The Catfishing Conundrum.

I saw a feature on the BBC News website about a woman who had been involved in a ‘catfishing’ scam. ‘What on earth is catfishing?’ I asked (silently for a change.) ‘Is it something to do with catfish the species of fish, or the odd and inevitably pointless practice of fishing for cats?’ I read the article.

It appears that a Sikh woman from London was duped into having a years-long relationship-by-correspondence with a man called Bob (or Brian or Barney or something beginning with B.) Apparently it became pretty deep, but the ‘victim’ – as the BBC chose to call her – eventually discovered that she’d actually been corresponding with her female cousin who was having her on.

At that point I began to wonder just what injury the poor woman had suffered. There was nothing physical involved (the fake Mr B had always declined to meet in person and made up lots of excuses to validate his reluctance) and there was no pecuniary loss. So why was it given such prominence on the BBC News website? I Googled ‘catfishing.’

As usual with Google searches there was little joy to be had. Different returns gave different definitions with the only really troublesome ones being the intent to steal someone’s identity, and the attempt to rob them of money. But neither had happened in this case. No doubt the woman on the wrong end of this fake correspondence suffered an injury to her pride (because you would feel a bit silly, wouldn’t you) but is that adequate justification for applying a label or making the front page of the BBC’s online flagship?

And so I’m none the wiser and my education remains deficient in the matter of catfishing, which is a minor injury to my own pride. Gaslighting I understand, but catfishing remains a mystery.

(The one thing I did learn is that the term originated with an experiment by some evidently demented scientist who placed a catfish in a tank with a shoal of cod. Did that help? Not really. Although I may speculate that the catfish probably ate all the cod eventually, it seems hardly apposite to the case of the Sikh woman from London and her fake relationship with a man called something beginning with B.)

Later though, I had two thoughts:

1. This case bears a hint of similarity to my own relationship with the Priestess, so now I’m wondering whether she might consider herself to have been a victim of catfishing with me as the catfisher. Or vice versa, of course.

2. It also reminds me of the time in my teens when Pauline McNichol’s aunt called me pretending to be Pauline, and I fell for it. I must admit, I did feel a bit silly.