LJ Idol Week 15: Sudden Death Write-off
It’s so much easier being someone other than yourself, she thought, as she logged out of the profile of a twenty-something blonde with beachy waves and a bright smile. Her own mousy brown hair was twisted into a messy bun and she weighed at least 50 more pounds than the girl in the profile picture.
The key was to keep it simple; use a generic name and don’t provide too many details, especially unique ones. Share just enough personal information that people felt at ease, but not so much that you have to outright lie. You know, except for the profile photo. You don’t need multiple personas. In fact, different identities with varying backstories are what makes you sloppy and allows you to get caught.
Her role was clear: be charismatic and supportive. After that, they’d start to tell her everything. She was the guardian of their secrets, a role she was never afforded offline, and she did so with great responsibility. She wasn’t doing this to hurt them; she was doing this so they wouldn’t hurt her. If they weren’t talking to Alicia, if they didn’t even know Alicia existed, she was impervious. Maybe, even, they needed this as much as she did.
An alternate identity allowed her to control the narrative, unlike her “real” life, where she struggled to create genuine relationships. In school, her classmates would befriend her so that she would help them with assignments and then pretend they didn’t know her in the hallways. As a working teenager and adult, co-workers chatted her up long enough to get her to cover their shift on Friday night while they went on dates and out with friends. She preferred to think of her online persona as her true identity, actually, and her tangible existence was merely a necessary means to an end.
But she’d been getting closer with one of her connections lately. They had begun talking every day and he had mentioned wanting to meet a few times, which she deflected, but he always circled back to it again eventually. She did want to move their relationship forward, but she knew that she couldn’t; because she wasn’t the one in the photos, she would lose him instead.
Her thoughts were interrupted by her phone ringing. It was from an unknown number, which wasn’t unusual because people she didn’t really know called her to swap or take over a shift at work sometimes.
“Hello?” she answered thinking of how she could use the extra money.
“Sarah? This is Nev, from the MTV show Catfish...”
The key was to keep it simple; use a generic name and don’t provide too many details, especially unique ones. Share just enough personal information that people felt at ease, but not so much that you have to outright lie. You know, except for the profile photo. You don’t need multiple personas. In fact, different identities with varying backstories are what makes you sloppy and allows you to get caught.
Her role was clear: be charismatic and supportive. After that, they’d start to tell her everything. She was the guardian of their secrets, a role she was never afforded offline, and she did so with great responsibility. She wasn’t doing this to hurt them; she was doing this so they wouldn’t hurt her. If they weren’t talking to Alicia, if they didn’t even know Alicia existed, she was impervious. Maybe, even, they needed this as much as she did.
An alternate identity allowed her to control the narrative, unlike her “real” life, where she struggled to create genuine relationships. In school, her classmates would befriend her so that she would help them with assignments and then pretend they didn’t know her in the hallways. As a working teenager and adult, co-workers chatted her up long enough to get her to cover their shift on Friday night while they went on dates and out with friends. She preferred to think of her online persona as her true identity, actually, and her tangible existence was merely a necessary means to an end.
But she’d been getting closer with one of her connections lately. They had begun talking every day and he had mentioned wanting to meet a few times, which she deflected, but he always circled back to it again eventually. She did want to move their relationship forward, but she knew that she couldn’t; because she wasn’t the one in the photos, she would lose him instead.
Her thoughts were interrupted by her phone ringing. It was from an unknown number, which wasn’t unusual because people she didn’t really know called her to swap or take over a shift at work sometimes.
“Hello?” she answered thinking of how she could use the extra money.
“Sarah? This is Nev, from the MTV show Catfish...”