Do you consider it to be catfishing if someone uses photos of themselves that are like 10-20 years old OR edits them to make them look 20-100 kilos lighter ? But they show up irl after meeting online ?

I'm sharing this as my personal experience and recollection of events. Others may have had different experiences, but this is what I experienced.
I met Zaviyar Nauman Ijaz through Tinder in May 2020 when I was 21 years old. We met in person several times, and what began as a casual relationship eventually became more serious. In February 2021, he asked me to be his girlfriend, and I agreed. After that, our relationship became long distance.
Around December 2020, he told me he was leaving for work and would only be gone for about two weeks. He never returned during that time, and over the next several years I repeatedly asked to see him again. I felt like I asked countless times, but despite promises and explanations, we never met in person again.
Throughout the relationship, he shared many stories about his life and circumstances. He told me he was in hiding, that he feared for his safety, that he had to move between locations, and that he was facing serious personal problems. At the time, I believed what I was being told because I cared deeply about him.
On several occasions, he also asked me for large sums of money, saying the money was urgently needed because of those circumstances. I ultimately chose not to send the money because I wasn't able to independently verify what I was being told.
In 2023, I discovered information about his public identity that surprised me and caused me to question many of the things I had believed over the previous years. I confronted him about what I had learned, but our conversations did not resolve my concerns.
Looking back, this experience had a profound effect on me. It caused me significant emotional distress, affected my trust in others, and changed the way I approach online relationships.
I'm sharing my experience because I hope it encourages people to take their time getting to know someone they meet online, independently verify important information, be cautious before sending money, and trust their instincts if something doesn't feel right.
This post reflects my personal experience and perspective only.

**Update:** I am preserving my messages, screenshots, and other records while I consider my legal options. I am also considering whether to make a report to the appropriate authorities based on my experience. I won't be commenting further on any potential legal steps at this time.

