It's all a little (cat)fishy to me.
By now you've all heard about the Notre Dame football star Manti T'eo, and the controversy surrounding his "imaginary" girlfriend. Manti's emotional disclosure last year that his longtime girlfriend was dying of leukemia while he stayed determined and focused on football made him an instant media darling, considered worthy of admiration for his devotion to his team, and his strength amidst an emotional meltdown (his grandmother had also died at the same time as his alleged GF). Now it turns out the girlfriend does not exist. Whether T'eo knew this and made her up (like an unpopular 4th grader who swears he has a girlfriend from summer camp but that she can't ever visit because she lives too far away), or that he was duped "Catfish" style (which is what T'eo is claiming) remains to be seen. The public still wants to believe that the latter is true. However, there are many questions involved in accepting that excuse. Did Manti EVER suspect that his girlfriend (of YEARS, mind you) was not a real person? And who was it that duped him? Manti claims he received frequent letters from this person as she suffered from cancer, and also spoke to her on the phone daily. Manti's father had explained to the press that his son and this girl met in 2009, but now that turns out to be untrue as well. So if Manti and this "catfish" were in a relationship for years without meeting, why hadn't they met? And why was Manti ok with the fact that they hadn't ever met in person?
Of course to many people, this all seems way too unbelievable to even be considered a potential reality. To those people I say, watch an episode of MTV's "Catfish" and get back to me. The show, based on the movie of the same name, explores the world of online relationships. And no, I'm not talking about online "dating" where two people meet on Match.com and then soon after MEET IN PERSON. I'm talking about people who apparently consider themselves in real relationships with people THEY HAVE NEVER MET. SOMETIMES FOR YEARS. WITHOUT SKYPING. SOME WITHOUT EVER TALKING ON THE PHONE! I wasn't interested in seeing the movie "Catfish" when it came out because I had read an article which uncovered the "documentary" story to be a little too similar to a popular internet legend that was revealed years before. I figured the movie had to be "Blair Witch Project"/James Frey-ish in that it claimed to be true, but wasn't. Then the show aired and I stumbled upon a marathon one night and was hooked on this guilty pleasure. Whether or not Nev Schulman was telling the truth about his own love hoax (the subject of the "Catfish" movie) no longer mattered to me. These people that Nev meets with week after week are real. And they are trusting. And they are crazy. I don't say that to be mean or dismissive. I'm just stating the truth. Sure, you can develop a relationship with someone you've never met (through extensive emails, texting, social media, and phone calls). And you might even develop true feelings for said person. But there is NO WAY that you can believe that nothing is "off" about the fact that you've never met after months (or even years) of talking about being in love (and with some, discussing plans to get married!).
While it's true that some people don't get to see their loved ones often when they are overseas for the military or transferred for a job or struggling in another country while their significant other can't afford to move the entire family; those people DO know each other. They've previously spent time together in person. They've touched and kissed and slept with each other before, even if they aren't able to do that right now. Truthfully, I do have a couple friends who I consider myself to be very close to, but that I don't get to spend time with in person anymore (for whatever reason). They are not strangers though - I've spent plenty of time with them in person as well, so the texting/email/phone relationship can continue to fulfill me in some area of my life at this point in time. So let's just be honest - if you're communicating with someone online, and something keeps "coming up" whenever you try to meet in person, then the person you are talking to is not the person in the pictures. They're just not. They most likely have a different name, come from a different town, and may even be a different gender than what they portray on Facebook.
So here's the thing about Manti. Is he in the same boat as one of those poor souls on "Catfish" who just want to believe so bad that their denial mutes their instincts? (They do say that "love is blind", so maybe "internet love is deaf, dumb, AND blind"?) I think the Manti story will be revealed as much more than meets the eye as the days go by. However, I don't think it's impossible that he really believed he was in this fake relationship (if that turns out to be the case). When our world is now conditioned to text as opposed to talk, and to email meeting notes instead of going over them in person, you can't help but develop a removed persona that is more in love with a computer or a smart phone than it is with real live people. I know plenty of people who have thousands of Facebook friends, but haven't gone "out" to have a drink with anyone in months. Thankfully I'm balanced in that I am addicted to texting and heavily involved in social media, but I still prefer seeing (most of) my friends & family in person. I like being out, I like looking in people's eyes when I talk to them, and I am truly saddened when I see teenagers with no real social skills texting away while real people talk around them (welcome to the generation of the personality disorder!). What can we expect when TV shows direct you to Twitter or Facebook while watching (because it's more important to discuss the show with people you don't know than simply pay attention!) or automated computerized voices walk you through prompts on the phone whenever you have a customer service question? What happened to watching a show with a real live friend? Me personally, I've never met someone online in the dating sense, but I do talk to people online who I have never met in person on Twitter. However, I'm smart enough to know that they are not my true friends. They are "Twitter friends". We can have heated discussions, we can share laughs, and pictures, and news headlines; but I am not inviting them to my house for dinner. They don't even have my phone number. So the concept of falling in love, and/or calling someone my boyfriend if we've never met is completely foreign to me. But I do see how it could happen to others because we now live in a "virtual" society. Frank Ocean's 'Novacane' lyrics address it best with "...can't feel nothin', super-human...even when I'm fu**in' Viagra poppin'...every single record autotunin', zero emotion, muted emotion, pitch corrected, computed emotion..." Nowadays our music is fake (autotune), mens' erections are fake (Viagra), emotions are fake (muted by drugs and/or our undeniable addiction to computers), and so it's naturally harder to tell what (if anything) is real anymore.
Someone can easily make up a story on Twitter, have it catch fire, go viral, get it picked up by a legitimate news organization, and appear on "The Today Show" the following week. The media proliferates this nonsense of "crowdsourced journalism" because they are desperate to keep their jobs and remain relevant in an ever-shrinking sector. The demand put on news organizations to report as quickly as Twitter can is unfair and unrealistic...if you want your news to be guaranteed and "real". Fact-checking takes time. Research takes time. And we all know rushing usually leads to mistakes ("baby take your time, do it right" anyone?). So you can't have it both ways. You can't expect every story to be fully vetted before it's reported if you want your news anchors to comment on everything reported on Twitter. But the Manti story was a very big deal at the time. So it seems pretty sloppy that NO ONE came forth last year to declare it all fake during the tears and the interviews and the pictures shown on camera (that turned out to be of someone else). Then again, the public loves when their heartstrings are tugged. That's why journalists always look for the hidden gem comment ("he was planning to register for veterinary school next year so that he could treat handicapped dogs!") after even the most hardened criminal is killed. People wanted to believe that T'eo was an angel sent here to play through the pain while his loved ones passed on. Unfortunately, it looks like there is more to this story and it might not be as beautiful of an ending as originally hoped. LESSON LEARNED: No matter how much time you spend in the digital world (whether it's for business, pleasure or necessity), don't believe everything you read, nurture real connections, and choose to live your life virtuously, not virtually.
