me, but they did not recommend it because they felt like all of the data on the phone had been corrupted in some way. It was being, and then they said,

from what they could figure out, it looks like the way the phone was clones, that someone could see every keystroke I had made on that phone for however long I'd had it. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I don't want to like stop the story, but I have so many like weird techie questions now. Yep, yep. I'm sure you did too. So, yeah. I did. I had never heard of this happening. And then when we started to look into it, it was like, this is like a freaking spy movie. But essentially what it means is that at some point, someone had to have had custody of my phone and plugged it into a computer. They download whatever the software program is on it that jail breaks it, so to speak, and they clone it to another device that's identical or the same. So like another iPhone in this situation. And then from there, they can return the phone to the owner. and that person wouldn't know that someone literally has like a running movie screen of all the actions that are taken on that phone. What it also allows them to do is send messages from your phone. They can use your phone as if it's theirs.

They can use your phone as if it's yours. And so I am reeling. I am thinking at this point that some Nigerian guy in the, A third world country has somehow figured out how to hack my phone and do all this stuff and clone it. Like, I'm not thinking anybody I know would ever do anything like this or anything. I also... This is mind-blowing.

Okay. In 2020, my husband deployed. And so I then start panicking as it sits in with me because you, when your husband's deployed, you send him naughty pictures and texts. It started to set in on me that I'd been. like violated. This was more than them just seeing every text message I wrote, which could also be embarrassing. But this person had all of my pictures. I had. Bank too? Like all your phone. So that comes up later. Oh God. Okay. I get a new phone, get a new number when we get back home. And we start to try

to figure out what the heck is going on. I get in contact with the phone carrier again. And they say that they can't really help. The only thing that they can tell me is that when they tried to ping the phone, they got one ping one time and it was in Jackson, Mississippi. Now, I know someone who lives in Mississippi, but she did not live in Jackson. And they had explained to me what a VPN was. And so they're saying, even though it ping's there, it could be like a VPN. And it could be. So I make it look like it somewhere else. At this point, I'm still thinking Nigeria. Because I've also seen those Dr. Phil episodes where they like follow people to Nigeria. Were you thinking like who had my phone for any period of time? Oh yeah. And what I was also thinking was for all of COVID, I've been really

locked in the bubble. And the only people I did see were like the same couple of friends and my parents. And so I could not figure it out. I was thinking about all the times that even I went into like a gas station if I said it. I mean, I was racking my brain. I could not figure out when this person would have done it if I dropped my phone somewhere and then like picked it. I mean, could not. I am also thinking

it's a stranger. Because there's just no, no way. And the phone carrier, people, they did. Like your identities was stolen. So we're home three or four days. I get a call from our bank. And they are telling me

that someone tried to make a withdrawal for the exact amount of money that we had in that account. It was like an odd number. It was like $5,931 or something. And the withdrawal request was $5,931. So like they were going to wipe it. Of course, that pings on a bank's radar. And so they stop that transaction. They call me and they tell me that someone's tried to make this withdrawal, right? And so they stop it. But now we're also clued in that someone does have access likely to our banking information. And it dawns on us, well, if they can see everything, I've done on my phone, they have access to everything, all of my banking stuff. So we get the bank thing one day, a day or two goes by. I get a call

from one of those credit watch bureaus. And they tell me, because like you pay a service to watch your credit or something. Well, they tell me that my social security number has been stolen. Great. Oh, my God. What they think has happened is that it appeared on the dark web, like someone sold my social security number. So I guess what people do in these situations, again, as I've learned, is they will get people's social security numbers and then sell them to people on the dark web to then use and like take out credit for. So they said my Social Security number had come up on something like that. They recommended me changing it. So I had to go through Social Security Office. And if you've ever dealt with doing that,

it's a pain in the neck. Like you would not, it was a big mess. So we get that changed. And at this point, everything stops. So I'm not getting, not getting any more phone calls. I have a new phone, new number, thankings all good. Everything kind of seems to mellow. out. Now, I'm still really aggravated that this has happened, but the phone carrier, they don't investigate this, I guess, unless they just have to. And the police said that because the bank stopped this person from actually taking money from our account, there was no crime committed. And so they weren't going to waste their time investigating it. So I'm just really frustrated this has happened. I still feel really violated. Still feel like it's some far away scammer.

And at this point, this person's had every vital piece of information about my life. I have no idea what all they could do with it. So I'm also living in a state of like complete paranoia. Aside from the paranoia, I'm also embarrassed. Like I feel like people can see through my clothes kind of thing. Like there is definitely that process of like feeling so violated. And so I mean, yeah, it totally felt like some weird movie. it was super surreal.