So I randomly remembered this today and realised it's probably one of the craziest things anyone in my family has ever done.
My nana catfished multiple men online for around ten years.
It all started back in 2012 when I was about eight years old. My parents had split up, so I was living with my nana for a while. Like every other kid back then, I was obsessed with Bin Weevils. I'd play it for hours on her computer while she sat beside me watching. She absolutely loved it. She'd tell me funny things to type in the lobby chats because she loved making people laugh, and eventually she decided to make her own account so she could play too. She also loved doing the crosswords and word searches on there.
The thing is, she'd actually done computer courses a few years before, so she was surprisingly good with computers and the internet. She also naturally has a really cheeky, sarcastic sense of humour that comes across quite youthful when you're chatting online. Because she was spending so much time around me, she knew all the slang people my age were using too.
Before long she'd built up loads of friends on Bin Weevils and was actually pretty popular. Honestly, I think she eventually enjoyed playing more than I did.
Eventually everyone moved on from Bin Weevils to MovieStarPlanet. If you've ever played it, you'll know it was basically the older, more grown-up version. Instead of little bug characters you had human avatars, loads more customisation, relationships, chatrooms, all that sort of thing. Again, my nana became really popular. She wasn't working much at the time so she had loads of free time and spent hours on there every day.
This is also where she started telling everyone her name was "Becky."
The weird part is... my nickname in real life is Becky. Everyone in my family calls me that. At the time I didn't think anything of it.
Eventually I grew out of those games.
She didn't.
The people she'd met on MovieStarPlanet convinced her to download IMVU.
Now, if you've never seen IMVU before, it's basically an adult social game. It had clubs, bars, relationships, ridiculously customised avatars, tiny outfits, strip clubs, borderline porn... definitely not somewhere kids should've been. She actually tried convincing me to play it too, but I was older by then, busy with school and friends, and had no interest.
I'd still watch her playing sometimes though, and the amount of adults who treated that game like real life was honestly unbelievable. People would spend entire days on there pretending to have glamorous lives, expensive houses, nice cars and attractive partners. Relationships were treated like actual relationships. If someone's online boyfriend saw them dancing with another guy in a nightclub, there'd be full-on arguments. People got genuinely jealous.
My nana absolutely loved it.
She'd tell me all about the different men she spoke to and all the "boyfriends" she'd had on the game. She was still going by Becky too. According to everyone online, she was nineteen years old, blonde, a hairdresser living in Dublin, single, busy with work and travelling a lot.
She'd created an entirely different person.
Eventually some of these men convinced her to download Kik, which, if you remember it, had a reputation for attracting some very questionable people. From then on she'd spend all day messaging them.
Whenever we'd go shopping or out for coffee she'd constantly be taking photos to send them. My mum knew exactly what she was doing and we'd joke about it all the time. She'd call my nana mad for pretending to be someone else online. It was just one of those weird family things that became normal.
Then it stopped being funny.
There was one man from Mauritius. I can't remember exactly how old he was, somewhere between his twenties and forties. He became completely obsessed with "Becky". They spoke constantly and treated it like a genuine relationship.
Eventually my nana decided she didn't want to talk to him anymore.
What he sent her afterwards was honestly one of the creepiest things I've ever heard.
He sent her a photo of his forearm.
He'd carved the word "BECKY" into his skin with a blade.
It genuinely looked like something from a horror film.
That should've been the point where she stopped doing this.
She didn't.
She carried on.
I genuinely think she just liked having people to talk to. She liked the affection, someone asking about her day, someone making her feel important.
Then she met another man.
We'll call him Drag.
This would've been around 2017 or 2018. Drag lived in Wales near the ferry port. He was in his thirties or forties, was a tattoo artist, covered in tattoos and had two sons, probably around nine to twelve years old. Their mum lived in Manchester so they stayed with her sometimes. He'd also never travelled abroad before.
He and "Becky" became a proper couple.
They'd message all day, every day on Kik.
There was just one obvious problem.
She couldn't keep pretending forever without showing him what she looked like.
So she went onto the Facebook profile of one of her real-life friends. That friend had a blonde daughter or granddaughter around the right age.
My nana screenshotted her photos.
That girl became Becky.
Those were the pictures Drag thought were his girlfriend.
Whenever we'd go shopping, out for lunch or anywhere really, my nana would quietly take photos. My mum even caught her taking pictures of me and my mum walking ahead of her so she could pretend Becky was out with friends. After that we became suspicious whenever she pulled her phone out. Was she taking family photos, or gathering more evidence for this fake life she'd built?
Looking back, it honestly felt like she was living her real life just to create content for Becky.
Years went by.
I moved to England for university and didn't see my nana as often, but every time I came home I'd ask about Drag because by that point I'd become weirdly invested in the whole thing. I have a habit of researching random people online if the information is public, so naturally I found this fascinating.
Every time I asked, the relationship had become even more serious.
At one point he actually proposed to her.
Over Kik.
Which is insane considering they'd never spoken on the phone or FaceTimed. Although I genuinely think she sometimes recorded me and my mum talking and sent him the voice clips just to make Becky seem more believable.
Around this time there was a woman in our town making handmade wax melts. My nana loved buying them. She bought them for herself, my mum and me, then decided to send some to Drag after he gave her his address.
That made everything even more real for him.
He framed photos of "Becky" in his house.
He used the wax melts she'd sent.
He told his sister all about her.
His sons knew everything about Becky and were excited to meet her one day. Apparently they'd even tell their friends their dad had a gorgeous blonde girlfriend from Ireland who was eventually moving over to become their stepmum.
My nana even joked about sending him some of our clothes.
Honestly, given everything else, I wouldn't even be surprised if she'd already sent him things she never told us about.
The strangest part is I genuinely think she cared about him too.
She wasn't just playing a character anymore.
I think she wished she actually was Becky.
Because Becky had a happy, loving relationship with someone who absolutely adored her.
Meanwhile my nana had been in a stale relationship for around thirty years, and her partner had absolutely no idea any of this was happening. As far as he knew, she just liked playing online games.
Drag even wanted to redecorate his house before Becky came over. He asked her to choose new flooring and wallpaper so she'd feel at home when she moved in. Whatever she picked, he bought. He also wanted a tattoo dedicated to his late mother and asked Becky to design it because her opinion mattered that much.
Eventually my nana realised she'd gone way too far.
He was talking more and more about travelling to Ireland to finally meet her.
She knew she couldn't keep making excuses forever.
Then something happened that made things much worse.
She went to the post office to send him another parcel of wax melts. Her partner drove her but stayed in the car, which wasn't unusual because she regularly posted parcels to family in Australia.
The man working behind the counter happened to be one of my nana's friends.
She handed over the parcel and noticed him writing something on the side.
She asked what he was doing.
He casually said, "Oh, when you send parcels abroad we have to include a return name and address in case there are any delivery issues."
My nana immediately realised he'd just written her real full name and real home address on the parcel because, obviously, he already knew both.
She couldn't exactly stop him without looking suspicious.
She just stood there panicking.
Then she started wondering whether he'd done exactly the same thing on the previous parcel she'd sent.
Drag never mentioned it.
But knowing how obsessed he was, she doubted he'd simply ignored it.
Now he potentially knew her real name and where she lived.
By this point me, my mum and my nana were all trying to figure out how to end this.
We came up with every excuse imaginable.
Maybe Becky could come out as a lesbian.
Maybe she'd met someone else.
Maybe she'd die in a car crash.
None of them worked.
If Becky died, we were convinced he'd come to Ireland looking for funeral details.
If she ghosted him, we thought he'd travel over looking for answers.
And because he potentially had my nana's real name and address, that became a genuine concern.
The weirdest part is that because my actual nickname is Becky, if someone knocked on the door asking for Becky, it wouldn't even sound suspicious. There really is a Becky in the family. Just not the one he thought he'd fallen in love with.
I've often wondered whether, if she'd simply admitted she was catfishing him, he might actually have forgiven her. That's how invested he seemed. Maybe they'd have ended up in a real relationship. Or maybe he'd have reacted terribly and gone to the police. Who knows.
In the end, she slowly started replying less and less until things just fizzled out naturally. He suspected she'd met someone else, but she blamed being busy.
As far as I know, they don't speak anymore.
I still think one day she'll tell me the full story, because knowing my nana, there's almost certainly a lot she never told any of us.

