Category: single

Kiki looks into catfishing

Cat fishing is defined as a deceptive activity in which a person creates a fictional persona or fake identity on a social networking service for the purpose of fraud. Be on dating apps long enough and one will experience at least one catfish. Technically, Lucy was also cat fished by Mr Tumnus the faun. His plan was actually to kidnap her and take her to the queen but later changed his mind. Much like these dates. 

The first time I was catfished my date never showed up. Prior to the date he communicated through text and the app. The day of the date as I was driving to meet him he blocked me on the phone and then by the time I walked up to the restaurant he had deleted me from the app. As I circled around the place there were only groups seated. Not a solo person to be found. Inquiries to staff lead nowhere they had not seen a singleton at the place in hours. As I walked back to my car I was panicking- this man knew what I looked but I had no idea of his appearance.  I watch a lot of Criminal Minds so my pepper spray was at the ready. However, one time when a catfish did show up there was  awkwardness a plenty. 

I matched with Kacey who seemed normal in his photos and bio. After riveting conversation he planned a great date at a fancy restaurant. A man picking a place, time, day,  and making a reservation for a date is not the usual so I probably should have known something was up. When I showed up  it all became very clear.  The man who was seated at the table  was definitely not the man in the photos. Not in the completely separate person way, but rather the photos were clearly from his glory days in college. Kacey’s hairline had definitely moved back and his face had aged not as gracefully as he probably would have liked.  He clearly knew what he was doing was wrong and seemed to want to make up for it through planning. Like the queen he felt he had to lavish gifts to hide his duplicity. In this case  it was through order after order of food even after I only wanted one dish he asked for several items. Conversation was halting unlike on the phone because at that point the sham was up. It’s like he just kept ordering food to lengthen the date. It was a painful couple of hours. 

I was able to finally get my Uber but Kacey insisted on waiting with me, unlike some prior dates. After what can best be described as an air side hug  I jumped into the Uber and the driver said, “Ooph that was awkward, huh?”  I asked him if it was that noticeable- he answered: “ Even Stevie Wonder could see that this was a bad date.”  We drove home exchanging dating horror stories and laughing. 

Kiki looks into dating Disney characters

Narnia is a small place, but not as small as dating in Los Angeles with your other single girl friends.

A couple of years back I met a man named Simone on the dating sites and we texted on the app for a couple of days and exchanged numbers. We started texting and it was going well- banter, memes, and GIFs flowed. The witty to serious conversation ratio was spot on, good wait times, and things were progressing. We scheduled a Sunday brunch date- the only thing that set my radar off slightly was when he pushed the date back a couple of hours to an earlier time, but things happen so I did not think too much of it (however, this becomes important to the plot shortly.) On the Saturday before the date he called me for the first time.

I will pause here to describe Simone. His profile showed a very tall, very handsome man. In all his photos he is well dressed, with a strong beard, and a sharp hair cut. He had sent photos in his text, nothing crass, all looking recent and matching the profile- all good. Back to the story.

When I answered the phone what I heard knocked me sideways- and not in a good way. Although Simone’s number was on the screen (remember: tall, sharp, good looking) all I heard when he said hello how are you was Minnie Mouse’s voice! I thought maybe it was the connection, but no. As Simone continued to talk his voice remained the same pitch. This man could have voiced over any number of Disney shorts: Locked in Love – check, A Fancy Gentleman- check, New Shoes- check, check. If Minnie was in it Simone may have voiced it over. Was this a lucrative side hustle he had forgotten to mention? I was too stunned to say much so let this Minnie voice over talk about his background, kids, and whatever other topic he covered. When we hung up I still did not know what to do but didn’t feel right cancelling on such short notice.

That night I had dinner with the girls and we were discussing our dating lives. One of my friends mentioned that she had a date the next day with a man she had met while out. She had had to change the times because of some prior family commitments ( I know you see where this is going , dramatic irony and all) As we were discussing our respective dates’ attributes some of the qualities seemed to overlap- but were slightly off. She continued to discuss her date but then said slowly, “the only thing I can’t get passed is his voice- it’s so high pitched.” I stared at her for a minute, took out my phone and said: “is this who you are going on a date with tomorrow” and showed her a picture from the text. She took out her phone pulled out matching photos from their thread. This Minnie Mouse sounding guy was reusing photos; and, and he had moved our time back because she had had to reschedule theirs. He booked two dates in one day !

To top it all off the attributes were off because he told us different things including background and family size! Needless to say we both cancelled on him, and he still had the audacity to try and argue with us.