I have a lunch maybe about a month after everything is starting to calm down with my friend Tammy. And we're sitting down and through this conversation, like we're talking for hours about it, I somehow mention the couple things my phone was doing in that year that were super weird. One of them being those Instagram notifications that would not go away. Yeah. So I'm telling Tammy, I also had this happen and I had to change my settings because my notifications went go away. She goes, hey, Ivy, look at your message requests. And she's telling me that sometimes the red notification will come up. But when you go to Instagram,

it's filtered your inbox. Yes. And you have a primary and like a general and a spam. I miss so many messages that way. It's so bad. Yeah. And so she's like that notification could have been coming up, but it could have been a message in your spam folder. So when you went to look at your inbox, it wouldn't have shown up on that page. So while I'm sitting there with Tammy, you're like, okay, I'm curious. Yeah, I get on my Instagram. I click on my message requests. Oh, no.

And I open a message and the message says, I see that you have a husband and a family. So I'm going to venture a guess that you're not the girl that I've been talking to on Tinder. Oh. And at this point, by the time I see this message, it's eight months old. And my heart falls out of my ass at this point because I'm like, oh, no. And my brain is starting to like, the wheels are turning. Same, same.

Catch us up because I'm like shocked. Can I tell you that at no point have I been able to predict where you were going? And so I immediately accept his message. request and I message him back and he gets back to me super fast and he tells me that he matched with me quote unquote on Tinder about nine months before and as it went on he suspected because I went in FaceTime or video chat I may not be the girl in the picture. So that's a catfish. Yes and so he did an image search for one of my pictures and it pulls up my Instagram account because my Instagram account was public. And so he sends me that message and he says, smart kid, he says that he figured it was

filtered because I didn't respond. And he knew he was not talking to me. And so he does me as solid. This guy was super nice. He took that picture and that profile and he put it on one of those. Like if you've seen this girl. Are we dating the same person or whatever? Are we dating the same girl? Wait, there's a, are we dating the same girl ones? I thought it was only guys. I didn't know that. Oh, good. to know. Are we dating the same girl? I did not know that. And so he put it on there and he said he got like a couple of people who were like, oh, okay, I'll stop responding to. So she's still out there. Yeah, my profile was at the time. My profile was out there. And this is happening nine months before,

but I'm not aware of it. Right. Well, then he tells me that he did get a response from one guy who did not believe him and fully 100% believes that he's been in a relationship with me for six months. He is also convinced because even though I haven't FaceTimed, he has talked on the phone with me once. And so he knows it's a female. So I'm also learning at this point that this is a girl for the first time. There is a female involved here. So this guy's convinced I do end up sending him a message, I think, at some point, to say, this is me like I took a little video this is me I'm not who you've been talking to I'm really sorry

you know that kind of thing so I at this point I'm aware of two guys my god okay so now you're like who the fuck is me yeah so now I've learned that not only is my phone cloned and someone took my banking information and try to use my social for something that they've also taken my pictures and they're on dating sites so I go into FBI mode so to see I'm like you okay go go go the police aren't helping me. The phone carrier can't or won't. No one cares, but I care at this point. Like, I want to know who.

So I go on Instagram and I make a post and I say, okay, so I've just discovered this has been happening. If anyone stumbles on my page, you're not talking to me most likely, especially if you found me on a dating site. I am married. My husband makes an Instagram for the first time, just so I can even tag him in that post.

And so we tag and stuff that way, if anyone wants to maybe talk to him instead of me, they could. Like, this is my husband. Like, this is what not me. You're like, look. And it was also like, hey, any of you weird guys, if you want to talk to somebody, why don't you, he can confirm that I am, in fact, his wife. So we make that Instagram page.

And when my husband makes his Instagram post to tag me, my, I have an ex-boyfriend. Now, let me preface this by saying, he's not a villain in the story. He is super, super nice guy, which is why I was getting ready to load up. Yeah. So no. Ryan, nice guy. We dated before I dated my husband. We didn't break up because of anything big.

He was going to take a job at a different part of the country at the time. I wasn't going to move schools. Okay. Easy Peezy. It was easy, easy. We were friends. We stayed friends online. And then he eventually moved back.

But I was already engaged and moved on. You know, no biggie. But he and my husband actually became friends for a little bit. And like Ryan even came to our wedding. Okay. That's not weird. That's fine. No. Yeah. So, I mean, really, they were friends. But over the years, you kind of fade out from communication with some people. You know, like with Chloe, I had like the formal friendship breakup, right? With other friendships, you just kind of life goes on. You stop talking or keeping up as much. And so Ryan was kind of that guy to me. We just kind of stopped keeping up with each other. And it was not a blip on my radar. I had not thought about him in a long time. So my husband, when he makes that Instagram page, Ryan gets on there.