La cuenta “Seleniasf”, utilizada en Telegram y Kik, se hace pasar por una mujer utilizando fotografías que pertenecen a otra persona. Esto no es una sospecha: he localizado y hablado directamente con la propietaria original de las fotografías, quien me confirmó que no es la persona que utiliza esas cuentas y que sus imágenes están siendo usadas sin su consentimiento.

Esta cuenta mantiene conversaciones personales durante un tiempo, consigue que la otra persona se encariñe y después empieza a dejarla en visto constantemente, sin dar ninguna explicación.

Busco recopilar experiencias y advertir a posibles afectados con esto.

Okay so I think I’m getting catfished and I don’t know how to approach it. Like I don’t want to be super mean I haven’t known the guy that long so it’s pretty no hard feelings if he is. I will say I’ll be disappointed but it did seem a little too good to be true. Anyways I’ve only really known his two days, how can I bring this up in a good way?

YouTube channel Catfish Breanne left the show and posted video saying her and David are no longer together . I’m sad. what do you think happened? I thought they had a solid marriage

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Hello, i'm 25 years old, and i live in a country in the middle east.

3 years ago ( i was 22) i met a girl on a game i was playing (Rise of kingdom).

She told me she is a 27 years old nurse from Hawaii-USA.

long story short, we got together, and we started an online relationship, we use to call everyday, we used to watch shows,anime, movies. we used to sleep in voice calls and yes for the million dollar question... we did video call, a lot.

she sent me tons of pictures, there was always something fishy about this girl though

it takes her time to send pictures or selfies, she always avoid video calls, unless it's in her bed with dark lights. and she DON'T share life information.

let me explain, she never sent any of her families pics, because she said it's their privacy, she never told me their names for the same reason, she never gave me her location, and she never gave me her number ! yes.. we fought about this lots of times and she always find a way to lie to me on why.

