I was 27 when I received an email that would shatter the image of a person I’d known nearly half my life. I was eating breakfast when I heard the ding on my phone, and as I read the first line I felt the blood drain from my face.
“The email you sent us was linked to this Facebook account. We hope this is the information you needed,” read the first line from the service which promised to find catfish identities for a small fee.
I pulled the email up on my screen. There was a link to a Facebook profile which I opened and quickly scanned. The person I’d talked to on the Internet for 12 years had graduated high school in 1968 and this would put him well into his late 50s.
My online relationship
I met Richard in an online chatroom when I was 15 years old, and he was 17. We bonded over books, shared interests, and our location; we lived in the same state, but eight hours apart, a world away for two teenagers with no money of our own.
We’d talk for hours about a dozen different topics, sometimes on messenger, other times by phone when parents weren’t around.
Susannah Birch
Our conversations were passionate, deep, and covered a hundred different opinions we shared, but there was one flaw; he hated me telling him no.
The phone calls were always on his schedule, his promises to visit never happened, and if I wasn’t available to talk to him or do what he’d asked, he’d become angry or even break up with me for weeks, accusing me of ignoring him.
By 18 I was more Internet savvy, but I’d known Richard so long that I didn’t question him, because he’d become such a part of my life. He’d also never shown the Internet predator red flags I’d been warned about; he never pushed me to meet or asked me for money.
His excuses for not using a webcam made sense, as did his reasoning for not visiting; just like me, he was limited by parents paranoid about the Internet, who wouldn’t want him driving eight hours just to visit a complete stranger.
I was 18 when he proposed, and the three tumultuous years of fights and waiting to meet in person all felt worth it.
Two weeks later, Richard broke up with me again and I’d had enough.
We continued talking though; sometimes weeks would go by or months, then we’d have a four or five hour call. We would talk for another nine years before I saw the TV show catfish and realised I might not be alone in my conversations with an Internet stranger.
Over the years I always suspected he was lying about something, but I thought it was something he was simply embarrassed about. Perhaps he was on the dole, or still lived with his parents, or hadn’t finished his university degree. I never thought it could be his entire identity.
Discovering the truth
The phone rang, and I nearly dropped it. It was Richard, but it was also a complete stranger.
“I know you’ve been lying to me,” I said, straight out, just like that. I said the words that would direct the rest of the conversation.
His voice was wary, as he tried to figure out if it was just something small, never guessing I knew the full truth.
“I know your name is *Patrick. I know you’re married and you’re at least 60 years old, I know you live in Mackay, and I know your office number,” I blurted it all out, wanting it to be over with.
“It doesn’t matter, it’s not me. A phone number doesn’t prove anything,” he said. His voice didn’t have the anger I’d expected from someone who had been accused of something untrue; his voice sounded like someone at the bottom of a hole, who suddenly realised they didn’t have a way to get out, and was ready to give up trying.
You could ruin my life with this, I am serious. My wife and family don’t deserve this.
“Here’s the number I called, the number that went to your voicemail,” I said. I remembered I had real physical facts, and I felt a tiny moment of triumph which increased with his next words.
“It just grew and grew out of control,” he said.
“I wanted to stop it but I didn’t know how.
“I didn’t think we’d still be talking after this long. It just got harder and harder to dig myself out of this hole, the longer we talked.”
He continued talking, telling me about his drinking problems, his marriage problems.
“You’re the only one from those days who I still talk to and I didn’t expect this to happen. You kept talking to me, even though I was sure I’d never hear from you again,” he said.
Suddenly I began to feel like the bad guy, something I hadn’t expected. From denial and defensiveness, Richard shifted into an emotional appeal.
“You could ruin my life with this, I am serious. My wife and family don’t deserve this.”
“Bye Richard,” I said, and hung up.
*Some details have been changed to protect identities.