And he sends my husband a message. And he says that he actually got a message from me, from my phone number, a few months before. And I was telling him that I was leaving my husband and that my parents had died and that I needed money for their funerals. What? Oh, my God. No way, dude. Because Ryan and I had dated before, he was devastated because he knew my parents. And so he was really upset by that.

And then he said after another 24, 48 hours goes by, he hadn't sent money because he started to feel like something was wrong. He just felt like this person's behavior wasn't like me. So he asked to FaceTime me and I would not. Me, quote unquote, and I would not. And so he figured it was a scam. and he gets online and sees that my parents are still alive. And so he said at the time he knew it was a scam and that he was just so happy my parents were alive

that he didn't think anything else of it. He just didn't respond and he moved on with his life. He thought it was a scam, no big deal, whatever. Yeah. Right. But once my husband made this post, Ryan could see that he couldn't click on my page. And so where I thought he had just faded out of my life,

You had blocked him. I had blocked him. And I was unaware he was blocked. And then it settles really heavy on me because I know for a fact that I never blocked Ryan myself. I had no reason to. We didn't have an ugly breakup. We were still friends. He was friends with my husband. I had no reason to block this guy. So I immediately know something else is amuck. So I've already gone through the spam folder and figured out a couple things I've gone on there, I had not checked my blocked list because why would I? Right. So I go my blocked list and I see about 35 names.

A people that you would never have blocked. That I can figure out at least that I did not block. Yes. Oh my God. And a few of them are men, I know. And so I am panicked and realizing that this is even more twisted than I thought it was because this person even tried to scam my ex-boyfriend. And I also have some elderly family members. And so I'm also getting in contact with them.

Like, hey, guys, if you've gotten any message from me, if you've given money, you know, let me know. And if you get a message like this in the future, do not give money. My parents are alive. One of these men that I talked to thought that my husband had committed suicide. Oh my God. And I needed help paying for his funeral. It was always like paying for the funeral of someone I loved, which is also super fucked up. Yeah, that's so sadistic.

Yeah. I hate this. So, yeah, getting money for that. And I do come to discover that a couple of people, unfortunately, to give money to this person. Oh, no. So I have 35-ish people on there that I can figure out that I did not block. three of them that I can figure out are people that I know in real life. One of them was Ryan, and then another guy was Peter. And so I find out that Peter had been told around Christmas

that my kids needed Christmas gifts. And so he sent money to help take care of Christmas gifts for my kids. Oh, okay. Yeah. So it's like just one little story like that. They just kind of keep happening. And then he said that after he sent the money for Christmas presents, I blocked him. Oh. That's terrible. So now. Ivy, how could you? The third X. Now this is when I will preface this by saying like definitely a little bit of a trigger warning. So the third X, I'm going to use the term loosely because I don't think it's a fair term for this person. But when I was 15 and, at my church. There was an adult man who worked there and grinned me into a relationship. Oh, no, sorry. I'm so sorry. For the first half of my 15th year, I was being sexually intimate

with a grown man. It wasn't until years later that I realized that was not a relationship. Yeah. That he was a grown person in ministry. Unfortunately, this is kind of, people have heard this story before. You know, this happens. Sorry, yeah. But all that to say, this person was not an ex-boyfriend so much as he was an abuser. But because I didn't come to that realization until later, I did keep it a secret from my parents. I did keep it a secret from my teachers. I did keep it a secret from my siblings.

So no one knew about this guy in my life except for a handful of my closest friends. Shut up. Are you serious? So my couple of best friends knew about him, and that was it. I mean, I mean, you tell your deep, dark secrets to your friend. Yeah, right. Your best friend. So then I will say I go and I click on his page.

And he has figured out at this point. So after I go to Miami and my phone shuts off, he never gets a message from me again. And he is pissed about it. He is upset. He thinks that we were going to reunite. 10 years after at this point, he was planning a life with me. He posts online that he's been catfished and someone has used the photos of his ex-girlfriend and he is livid because he thought his dreams were coming true.

And he has been talking to quote unquote me since March of 2020. Oh my God. Oh, my God. My former abuser now believes that he's been in a romantic long-term relationship with me again for a year. Oh my God. Believeable. And of course, I am freaking out. And I also figure out from his posts that he was planning on buying a house and was beginning the loan process for us to live together.

