Invisible Lies

This is Part Two

Part One - Alberta Is Also a Catfish

My first adventure in online dating continued somewhat counterintuitively following my “meeting” with a catfish. What could a new catch be in a world where shame had lost its raison d’être; where excuses can be always justified by some injustice that needs too much change to occur and hold to be ever forgotten; and where masks have layers, with the maiden one too deep to be found? Unlike the catfish, this woman was verified, with five pictures that emanated both beauty and sadness.

Our initial texting was slow the first day, having to wait several hours between the lines given the five hours that separated our time zones and, apparently, her long night job, managing foreign insurance-related accounts. She worked following the US Eastern Standard Time (EST) time zone and was therefore occupied from 9 pm to 8 am — a long shift — but with the ability to take short breaks between calls; enough time for a text or a reply, as well as a quick bite. She must have had a night lunch hour, but we never got the chance to discuss it.

Marie’s pictures were beautiful, and she replied that she was flattered by my earnest appreciation of her sad beauty — or was it beautiful sadness? We texted a few times a day for three days, learning a bit more about each other. I mentioned that I wrote on Medium and Vocal and she even read a few of my love stories. On the fourth day, I received a message that she wanted us to meet on Google Meat; I mean Meet. After a few glitches, we were able to see each other; Marie, wearing her work headphones, and me, as I appeared on my pictures.

I must have become whiter than my skin already is, since I was looking at someone else, and certainly not the Marie in the pictures. I mentioned that I did not understand, although I had suspected that her pictures had been “filtered” to look dreamy. I guess that we can qualify this as another type of catfishing. She must have felt some guilt, to want us to see each other on the fourth day. It should have been on the first, and better yet; Marie should have never posed as someone she was certainly not; surely not sultry as she had mentioned.

I did not lose my so-called cool and wished her to take care. She wished me the same but did not apologise, immediately erasing her profile on the online dating site and disappearing as if she had never existed. She did not exist, really. Zero for two can be a blessing when the outcome would have been much worse. A catfish followed by another type of poseur; two liars with different endgames. I even told Marie about the catfish, and she mentioned her hope that I did not think that she was one. I smiled then but I do not now.

My expedition to the field of online dating is surely a bust. Beauty has always been a commodity with assets, but it tended to flourish when the beauty was not solely in the eyes of the beholder or plainly imaginary. Was Marie hoping I would still like her after her deception? How could anyone? All the pictures she posted and those she sent me were fabricated. What kind of relationship was she hoping for when she showed herself to be a deceiver? Catfish come in a variety of scales; some more colourful than others. Marie’s were surely white.

Please note that I do not think that I could ever meet someone via an online dating site. This remains an experiment, with no one getting hurt. As I mentioned, I suspected deception in this case given the perfection of the pictures, and simply wanted to pursue it to the end. I may write a final story about online dating, that is unless my Anthi returns to my dreams.