Catfish

I've recently gotten into watching the show Catfish its about people who have built connections and relationships online, and the show is a documentary about people meeting their online 'loves'.

Have you ever met anyone online or known anyone who has met someone in life they met online? I bet you do.

I know many people who have met friends, significant others and those they would choose to forget online. Emotions don't have to be face to face. If someone feels strongly about someone, who is to say that it isn't real? Just because something starts online, or even stays there, doesn't mean that the connections are any more or less important.

I personally have never met anyone that I've come in contact with only online. I used to think that it was dangerous, after all what types of people are online looking for emotional connections with other people? My original thoughts were the 'online' people were desperate and only interested in taking advantage of others. One by one many of my sane friends and family went online to look for dates. At first I was afraid for them. I then learned that 'online' people are in fact, real people somewhere. My friends and family were dating people they'd met online. These were real people, with real emotions and real interests. I have found that many people I know who use online dating sites to be very happy with the results. They find people who make them feel good.

To say that online dating is without problems is to say that life is without problems. There are those you meet online, just as in life who aren't worth while who are only out to take advantage of you. The more trust that is built in a relationship the harder it is to find out the truth.

Catfish explores the darker side, when people lie online. When someone lies to your face, it's easier to tell, it's easier to pick up on body language. When someone lies to you in a text message it's much harder to extract the truth. This is my fear for my loved ones who date online, that the person they think they have feeling for is hiding something from them. This person who they think they love isn't real, giving them a half truth. While one could argue that this same behavior happens in reality I still think it's much easier to get away with it online. People lie all the time, men pretend to be women, women pretend to be men, people cheat on each other, use each other, take advantage of each other. I can't think of one person I know who hasn't been hurt by another person they trusted.

My point isn't to single out those who use online dating, because it does work. Do you meet jackasses? Yes. But there are still jackasses just walking around in real life who you also could have met. Don't you get your hopes too high and build a relationship based around technology. The people I see in Catfish who are hurt in the end are those who don't meet their crushes, and put too much stock in the technology that holds them together rather than a friendship that doesn't hide behind a phone.