Oh, my God. That's how far he was invested in this relationship. And so I am freaking out, but it does start to settle in my gut that not only is the person who's done this, someone close to me, it has to only be these people. And I figuring out in my head at this point, that is likely because of the people in my life who knew about him, knew about Derek specifically, this guy, was. her. It was her and one other friend, and I knew the other friend had nothing to do with it. So another thing that's really lame is if you have anything going on with Facebook or Instagram, you cannot get a hold of anybody. No, they don't have customer service. There's not a customer service number. You can't call Zuckerberg and be like, hey, let me, you know, can you tell me what's

been going on? Marky Mark. We need you. But I know at this point she's accessed my Instagram account. And I know before we broke up, I'd given her my password to do the illustration stuff, but I had changed it in the year since we broke up. Now, when I changed it, my fatal flaw was I changed it to the same password I was using for Netflix. It says my note to change my passwords. As soon as she was logged out on my Instagram, she just tried the other password and it worked for her. So that was my mistake. But we get into Instagram and eventually we do get a call back. I'm probably one of the few people on the planet who gets a call back from like their business center.

Wow. And we're talking to a guy, his name's Stephen. I will say shout out to Stephen at Facebook and Instagram because he was the real one of the real MVPs of the story. So we call him and he tells us that he can actually tell us every location that my Instagram page has logged into like ever. It peens on a map. And so he pulls that up and it pings to her town, to Chloe's town. Wow. And I know it's her.

He also walks us through how to get into Gmail and do the same thing, access the location data from that. Gmail is a little more on the nose because they do IP addresses. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so when we ran the IP address, it came back to her exact address. And can it tell you when these pings were? So you can see like it's not just when you knew. It was, yeah. It was like it shows every login session every time. And it came back to Chloe's address. Exactly. And so that solidifies it for me. I know it's her. I know that she knows everything she would need to know to con someone into thinking they were talking to me, especially after that much time has gone by. So she was dating guys and getting to talk to guys so that they would send her.

her money and then she was blocking them. Yes. As you. Yep. As me. Boggers. Whoa. So I am completely shocked. Well, that's someone that you shared with. Like you, that's someone that man. And you can even think someone's made bad decisions and they date bad guys, but you don't think that that person could go so far. You don't even, every step of this you don't think is going to happen. No, you don't think the next thing is going to happen. Phone cloning. Right there. I'm already, you lost me. I would never assume somebody had cloned a phone. Yeah. So I decide I am going to confront her. And I do first consult with a friend at the police department. And he tells me absolutely at this point, there is a crime that's committed, you know, but he's going to let me decide how I go. So I call her and I kind of leverage that into a conversation. And I'm just like, I have now been in contact with my phone carrier, my bank, the crime. creditors, basically Facebook, Gmail. I know what you've done.

Mark Zuckerberg is on the other line. He's pinging in right now. He's here. Yeah. And basically, if you don't have a conversation with me about why and when and how you did this, you're going to jail. And so that's essentially how I got her into having a conversation with me about what happened. And so she agrees to confess to meet with me to have this discussion. And so we go and I actually remember the place we met. We have these little cafes around and you can get some sweet tea and stuff. So I got there first and I'm waiting and she comes in and we do lock eyes. And the vibe I did originally get was that she was going to book it. So like we're getting around and she's like taking her time to get the table. And at some point I am thinking that maybe she's not going to sit down. But no, she eventually does and she sits down. And I think the first thing I say is I don't I don't want to talk about the weather. Anything like that. let's just cut to the chase. I said, I've spoken to X, Y, and Z. I know that this is you and just explain it. And then she does. She dives into the story and it goes back to March 2020. What's she say? So now we're going to rewind all the way back to March 2020.

Okay. So she did get in that fight with Tyler. Like that did happen. She does pass up to me at the beginning of this conversation that the story that she gave me was not the truth, that she was the aggressor for most of the day. And so he just finally snapped and turned around and clocked her super healthy, you know, relationship. Yeah. No, not healthy, all super toxic. But that's what happened. That led to the punch. And she said because of that, she felt really guilty. Like, she felt like she caused what had happened. And so she was more inclined to take him. back. And so they reconnected either the night before or the night before the night before she left my house when we picked her up. So she had unblocked him and started communicating

with him again on Instagram and decided that she was going to go home. And he come to find out that Tyler and his brother had previously gotten into trouble for some business fraud, some of it including clothing the laptops and computers of someone who got to do it already so he knew how to do it and so they know that if she goes home i will stop paying her bill and so he kind of floats this idea by her and i'm asleep she takes my phone he walks her through the steps she tells me it took no more than 15 to 20 minutes my phone goes back to me while i'm asleep and she gets up and carries on and then does the whole song and dance about how she's just going to go home. And then, of course, I break off the friendship.

But because they'd already done that to my phone, she had everything that she needed at that point. She tells me that come Miami, because my phone was further away than it had been, that they were starting to have issues. And then also one of the guys that she had been catfishing with my information and my pictures had clued in and sent a screenshot. of me at the beach in Miami with my husband to the phone number, like back to this texting thread that they had going and said, I know you're not her. Who is this? And so they know they're busted. Yeah. Because they know that this person's likely going to tell me. What's funny is that

person never did. Oh, God. But because she had been spooked, they decide that they're going to kill switch the phone. So this program, I guess, when you're about to be You can remote shut down the phone. And then they attempted to drain my bank account because until they figured out their next way to make money, they needed some cash in the process. And they knew they had access to my banking apps. And I can 100% tell you, I don't know when the change happened. I don't know.