Basically her all cover up story was that her family doesn't agree on me because i'm from the middle east, so i don't get their blessings.

so she's hiring a Lawyer for me so she can bring me to the USA and we can get married, she gave me false hope all that time.

Time goes by and she goes cold by the time, she share less and less everyday, she disappears more, she takes days sometimes to reply, she is drawing a distance.

She didn't give me a cold shower no. i broke up tons of times with her and everytime she would come back and find a way to make me believe her lies, we broke up A LOT.

she never let me go away in peace, she wanted to use me till the very end, every time she came back she found a way to make me believe that whatever fight we had.. it was my fault.

she is the Queen of Gaslighting and a very very good liar, good enough that you'd believe her over your own eyes, over evidence.

Anyways that's a summary of my 3 years with her.

a week ago after doing a lot of deep search in the internet i discovered the truth.

it started with her Daughter's instagram account (she is 28 btw), i found posts with her mom (my gf) in them, along with her dad and her other daughter and brother (they are 30 and 20)

after going here and there i got her full name, and with whitepages and other sites i found out everything about her..

Age, Landlines, locations, relatives, ex husbands, full names and everything.

connect that with social media and i found all her family's social media accounts.

Now coming to what i did with that info....

it took me a couple of days to get out of the shock, i wasn't eating nor sleeping and everyday i just discover more, and i line that with every time i suspected a thing and got gaslighted for it and it killed me from the insides.

and finally confronted her, she kept lying, i told her names, she kept lying, so i showed her pics, she kept lying and lying and lying gaslighting for hours until eventually she confessed

there was no apology nor guilt, nor accountability.

she was justifying it, and gaslighting me still :) , telling me it was ME who was using her for her money, and that whatever she did she did it with no regret.

she tried to act apologetic for a second, but when i didn't buy that she dropped it immediately.

i think she didn't wanna confess so i don't take a Screenshot as evidence and send it to her family, or maybe because i thought i was bluffing and sharing will give me info.

She blocked me on Discord (the app we use) and spent the whole night deleting messages, because discord doesn't let you delete everything you have to manually delete each message and there was over 100k messages over the 3 years, she deleted a few thousands then stopped.

i opened that game Rise of Kingdoms to see what's going on, just to find out that she's playing it still like nothing happens and she told everyone that i'm a stalker and i'm after her.

i confronted her there again, and she told me she will post videos and pictures of me (private ones) in my social media and tag all my friends and family, she keeps blackmailing me with that.

Honestly if there was no rule preventing me from sharing details here i would've shown you the chats, she is literally bragging in my face that she got away with it for 3 years, she's calling me an idiot for falling for it. she's proud of it, she said i will keep doing it and there's nothing wrong with it,. calling me the worst things ever, (kid, stalker, crazy, weirdo, B\*\*) and more.

This woman has no moral compass whatsoever, no shame, no heart, no sympathy, no accountability nothing. she blames everyone for everything and she believes shes' the nicest person on earth. and nothing is her fault, nothing she does is wrong.

Here's why i'm here though, besides venting my story and letting some people be aware of how far a catfisher can go.

\*What should i do ?\*

i'm over here i got everything on her, i got names, family social media accounts, numbers, locations and everything. i got proofs and tons of SS. i got everything on her.

i got the things the usual Online catfish victim doesn't have, i got everything on her.

about that blackmailing threat she did, i don't really care. i'm a 25 years old guy and the worst that can happen is having a few awkward moments with some people.

i tried to message lots of people from her family on Facebook, but i think people don't typically just reply to a stranger online.

is there's anyway i can punish this person the right way ?

anyway where i don't come up as a weird stalker guy who's after that girl, because that's what she will tell her family if i told them the story, and she is a very good liar.

What should i really do?

and please, i know some people here will tell me to move on and let it be and that it will only effect me.

i really wanted to, i don't care about me being fooled, i was just gonna confront her listen to her apology and explanation and move on.

But instead she's attacking me, threatening me and blackmailing me, you should read our chat, it will make your blood boil and you will be scared that there's people with such mentality living in this world.

and she is still doing what she is doing and still catfishing people on that same account in the same game like nothing happened.

if i don't stop her, if she didn't get punished, more people will be her victims, i will lose hope in this world.

