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.