But the woman I spoke to when she was explaining how she could violate my life so explicitly and in a very conniving way was not the same girl who had been my friend all those years before. It was like talking to just a completely different. Was it like, can you say more about that? Yeah, like was it her voice or the way she spoke or what made you know that it was different?

So throughout that whole conversation, her number one and only worry was whether or not at the end of getting this information if I was going to call the police. Oh, it literally, it was nothing. There was no, I'm sorry. I can't believe I did this. She did confess that she sent nudes to people because it drove the story home.

But she did tell me she at least did me the service of photoshopping some of my tattoos out of the picture. Oh, that's so nice. I was like, that's so nice of you. Wow, thank you so much. But literally, as she was saying things like that, she said it like that would make me feel better. There was no actual empathy or understanding that like, hey, that's psychotic. you know like that's not a cool thing to do it definitely felt like an out-of-body experience because there were times during the conversation too like i was literally thinking like this cannot be

real or she would give me an answer like we had talked about this for so long and you were in miami and then this guy caught on so we just decided to kill the phone because it was acting weird like as she would say things that were almost nonchalant but were very major pieces of information or things that really mattered or were really messed up for conniving, she would just float that into the conversation like it was normal or that I should be thankful for it. So like, yes, we did all this, but we shut the phone down then. So it stopped after that. Or yes, I did send your nudes, but I photoshopped out your tattoos. It was not a conversation that you would have with someone who was like completely normal and sane and actually

had any sort of empathy, sympathy, regret, guilt, conscience of the situation. It was 100%. I did these things that were bad, but I could have been even worse. And so that was pretty much the story that she settled on telling me. A couple of things obviously that frustrate me other than the whole violation of the friendship thing is that although I had broken off the friendship, I had not broken off the friendship until she texted me after she had left my house and told me she was getting back together with Tyler. So when she cloned my phone, we were still friends. She was in my house. This was not revenge. This was something she wanted to do anyway. And that was like an extra knife in the stomach to the whole thing because it was like, you did that before. I had even

broken on contact with you. By the end, I will say when we did part, I was crying. I was a little weepy and I said, I mean, I was your best friend. We have known each other since sixth grade. We had our babies together. We planned our weddings together. I paid your bills. I just do not understand this. And that is, I will say, the one question of the whole situation, she never gave me an answer for. She never said, I did this to you because she never had an explanation for, why. It just seemed like I was the target. I was there. I can admit about myself easy to manipulate at the time. And I was available. And so I think I was just chosen because I was convenient for her and relationship be damned. It really, our friendship, obviously in her decisions was not considered.

And so I know that if I called a police, her kids are going to foster care. Yeah. And so I just sort of settle on moving on with my life. And I tell her, I don't ever want to see you, talk to you again. And then I do tell her if this ever comes back up. Like if there's ever another hiccup in the world with my social media, my cell phones or whatever, it's your fault. And I'm calling the police. And yeah, now that's been, let's see, 2020. Yeah, so it's 2024. It's been four years. And is she still with Tyler? So here's what I think has happened since. I think that because my information was out there on so many dating sites for so long that box are now using my information oh great okay perfect wonderful yeah so every now and then i will get another instagram

notification or message from someone who's telling me that my information's back up on something and that they've put in she and tyler have broken up but not before they had a baby together oh bless it jesus no so and then in the year's sense obviously our friends started to clue in like, you know, Chloe and Ivy, why aren't she friends anymore? You know, and she, like, the story doesn't get any worse if she could not get any worse. She has told people that the reason our friendship ended was because I did not like the fact that Tyler was a Muslim. Are you joking? So obviously, all of my actual friends know the truth in our actual friend group.

They knew what was happening. But now you're like, she's like done the worst. Weirdest shit, your reputation. And at no point, I never, ever cared that Tyler was Muslim at all. No, of course not. And when she told me... You just care that he punched her in the face. Exactly.

That's what I was like. I was like, I never cared that Tyler was Muslim. I cared that he punched her eyebrow off her face. Like, call me crazy. But yeah, so that's, that was the story she settled on telling people instead of obviously the truth. And I do know that Tyler has done this particular thing since. he's done a few other cybercrimes.

And we're not telling on him either because why? Because it would implicate her to the babies. Yeah. And like I said, it's like not my circuit. I'm so tired of me. My circus is not my monkey, she said. Ivy, I'm sure you've already like looked into anything and everything you could possibly do.