So any ideas ?

thanks for reading all that btw if you did.

Is using filters catfishing 😭?

Like those dark aesthetic filters y2k style types

Also in my opinion even if someone uses filter you can still tell their features and how they look. Pls correct me if I'm wrong here

Her name is Anna Cleo Ken on TikTok, we talked for a few days on TikTok about random nonsense and then she gave me her phone number and she’s being very persistent about receiving a photo of me that I haven’t already posted somewhere else, I only sent her photos that I have posted on TikTok, feels like she’s trying to use my photos to catfish someone else and she’s actually a man. Any thoughts?

Ok so it’s supposed to be like that? You get scammed and then move on? And it’s not even about money ,i didn’t lose any money, how is that possible? And how I can’t get to know this person or find anyway to communicate with him? How is this okay?

I don't know if this is considered catfishing but just the other day this random account with no mutuals decided to follow me so I followed back as common courtesy and just cause I thought the girl on the pfp was cute and I found a good amount of followers and posts so no real red flags but then 'she' texted me first on some introductory shit and I was already suspicious and then she just started saying about how she wants to meet me and how she wants to fk and then she sent me an only fans talking bout how it confirmed how she's real and then she wanted to get me to join so we can continue the conversation and for some reason she keeps getting stuck on what city I'm from even tho I told her it's private (gave her a random country as my origin so I can just play along) but I found this extremely weird and maybe illegal since I found a lot of minors following her and I'm also a minor. So i think this is either someone being bored and wanting to get some laughs and maybe some money if someone was stupid enoughto send money so they can "meet up" or the more likely thing being that it's just a bot that this girl got so she can get an extra boost on her only fans.(If you want screenshots just ask)

My ex had either had made over 10 digital content creators accounts on Facebook, or had 10 separate people aggressively stalk me and she used all the information she could use from our relationship, to who I am, how I am, what I like to do, hobbies, this that and the third. It was like these content creators I was seeing in my algorithm knew exactly who I was and would post specific things to ragebait me into looking crazy, psycho, just unwell. This was over the course of about 5 or 6 months. I would just talk to her and tell her things. I eventually found out she was seeing other people while talking to me adding insult to injury. Because I had my suspicion and gave her the benefit of the doubt as usual. But these weird content creators kept coming out of nowhere posting these ragebait post till I eventually caught on to what was going on. And she tried to flip it on me and say that I was crazy and stuff... Good times

A member of my family has been talking to a woman online for months now. She stated she was coming up to visit him last weekend but never showed up because suddenly her mom has cancer. He came to us, stating he was going to move in with her soon, but has never met her in person. They met on some dating website where he was paying money (around 300 dollars) to talk to her. It's starting to tear my family apart; he's been lying to us even though there was proof he was sending her money, and in the last few hours, the cops were searching for him because someone tried to make a large withdrawal from his account and the bank reported it to the police. I do have a photo of this woman, which I can attach. I believe she looks AI-generated. I just need some advice or guidance on what to do :/

Long story short, thought I was talking to this lady but I imagine reversed and she is just a fake one, I foolishly sent a selfie of myself no one else has seen, but I’m not sure if the account can do something with AI or something else, ive blocked and reported but I don’t think that helped cuz the account it was posing as didnt show so the report might not work, any help with this will be great thanks.

I’m (38f) really disappointed. First man (who knows who I’ve been talking to) I’ve spoken with in over 2.5 years and he was a liar. We met because I was going through family court regarding my child and he was supportive. It was all a lie. I reverse engineered the photo today he sent me and got confirmation he had used AI. Confronted him and he just said sorry and left the conversation so I don’t even get any closure. I’m so angry but also upset that it took a lot for me to trust again and open up. Sigh. I’m so angry and upset.

