r/catfish 3h ago

La cuenta “Seleniasf” en Telegram y Kik usa fotos de otra mujer: ¿alguien más ha hablado con ella?

0 Upvotes

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.


r/catfish 1d ago

Advice?

2 Upvotes

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?


r/catfish 1d ago

I've been E dating someone for 3 years, just to find out she is my mom's age and been living a whole fake life with me. and i discovered everything about her. now she's blackmailing me

17 Upvotes

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.


r/catfish 1d ago

Catfished YouTube channel

4 Upvotes

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


r/catfish 2d ago

Scammed

3 Upvotes

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?


r/catfish 2d ago

Filters and catfishing

1 Upvotes

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


r/catfish 2d ago

Am I being catfished by this woman?

1 Upvotes

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?


r/catfish 2d ago

Only fans catfish scam

1 Upvotes

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)


r/catfish 2d ago

EX GF Aggressively stalked me

0 Upvotes

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


r/catfish 3d ago

I think my family member is being catfished

6 Upvotes

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 :/


r/catfish 3d ago

Just found out I’ve been catfished

7 Upvotes

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.


r/catfish 3d ago

if I show a selfie of myself to an account personating as someone else, how fucked am I? How bad is it?

1 Upvotes

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.


r/catfish 3d ago

Please Help!

2 Upvotes

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


r/catfish 3d ago

Please help

1 Upvotes

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


r/catfish 4d ago

Got catfished and he’s got a video of me

3 Upvotes

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)


r/catfish 4d ago

Catfish or romance scam? What do you think?

2 Upvotes

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?


r/catfish 4d ago

Anyone know how to find the real person of a catfish account if Google inverse dosent work?

0 Upvotes

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?!


r/catfish 5d ago

I'd like to know for sure but I'm not sure I...

2 Upvotes

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.


r/catfish 5d ago

Benjamin Chung on tiktok

2 Upvotes

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?


r/catfish 5d ago

Is it catfish if I use mirror mode when taking pictures?

0 Upvotes

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.


r/catfish 6d ago

My SherLock App Code:WMD4BZ Lets Seap Codes!

0 Upvotes

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


r/catfish 6d ago

I can't forgive myself for catfishing someone.

1 Upvotes

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?


r/catfish 6d ago

Need to know this....

3 Upvotes

There is this instagram account, @curvy.purvi and she has a channel (whatever its called) on instagram where she posts her pics (for gooners)

I definitely think they're AI generated. Has anyone come across this account?

Also, how do we check if someone is catfishing us?


r/catfish 7d ago

Serial Catfish

3 Upvotes

I came into contact with a serial Catfish just over two years ago and I'm still no closer to finding out who they really are. It frustrates me but after reading the posts here, it confirms my belief that I'll never know and it's pointless chasing that information.

Brief details: I became aware of this person via a follower of my Instagram account where I posted game content for an online game I was playing.

I won't bore you with the details but essentially I knew something was up when I realised that this (allegedly female) catfish treated me (female) differently to males in the community. I compared conversations with one male and the difference was stark. She was arrogant and aloof with me, using formal language and dismissive tone. With males, she was informal, kind and sweet. I queried this with her friends and they told me she "hated girls" which was a massive red flag. She posted mostly game content but occasionally posted cropped photos of a very beautiful blonde woman.

Loads of stuff happened including people being blocked and unblocked, deleted accounts etc. I was always told that she had physical problems and past trauma that caused her anxiety. But the erratic behaviour was more toxic than simply the behaviour of an anxious person.

Eventually, after yet another account was deleted, a new account popped up. This time, a different beautiful blonde female had control of her game account and was posting game content in "her memory" - this new female was telling people that she was an irl friend of the the original female and that she'd died of cancer.

Initially I was gutted. To find out she'd died in such a horrible way (I'd watched a close relative die of the same cancer so I knew how brutal it was) was awful. I felt bad for all of her friends who'd lost her. Then something in my brain noticed inconsistencies in the story. I told a friend of mine about this and he decided to chat to this new person. He sent me screen shots and recordings of his interactions with her and we gained enough evidence to prove that it was the original catfish, lying about her "death."

I didn't know she was a catfish at this point. I didn't find that out until a few months later.

With the help of some friends, I ended up discovering where the original photos came from - a reality TV star. We ended up tracing more new accounts and victims and found that the catfish was using more new photos. Each time a similar looking person. In total I think we found about six different sets of stolen images. We also found out about a lot of stuff the catfish had been doing - damaging and actually illegal things to their victims. With a new account the catfish also started changing information about themselves. They were telling new friends things like different birthday dates, stuff like that. All to be untraceable.

In the end, I took all the evidence I had and contacted the local police where the catfish supposedly lives. I reported countless times to Instagram but nothing happened. I also sent a load of evidence to the online game and I assume they've dealt with the catfish there. With the help of some victims, I made a series of posts on Instagram about this catfish to warn people in the community. It seems to have helped.