But McKenzie, does anything come to mind in terms of how Ivy can now protect her information from like these random like robots? Okay. So first of all, we, one of our advertisers is delete me. Delete me is the one that we talk about where they take your information and wipe it off the web. Have you used anything like that? And we did. We did pay a service that went through.

And I mean, and it still works. I pay monthly now for it to try and wipe my information off the dark web. Yes. That's what Delete Me does. That is one thing. I also know that my page blew up after a little bit. I have an actual company that goes through my Instagram messages for me. Yes.

So that way, yeah. I'm not getting that kind of stuff. That's really smart too. I like that. I'm glad you have that. Yeah. And so I definitely that kind of stuff. And then I think in general and just another thing I've learned now since having girls, especially it's like you don't want them to ever go through something like this with their friendships and stuff is I ignored a lot of red flags that eventually led to the crescendo that this was. And like we've been talking about how my breakup with Chloe, my friend breakup with Chloe felt like a divorce in my life. Because. Well, especially if you're so close to her. And we've been friends, I mean, I said I'd known her longer than I knew my husband. We met in fifth or sixth grade. Yeah, those friends are like, I think they feel like cousins or sisters or family. Like their blood, it feels like. Yeah.

And so when we grew up and I started making different decisions than she did, I definitely ignored some things obviously along the way, like the first butt dial. It was very telling, yes. Yeah. So, you know, things like that that were just like red flags. I just kept ignoring because she was my friend for a long time. And I think sometimes we ignore things longer in those deep friendships and we would even take from a boyfriend.

Yeah, we sure do. Because like if I had a boyfriend who butt dialed me and was like talking mad shit about me, I'd break up with him. Yeah. But a friend is like, yes, a friend can be chalked up to like catiness or something. Yeah. Or it's like kind of. Yeah.

Oh, man. And also just the, we don't talk about Fred red flags as much. We don't, do we? We're constantly looking out for ourselves in relationships, at least in this, in this house here, the dating detectives. But in terms of the friendship stuff, I mean, friends are supposed to be the people that you don't have to think about that with. Those are supposed to be the ones that are with you through all of the relationship stuff. And then like another red flag, the time she left her kids with me, of course, that in itself is a red flag. But as my husband and I were talking about later, she never once in all the years we were friends ever babysat my kids.

Not once ever. Was that favor ever returned? So even things like that were never a two-way street. And so I just ignored it for so long and then ended up in a really crazy situation. What kind of person does this? It's one thing to be a bad friend. I hope people that listen to these stories, sometimes it's easy to listen to them and be like, oh my God, I can't trust anybody. Yeah.

There's also the ability to take those experiences, these stories, and change your behavior change what you look for or accept. Yeah. And I hope now everyone goes and changes their passwords like 400 times. And you need a different password. I know it's a headache, but you need a different password for everything. Because let's say someone takes the chance and they happen to guess one. You don't want them having that one password and then have the ability to infiltrate every important

app banking app, social media page you have in your life. I don't know how I remember all those, but it's true you should. I know. Got to play some memory games. Write it down on a notebook. I'm excited. I'm excited to unpack. Thank you so much for sharing all of that.

I know some of that you've been really hard. We're so grateful. Well, we're so grateful for you sharing your story because like we've always said, there's always something in every story that someone goes, oh my gosh, that's happening to me or whatever. And you're not alone. You're not stupid. And I know sometimes it definitely can feel that way because you're like, how did I let this happen?

And I can even safely say, it wasn't until the last year and a half that I could even tell this story. And like, I laugh now at certain parts of it where, I mean, a year and a half ago, I was still like, I was first. Of course. Like when we got to the part in the conversation where she was telling me, she sent like my news out to people. Every time I got to that part in the story, I would break down and cry. And now I'm like, what the heck? I wish I still had those abs. Like, you know, it's just you guys.

But no, that's how we cope, man. You have to cope. But someone's, Hannah, who one of our guests said recently, I could not wait to get to the point where I could finally laugh about it and not be devastated by it anymore. And I'm happy to hear that you're there. Yeah. Yeah. We love you so much.

Thank you so much for coming to tell your story. We appreciate it. Whoa. So that was a lot. I have, first of all, there is so much that we need to touch on. I have so many questions. about phone cloning. I'm terrified. Did you know that phone cloning is actually easier than you think? All it takes is the IMEI number and someone can clone that to their own phone and then use their own

phone to use your phone. I don't even know what an IMEI number is. It's like McKenzie. So the IMEI is like an identifier for the phone. It's the International Mobile Equipment Identity. So it identifies. It's kind of like a serial number, I guess. But it's not only the hardware. It also helps to identify the software on the phone. So it just identifies. that particular phone and the software. I don't know if you've ever done this, but I had to call Apple remotely at one point, and they were able to, like, get into my phone

and, like, use my phone while we were on the call so they could, like, see what was wrong. Yeah. So that's kind of like... Is that what they did? I think that's more like mirroring so that they can, you know, provide the service or whatever. But, yeah, similar. Yeah. It's kind of like that.