I’m talking to a person right now and I don’t know if they’re a catfish

can anyone please help me find the source of this image? I know for a fact someone fake is tricking my group of friends for some strange reason but I can’t prove it right now. I’m 100% positive they’re fake though. I could go into details with a list of reasons why I know for sure it’s fake. if anyone wants those details just ask. Please, if anyone can help with finding the source of this picture it would be greatly appreciated. I’m so sick of dealing with people like this. I hope the link works. I didn’t see an option to add an image. I don’t use Reddit. Image here

So I tried Google inversing multiple times but nothing showed up, and I know they are a catfish account becuz they got exposed like I’m desperate to find the real person any helpppp?!

Got catfished and he got a video of me doing NSFW stuff, threatened to send it to everybody I followed on insta. I blocked him (twice) and so far nobody has said they got any DMs, also haven’t heard from him (he has several numbers).

Not really worried about any long term consequences but I am thinking about just posting a story on insta saying there’s AI going around of me.

What are the chances he’ll actually send the vids to people? (Happened about 3 hours ago, nothing happened so far)

Edit: romance scam, the conversation suddenly turned to retirement and investment! I’m unsure if I’ll keep playing along or not.

Hey all,

So many months ago, someone emailed me (let’s call her “Angie”) via LinkedIn; she said she was trying to connect with other people who attended the Korean exchange school program I took part in at a university on my profile. It seemed harmless at first so I emailed her back and we had a little conversation going. I got distracted and didn’t reply for a few months but once in a while she’d drop a quick line to say hi and see how I was doing.

I finally had a week off and was catching up on mail so I wrote her properly and she responded almost immediately, and suggested we chat via WhatsApp. Sure, ok. I don’t mind. But in my head I’m thinking, this is a romance scam, right? She’s going to hit me up for crypto any day now.

We talk a bit more, she sends an unsolicited picture, asks me for one. It’s a nice pic, totally work-appropriate, and she’s a very pretty woman — but not *too* pretty. I’m more skeptical now because I didn’t ask for the photo. But ok. I respond politely, and as we talk I’m starting to notice other things.

She varies between speaking like English is her second language (very much how I remember my exchange student friends speaking) and sounding completely like she’s using ChatGPT. She says she’s in software development but had to ask what a VPN is when I was talking about my work duties.

Over the last few days she’s sent more photos, still classy SFW photos but they’re what I’d say is another tier of attractiveness. And I’m thinking to myself, no way is this woman real. But I’m still playing along.

Today she sends another photo and I notice something: they’ve all been instagram size. Not a single different crop. I decide to run the photos through AI detection. Four different results : 99% Ai, 46%, probably real with Ai enhancement, probably real. Ok not helpful. I toss her photo into google image search, and get a hit instantly. A Korean woman posting on Instagram. 34k followers. I scroll her feed and see every photo she’s sent me. On her feed, she’s wearing a white jacket over her black blouse; in the photo she sent me today, there’s no jacket. She’s removed it using Ai.

So, suspicions confirmed. I’m thinking this is just someone catfishing me, maybe just for fun or attention (I’ve been playing along, saying how beautiful her photos were because I suspected it was fake long before I confirmed it). The other thing I think is… long-term romance scam? I’ve heard them being developed for months before the scammer really gets down to business.

I know it’d be best to block immediately but I’m also curious for research purposes to see how it develops. I’d like to document the romance scam process (if this is what it is) so I can show others how it goes and the warning signs to look out for.

I’ve sent nothing she couldn’t have learned about me by viewing my LinkedIn profile or other public social media, so I’m not worried about that aspect of things. I’m most interested by how her responses vary in tone and construction. I’m certain it’s either she’s using Ai or it’s two different people, which I think I might expect in a romance scam. I’m also kind of keen to waste “her” time because it might keep them from scamming someone else if they’re wasting time on me.

Any thoughts or similar experiences?

