The author of this story has chosen to remain anonymous.
©Illustration by Sofía Alvarez
On September 20th 2021, I decided I should give online dating a serious shot. Some friends of mine had met their partners there, some did not, but at least they got to go on fun dates, so why not? Online dating sounds scary. I get this feminine fear of going on a date with the wrong guy and ending up in a tricky situation. I hate the awkwardness of first messages, first dates, sounding witty, looking good, performing seduction... Then there’s also the trust issue: will they look like their pictures? And the confidence issue: do I look like my pictures? Somehow, I never imagined my biggest issue would be the platform hanging me out to dry.
I signed up to OkCupid during the summer of 2021 and had a panic attack an half an hour later. Even with a minimal description and only a few photos, I felt overwhelmed by all the attention I was receiving. Being a woman on dating sites is like being a boar during hunting season: all eyes on you, no time for conversation, and a total disregard of your interests. I almost immediately deactivated my account. This leads us to that fateful autumn day, where boredom overran all of my insecurities. I got a couple message requests, but one particularly caught my eye: “hey cutie! Why do you have two accounts?”
I dismissed it, thinking it was yet another sneaky technique to start a conversation with a girl. But then another man sent me a message, asking if Juliette was my real name. It took three Introductions for me to become suspicious and remember that I sometimes post selfies on social media. Someone was using my pictures, carefully accumulated on Twitter over the last months, to catfish people. And what was I going to do about it?
In an attempt to be proactive, I swiftly changed my OkCupid bio to ask people to report “Juliette” for identity theft. Men were, as per usual, useless, taking this new opportunity to send me jokes about the fake profile. Thankfully, after one night, the “but how do I know you’re the real one? 😉” stopped. I never heard of “Juliette” again. It still felt wrong. I sent an email to OkCupid’s customer service, hoping to get some…support?
OkCupid does not allow its users to exchange pictures, mostly for the best. However, it would have been my best chance to prove the catfish. I was basing my accusations off a few messages, most of them deleted, with no screenshots of the profile in question. A few friends tried to find her, creating accounts, and swiping. It was another dead end. We abandoned the quest for the catfish after a few days.
While I'm able to laugh it out today, this was still quite an upsetting experience to live through.: I never thought I would be used to trick men. I used to think models were used as catfish fodder, not regular-looking people like me. My image was also no longer my own, and I had no chance of finding what the person on the other side of the screen was using it for. I cried a lot that week. I cried because I was sad, and I cried because it was exhausting, waiting an answer from the customer service or news from “Juliette”. After a few weeks of radio silence, I forgot about it.
I got an answer to my request on the 19th of January 2022, asking for more details I could not provide. No, I did not know Juliette’s location, age, nor could I provide screenshots of her profile. For a dating app that prides itself with inclusivity and safety, what a prompt and detailed response! If my request had been handled earlier, maybe we could have found a solution together, but four months had gone by. In the meantime, I had been on a few dates, met people I resonated with, and deactivated my account. It was too late to find Juliette, too late to restore the injustice.
I wonder about the consequences of this inaction: what motivated the impersonator? Was it boredom? Loneliness? I can only hope my face was not used to scam people, or worse. The delayed answer from OkCupid’s customer service is probably linked to an overworked, understaffed team. Odd, coming from an app that asks its users to pay for basic functionalities, such as enforcing age limits or geographical boundaries. I was left to find solutions alone, ashamed, and scared.
Nothing can ensure me that my impersonator will not start again with another phone number or name, or even with another face. And OkCupid simply does not care enough about the safety of its users to respond accordingly.
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