And they could, once you give them control of your phone, so whenever you call Apple or call the service, support and they they remotely access your device or whatever. That's kind of what someone else is doing, but from their own device or from a different device than yours. So they're basically on all your stuff. They have access to all the things and everything's just logged in all willy-nilly. And it's dangerous. How do we protect ourselves? Keep our phones to ourselves? Password protect? Do you factor authorization, change all your passwords? Always do the two-factor because that way, if they try to use your password, it'll send you like an email and a text and all these

different things. So it'll tell you, like, someone's trying to get in. But with phone cloning, they don't need that. Yeah, I guess you're right. With phone cloning, they just have access to everything. So it's really dangerous. So that's why, like, it's really, it's scary because all, our lives are on our phones, are they not? Oh my gosh. No, if I, if somebody had access to everything on my phone, I'm done. Yeah. All your bank account, everything. And then when you have like intimate conversations with your partner, like all of that stuff. And we've heard before, there's blackmail stories like anybody can take advantage of any of that and it's so dangerous. That's so scary. I guess protect your phone and just take note if there's anyone in your life who you feel like

has access to your phone that shouldn't. And then I realized that she was dealing with her literal best friend who she would never suspect. Yes, exactly. And so that's when it gets even more dangerous is the people you trust are sometimes the ones that hurt you the most. And that's really crappy. Like, can you, I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine my best friend doing that to me. Like, my best friend knows everything. Like, she knows where all the bodies are buried. Like, she knows all the, you know what I mean?

Everything. I would love to talk about the intensity of female friendships. And I know that it's not only women that experience this, but I think it often is. And like, one, making friends as an adult is really hard. Making friends in general is freaking hard. So I understand where she was like, this was my best friend from forever. Like, it's going to take a lot. for me to rip this apart. But truly, like, I get that. Like, some of my friends from way back in the day

can do almost, like, it's not that they can do no wrong, but it's that they feel as intense to me as family, like the way that you get mad at your mom, but you're like, she's my mom. Like, I'm not. Yeah. Yeah, it's different than a romantic relationship, but at the same time, it's still as intimate, right? Her and Chloe lasted longer than the men that came in and out of their lives. Like, for a minute, I was like, what's the dogfish in this? Like, for a while, I was like, oh, God, they're just like having a difficult friendship, but it's just friendship. And then, oh, the dogfish was was dropped. And then it's this whole thing of how do you, for instance, when there's abuse, for instance, in your romantic relationship, it's like, okay, I have to break up with this person,

right? You come to a point generally where it's like you break up with them. What do you do in a friendship? Is it the same thing? But that's not the way our brains work, right? We're like, oh, this is a friend. I think a lot of us, maybe I'm wrong, but would be more likely to forgive a friend for doing something than like a romantic partner, you know. I think you're right. There's a lot of rhetoric around like, don't settle. Like, you deserve more in relationships. But we don't talk. Yeah, we don't like, I think when you're making a friend or you're in an earlier shallower state of friendship, it's easier to be like, oh, this person's mean. I don't want to be friends with them. But when you're really deep in it, there's not a lot of conversation around,

like, know you're worse in a friendship. Like, because we don't think, we're just like, is this person cool? and do they like the same dumb shows that I do? You don't have to worry about like... Or have we been through everything together? Yes. How could I imagine my life with them not part of it? And I'm not sharing finances with them. Exactly.

Like having kids with them. I can say, I can tell my best friend things that I would never share with my husband. Let's talk about a step before her finding out that her friend was stealing her identity, stealing her phone, stealing money, all of those things. Finding out that your friend is like not perfect or finding out your, like when your friend comes to you and is like, he sucks. Like, I have been beating him up and telling him he's horrible and he just left me. Like,

that's horrible. You're like, the, you know what I mean? Like, have you ever had an experience where your friend was like, obviously in the wrong? And you're like, uh, so honey. But this was an extreme case. Like, there's one thing when your friend, like, makes a silly mistake. But to be somebody, maybe they are an abuser. Maybe they are somebody that's sexually assaulted someone. Like, I think it's, we don't talk a lot about. our relationships with the people who do this stuff. And you don't just, like, turn off a light switch and stop caring about them. Like, the way she went out of her way to support her, obviously she didn't know the extent