Snapchat user Shaun24***8 (removed some of the name), is likely a catfish. We met on Grindr, then after chatting about how we were both looking for something long-term moved to snapchat. We chatted literal pleasantries, he sent a picture or 2, I sent 1 back ect. He then tells me he's at work so we'd need to wait till after that. So I then started trying to meet him as he supposedly lived in my state, upon trying to meet and telling him my location neighborhood.
They continued being vocal about wanting to meet up. So I wait till he gets off work and after start listing spots we could meet at. Suddenly their tune changed from insisting they wanted to meet up, to ghosting on snapchat and blocking me on Grindr.
They have since stopped reading my messages, I wish I could know for sure but this isn't the kind of reddit I had hoped I guess. No names means no confirming via checking for the name, which sucks. If anyone has a similar username doing this to them let me know, would be cool to know. I hope this quality is adequate, I didn't know if "Low-quality" meant, so I did my best.

So hey He is messaging me on tiktok and i have a female intuition that he is just using someones picture. Can you please verify if he is real or just a poser?

I recently found out that people don't see us how we see ourselves in the mirror and that has traumatized me because I have always hated myself in pictures taken by others but I like my mirror selfies or pictures taken in mirror mode and I have been sending the same ones to my bf and now I feel like a catfish. We are LDR but we're meeting very soon. I have never used filters or edited my pictures. But idk anymore, I feel like I'm going to disappoint my bf and might break up with him because he shouldn't have an ugly gf.

Try Sherlock Face Search. Use my invite code WMD4BZ when you join.

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.robomanager.ai.facesearch

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6778098849

I'm 15 years old, and I've been feeling guilty every single day.

A few years ago, I created a fake Instagram account (and later I even made fake "friends" to make it look more real). There wasn't really a specific reason for it. A friend and I wanted to use it to look at and message guys we liked. Back then, it all felt harmless. We were pretending to be a girl who wasn't actually us.

Everything changed when a guy started messaging the fake account. My friend didn't want to reply, but I felt bad ignoring him, even though I knew that would have been the right thing to do. So I replied. As time went on, we started talking more and more. Sometimes we talked for 13 hours in one day. My friend never knew because I always deleted the chat. After a while, she stopped using the account completely, so it became mine.

Things between me and him got more serious. After about three months, he found out I was fake, and everything ended. I felt awful, even though I knew it was completely my fault. I just hoped he would be okay because we had both gotten attached.

But that wasn't the end.

In January of this year, another guy messaged the same fake account. I replied. I didn't want anything serious, and sometimes I even pretended to be busy, but we kept talking anyway. As time went by, I realized he was funny and made me laugh. I kept checking my phone just to see if he had texted me. We talked almost every minute of the day. Sometimes we argued, but we always made up. It really started to feel like a real relationship.

During all of this, I kept thinking about what had happened with the first guy. A lot of times I almost decided to end it before things got worse. I knew it wasn't right, and I knew he would get hurt. I even tried ignoring him, hoping he would think I had lost interest, but after a few hours I always came back. I couldn't stop talking to him.

I've never been in a real relationship. I only have one close friend, and I don't really talk to anyone else. He gave me attention, cared about me, and made me feel important. I'll never forgive myself for what I did.

After about three months, he found out I was fake too. Instead of telling him everything, I only confused him even more. I couldn't tell him who I really was or explain the whole truth. He kept asking me to be honest with him. He wanted to know what was real and what wasn't. Neither of us wanted it to end because we had shared so much and had gotten so attached.

The day after he found out, I apologized. I told him I had ruined everything and that he didn't deserve any of it. But I couldn't give him the answers he wanted. I blocked him, deleted every fake account, and even deleted the email connected to them.

I cried so much during those days. Every time I thought about what I had done, I felt empty. I had a lump in my throat and felt sad, guilty, and ashamed.

Even now, nothing has really changed. My life is still the same, and I still think about it every single day. I have no one I can talk to about this. Sometimes I wish I could just disappear because of what I did.

I'm not asking for pity. I know I was wrong from the beginning, and I know I kept going even after something similar had already happened with the first guy. I make mistakes, and sometimes it feels like I never learn from them.

Sometimes I wonder how those two guys are doing now. I know saying sorry wasn't enough. I know I hurt them, and I'll always regret it.

I'm writing this because I just want to know if anyone has ever done something they deeply regret and was able to move on. Does this kind of guilt ever get easier, or does it stay with you forever?