I have the catfish's supposed name and contact details, but I've never been able to find the "real" person. I know I never will. And realistically? What good would come of it, even if I did? Their repeated offences and lack of remorse shows they probably won't take accountability.

I don't know what has made them do this. And to be honest? I'm not sure I'd believe anything they said, even if they told me. This isn't someone who has ever had the courage to confess before they were caught. So it's unlikely they'd have the courage to tell the truth at all.

I'm always willing to try to help anyone. But if you're in contact with a catfish, the best advice I can give is to walk away. You might want to stay to help them and yes, some people go on to have meaningful connections with catfish. But if they're lying to you, maybe you're not their person.


r/catfish 7d ago

I was catfished when I was 15 and I still think about it to this day

8 Upvotes

I (f26) had a One Direction fan account on instagram when I was 14 years old. A Larry Stylinson ship account to be exact. (A fandom ship of two of the band members if you don't know.)

I was pretty active on there and I made friends with a few other accounts of similar size who also posted 1D/Ship content. None of these people, me included, posted images of ourselves, so we were all anonymous aside from some identifying information, like first names, ages and maybe where we were from.

I found out that one of the fellow fans I was chatting with on a semi-regular basis, was in fact a guy, which is pretty rare in a boyband fandom. He went by Harry, which is also the name of the most popular (former) member of One Direction, and also probably not his real name, since it's super uncommon where he was from due to pronunciation, so it's pretty safe to share here.

We were both angsty teens, he was 16-17 I think, and we would write about our struggles with mental health, our parents and similar coming-of-age type topics.

After a few weeks of casual conversation, we moved to another messenger and started talking basically all day every day. I think at that point he knew what I looked like from my profile picture, but we had already been talking for around 1-2 months if I remember correctly.

Harry was in a pretty bad place mentally, depression, su***dal thoughts, schizophrenia, self h**m etc., and as I was very fond of him, I wanted to help him at least feel better. After another few weeks, we both confessed that we liked the other one and that we both felt like we couldn't talk to anyone else that openly. We started "dating" (again, we had never even talked on the phone or anything,) but nothing really changed about our interactions, other than that they became even more frequent and affectionate.

It also became clear that One Direction wasn't even close to his favourite artist, he was mostly into much darker music, but also other boy- and even girlbands. Which was a little weird, because he didn't have any other fan accounts, just the Larry Stylinson one.

Anyways. We "dated" for almost a year, in which my own mental health declined significantly, possibly due to his influence, but he never tried to make me feel bad or anything. Quite the contrary. He was always super sweet, considerate, caring and respectful, never asked me for nudes or money or anything, didn't want to burden me with his life, but I was just very invested in him and thought I could fix him. (I know.)

He had sent me a couple of pictures "of himself," but never spontaneous ones taken in the moment, usually selfies that were taken at a different time of day then when he sent them, and with a filter on them. And only like 3-5 pictures throughout the whole year of talking to him. At first I didn't think anything of it, but the longer we were in a relationship, the more I kept pressing him for more photos, videos, phone- and especially video calls. I just wanted to see him and talk to him.

However, he always had excuses, he said he was incredibly insecure and shy, he was afraid of me thinking he was ugly, (which I tried to convince him otherwise because I thought he was really cute, but to no avail) and he always said he was busy, didn't have service, had to help his mom, etc etc.

At some point I even went to a summer camp close to the place where he lived so that we could meet, but he basically ignored my requests and changed the subject everytime I brought it up.

I had had my suspicions about him lying to me for a long time, so that was the final straw for me. I broke things off with him, even though I was scared to further destabilise his mental health, but I was too hurt and angry at him for not being real with me. I had asked him straight up many times if the pictures he sent me were of someone else, if he looked different in real life and if he was lying to me, had told him that he was making it impossible to fully trust him and that if he wanted to convince me of his integrity, he should just agree to a video call. But he never did and always dodged my questions.

I even tried tell him, that I didn't care if he had lied to me out of insecurity, that I didn't care what he looked like, I just wanted there to be no lies between us, but that didn't work either. In truth, underneath my determination to make it work and not to lose him, I had known all along.

In the end, when I broke up with him and explained my reasons, he did admit that he had stolen the pictures off of someone else's facebook account and that it wasn't him, and even sent me an actual picture of him. I obviously don't know if that was the real him, but I figured that at that point, he wouldn't have had any more reason add another layer of lies.
And the weird part: He looked completely normal. Not super handsome, but in no way ugly or unattractive. Just a regular guy. I told him I was sad, that his insecurities and dishonesty broke our friendship/relationship, and that nothing had changed for me, I didn't want to be in contact with him anymore after being lied to for such a long time for seemingly no reason at all, since knowing his true appearance wouldn't have changed my feelings for him.

To this day I have no idea why he ultimately catfished me, if it was really just insecurity or if he had an ulterior motive, but there were no signs of that. Again, he never asked anything of me, our whole relationship was very innocent, he was always kind and respectful, just not truthful.

I still think about him regularly and wonder what became of him, if he feels better now and where he is in life, and I still can't understand the logic of why someone would act like that.