was really special and beautiful. And obviously, it was taken advantage of, which is really sad. Yeah, it really was. But I, and I don't know, I just, I feel like it's a lot. The abuse stuff was kind of crazy. But I feel like also, let's talk about along the lines of abuse. The other trigger warning was for sexual abuse of the minor. When Ivy was in a quote unquote relationship or a, she was being abused by her pastor,

that whole situation just broke my heart. It was, yeah, classic devastating. And then to come back later, it's gross, right? Oh, it's disgusting. Oh, my. Well, I think also when you go through something bad, which many people in our stories have, it shapes your empathy moving forward. You're now able to relate to other people

who have been through the same thing or just like you're more conscious of how they might be feeling. And I think that's one of the superpowers that comes out of going through something bad. And in this case, I'm kind of devastated that it did shape her into the friend that she was into somebody that could be super, super giving and sacrificial, honestly, in the way that she...

took in her friend. And now I'm like mad that that empathy was just taken advantage of because I just want, I'm trying to find the silver linings of all. And that goes back to romantic relationships too. Are we forgiving our romantic partners like our friendship? It's just, it's all interesting. But also let's talk about, okay, let's talk about identity theft real quick. I know we talked about phone cloning, right? Where someone, that's a lot, that's really dangerous, right? But identity theft is really a big deal too. Once you've experienced identity theft, it's hard to clear. yourself from that. And that's, we actually advertise with Delete Me. You guys, one of our advertisers is Delete Me. And that's why we talk about Delete Me, because that's one resource so

you can try and protect yourself online with all the information that's available. But the identity theft is, that's, oh man, that's so hard to overcome. If you've ever experienced anything that you want to share, obviously there's the kind where somebody like hacks you from countries away. but I wonder if other people have experienced maybe a partner or friend or somebody in their life. And if your phone is acting wackadoo, go get a new one. Like, don't even question. Let's just not even bother with it. Like, go get a new one. Now I'm like, wait, did my phone like get too hot in the sun yesterday? Do I need to go get a new phone? I'm going to be questioning it all the time. Yeah, exactly. Honestly, I'd rather be questioning it than have someone take my phone and steal it. That's wild. It's just wild.

Oh, one other techie thing, the idea that when you block someone on your phone, that is just one way to block them, but you can call your service provider. You can call Verizon or whoever and they can do. And I didn't think about that. Power block. Yes. I didn't know that. Like, I'm telling the teacher. Like, I'm not just ignoring you. Now I'm telling on you. No, now you literally, the phone is not just going to go straight to. They can separate our seats in the classroom, but now you're getting expelled. Like, we're done. Get them. But it's good to know. It's also good to know that when you block someone, it's like, they're not really blocked. There's like a folder on your phone where the number is and their stuff is going somewhere else. Yeah. I don't like it, but it's nice. That was a nice tip. No, it's good that these remind us. The other thing was the, are we dating the same girl? I didn't know there wasn't are we dating the same girl. I thought it was only, are we dating the same guy? And I was like, I wonder why there's no, are we dating the same girl? And I guess I just never looked it up. But it exists.

It exists. I'm so glad it does. And if anyone is a member. remember, we're not, I don't think they would let, I don't know if they'd let us in. I want to talk to some of the guys on there. Like, I want to know, are there any guys that are that have posted like a girl and are we dating the same girl or if you have, you know, ever questioned that? Like, we want to hear from you too. Maybe we need to do a little catfish get ourselves into the group. No, we would never do that. We would never do that. It's, I don't think it's illegal, but I think it's not ethical. I think we shouldn't and wouldn't do that. Fine, McKenzie. We'll be ethical. This is why I'm not the B.I. I'm like, can't you just like pretend you're,

I don't know, there somebody's dying? No, we would never do that. And if we, if anybody does that, don't tell anybody, but don't do it. Anyways, yeah, that was a lot. And we want to hear from you too. Whatever dogfish situation you're in, we want to hear from you. No matter what part you play. Like, I still want to hear from more dogfish themselves. Like, I want to hear from the people who actually do these things. And if you want to be anonymous, by the way, you totally can. Like, if we can change your voice or even if you want to not tell us who you are, that's fine, too. I completely agree. And you should email us at Investigate at the Dating Detectivespodcast.com because that's the email.

Yeah, I knew that too. And also, please join the Patreon. Come listen to the stories there on Patreon. They're really good and interesting. And it's just a really great community that has been built there. And we're really proud of it. And also, we appreciate your support. much. So anyways, thank you guys for listening.

Have a happy Monday. And send Ivy your love and support. We pass long messages to our guests when we can. So if you have anything, you want to share because she's been through a lot. I'm so glad that she has like a happy relationship, at least. Yeah, I'm glad that they, she seems so cute. Anyways, happy Monday, you guys. And as always, trust your friend.