DID I GET CATFISHED?

When you enter the world of online dating there's always a possibility that the person you're talking to is not who they say they are.  There's even a TV show on MTV based on this very thing.  Well I think I might've had this happen to me for the first time.  Was the guy I wanted to date imaginary?

I had been talking with a guy from a dating site for a couple of weeks.  He was a good looking guy around my age. He had a good job. He kept himself in shape.  He had a couple of kids and was just now getting on back on the dating scene after a divorce.  He seemed like pretty good guy and a decent catch.

From the get go there were some things that seemed a miss. A couple of the times he would take a week to get back to my message.  To me that indicated that he wasn't interested or he had other things going on...like a girlfriend.

Most guys on dating websites message for a few days at the most.  Then they ask for your number and want to meet in person to see if there's a connection.  This guy however, didn't ask for my number, didn't ask to meet. Nothing.  When I asked him about meeting in person he told me that he was enjoying the process and wasn't in a hurry to get to the finish line.  At first I thought that was some sort of bologna line, but then I thought well maybe this guy is different.

There were other signs that could indicate that this guy wasn't who he appeared to be. The last name that he gave me wasn't real.  I tried looking him up on the internet and no one with that name existed that looked like him.  When I asked him about it he admitted that wasn't his real name, but wouldn't give me a real one. 

For some reason I let all of this go because I thought that he wanted just take things slow.  Now I feel like I'm the one that is slow.  Seriously?  I've watched Catfish the TV show a ton and yet I fall for this.

I feel really stupid because I was acting against my better judgement.  My BS meter was going off, but I ignored it because I let him convince me otherwise.  I was letting him in on knowing things about me that other people don't or weren't able to get out of me in years because I had so many walls up.  I was being vulnerable for the first time in a very long time.

I was being my authentic self.  I told the truth in everything I told him.  I had nothing to hide other than my job.  I just didn't want him to judge the persona before the person.

I think of everything that he was being shady on.  There was so much that he wasn't telling the truth on.  Not that he was lying, but he wasn't being forthcoming with information.  His real last name...didn't know it.  His job...he didn't tell me.  He wouldn't call me.  He wouldn't ask me out.  Other than his profile pictures the pictures he sent me never had a face in them.  I mean, he could've been lying about EVERYTHING and I fell for all of it.

I feel like such a sucker!  How could I fall for that?  For all I know he was some 60 old man in underwear using his son's pictures to troll the internet for chicks.  I understand people are private, but I feel like there was something else going on there.  Looking back things just didn't add up.  Did he have a girlfriend? Was he really married after all?

What have I learned?  That you should go with your gut.  If something doesn't feel right it you're probably right.