FRAGMENT - THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE CATFISH

‘You remember Jason Green, don’t you? You remember the nightmare he had in Australia?’

      I half shook my head. I remembered Jason, another old school friend, emigrating when he was quite young, early to mid-twenties, but I didn’t recall what happened to him out there – good or bad.

      ‘Well, he flew out just after he finished uni, a gap year, got himself trained as a cocktail waiter, planned to travel all over the country, working the bars. Anyway, he met this Melbourne lass online, on a dating website-type thing. They struck up a bit of a rapport, they liked the look of each other, but she said she was a bit shy, that she’d been hurt in the past and wanted to take things slow. Greeny said he understood completely, and they started sending each other emails. At first, once a day, then twice, and so on, until they were conducting this intense online relationship. By all accounts, he really fell for the girl. She told him all about her life, childhood, her family, and vice versa. They had so much in common. She made him laugh. They started sending each other steamy pictures. But whenever they arranged to finally meet up, she’d always call things off at the last-minute, always made up some excuse.

      ‘Initially, Greeny was very understanding; he really cared for her, and sensed that she was the nervous type, scared of disappointing him in some way – in fact, she said as much in one of her emails. But gradually, he started to lose patience. This had been going on for months; his visa was running out, and he desperately wanted to meet her before he had to come home. He wanted to find out if the feelings that had built up between them were real or not.’

      ‘He wanted to do what?’ I asked, struck by the way Alan had phrased that – it was uncomfortably familiar.

      ‘To find out if they’d hit it off in person. By that time, they’d said I love you to each other, and made plans to get together properly, boyfriend and girlfriend, to try and work on getting Greeny a longer-term visa. Anyway, they have this big emotional exchange of emails. Greeny really lays it on the line – if you don’t meet me this week, it’s all off, I can’t go on like this anymore, blah-blah-blah. It all came to a head – the big meet up in this flash restaurant. Greeny gets himself spruced-up, ready to meet who he was becoming increasingly certain was the love of his life.’ Alan broke off from his story, grinned and shook his head. ‘Guess what happened next?’

      ‘She didn’t turn up.’

      ‘Exactly – she didn’t turn up. But something weird happened in the restaurant that night. After it became apparent that she’d stood him up, Greeny retired to the bar to drown his sorrows. After about half a dozen or so whiskies, this quite respectable-looking young lady sits down next to him and orders a drink. They get chatting. She’s kind, friendly. Greeny, more than half-cut by this time, unburdens himself, tells her everything.’

      ‘And what?’ I said. ‘He ends up getting together with her?’

      ‘Hold that thought, Filippo.’ Alan raised a hand, and flashed an even wider grin than before. ‘Let’s fast-forward a few days. When Greeny tries to contact his online girlfriend, to ask where she’d got to, he doesn’t receive a reply. Complete radio silence. A whole week passes. Nothing. He can’t understand it. After months of messaging each other a dozen times a day, after everything they’d said to each other, the feelings that had built up between them, to all of a sudden cut things off, to no longer want any contact, really hurt poor old Greeny’s feelings. And I don’t know what got into his head, but he hired a private detective to track her down. Crazy, I know. But he’d accumulated a shit load of money that summer, and saw an ad online, a guy who specialized in this kind of thing. Know what they call it?’

      I shook my head.

      ‘Cat-fishing,’ he said, looking very pleased with himself. ‘Anyway, it only takes this private detective about three days to get hold of a name, address and phone number for the person who’d been using that email address.’

      ‘And what happened next?’ I asked, genuinely interested by now.

     ‘Greeny gets a cab straight over there, takes a lift up to apartment number-whatever-it-is, and knocks on the door. And you’ll never guess who answers?’

      ‘No. Who?’

       ‘The respectable-looking young woman who sat next to him in the restaurant bar. She’d been there all the time. She’d actually turned up!’

      ‘What? But why? Why didn’t she just tell him who she really was?’

     Alan shrugged and took a sip of cappuccino which must have long since gone cold, not that any distaste registered upon his fleshy face.

      ‘Wasn’t right in the head,’ he said, licking a bit of froth from his top lip. ‘Apparently, she’d done this kind of thing dozens of times before – masquerading as someone else online, befriending people, telling them she was someone else altogether. But the funny thing was, Greeny kept in contact with her. He wanted to help her out; he still, after everything that’d happened, after she’d made a complete dick out of him, cared deeply for her. Amazing, eh? If it were me, I’d have told her to take a running jump.’