Catfishing Attempt Gone Horribly Wrong, or Really Right

In 2015, 33-year-old Emma Perrier was reeling from loneliness one evening when she decided to download an app called “Zoosk.” After snapping a few selfies to “confirm” her identity, it was off to the races. Zoosk sets itself apart thematically from apps like Tinder or Bumble. The second “o” in the logo is even shaped like a diamond ring, signifying that those on this platform are after a bit more than a night of passion. Users were looking for something lasting. Something real. Unfortunately for Emma Perrier, “real” is something that the app just didn’t deliver. Not even close. 

We’ve all heard of catfishing. And while the “documentary” that cemented the name in the collective cultural consciousness, as well as the widely popular TV series based on it are both of questionable veracity, the phenomenon itself is very much real. It’s something that people on these apps and the internet in general need to look out for. While there have been attempts by social media platforms and dating apps to mitigate the prevalence of users posing as someone else, it’s still too easy for someone dedicated enough to figure out how to do it. Whether that means a bot farm looking to score some credit card information, or a single individual using someone else’s picture and fictionalized information to seem more desirable, there’s plenty of damage that can be done when people aren’t who they say they are. 

Emma’s catfishing story, on the other hand, has a unique twist that no one could have seen coming. Emma had been dealing with the sudden end of an eight-month relationship. She had her heart broken, and was looking for someone to mend it. Once her Zoosk profile was all set up, it began attracting attention immediately. Zoosk allows you to stick your toes in the water to get a feel for the temperature. You can see who is interested, but you can’t look at their profiles unless you pay the subscription fee. Likewise, you can see who has messaged you, but the message is blurred out until you fork over the money. When Emma saw one of these blurred-out messages from a good looking Italian man named Ronnie, she couldn’t help but to eventually pay the subscription fee. 

Finally, the message was revealed: “you look beautiful.” Emma, although living in the UK, was French. The two Europeans making their way in England had plenty to bond over. Ronnie even attempted a few phrases in French here and there. Something that stuck out to Emma, however, is that whenever she attempted to hit him back with some Italien, he didn’t respond. He explained his fluency in English with the fact that his mother was English. He also said that his father spoke it too, except while swearing. 

One day Ronnie told Emma that she could have easily gone with someone else on Zoosk. Emma responded that he was the only one for her. He was the only reason she paid. 

“As soon as I saw your picture,” Ronnie replied, “I wanted you.” 

Emma had never thought very highly of herself. She was incredibly flattered. Over the text conversations on Whatsapp, Ronnie was attentive, mature, and interested. He was seemingly the opposite of Emma’s recent ex. But this was a crafted persona. Not in the way that the everyday person tends to put their best foot forward, be a bit selective about which selfie to post, or hide cover up an insecurity or two. Ronaldo “Ronnie” Scicluna was completely fictional, the fabrication of 53-year-old Alan Stanley. 

Like Emma’s ex, Alan was everything Ronnie was not. Alan was shy, balding, and afraid. He had no confidence to try to attract women as himself. Alan was lonely after his marriage of 22 years ended. After a year of trying not to worry about the opposite sex, he started to feel ready to mingle again but feared rejection. Alan uploaded pictures of a model he found on Google and tricked Emma into developing feelings based on his lies. And worse, he was a serial catfisher. Alan later admitted to tricking five previous women this way. 

While Alan never let the “relationships” progress all the way to face-to-face or facetime, he soon found himself chatting with Emma over the phone as Ronaldo. Emma repeatedly tried to set up in-person dates but was met only with excuses and cancellations. Ronnie was always occupied by traveling to his father’s villa. He painted a picture of a grand estate, perhaps one day she could come and stay in “bedroom three.” But they lived so near one another, Emma didn’t understand why they couldn’t meet up right away after all this talking. Ronnie later implied that he was too afraid to have his heart broken, on top of his busy schedule. Emma insisted that she could do all of the traveling herself, that she could fit into his schedule, insisted that “if the connection is really there we will find a way.”

“Do you think it will be there?” he responded.

Emma had no idea Ronnie wasn’t real. “I have never been so sure.”

“Do you have faith in us?” he asked.

“It could work perfectly well,” she said.

“And I love you.” 

“And I love you too,” she responded.

Still, the excuses mounted whenever Emma tried to meet up. One night she revealed her frustrations to a coworker. The response? This Ronnie character is either not interested, or not real. 

By the spring of 2016 Emma’s family had heard enough about Ronnie, and were clearly tired of seeing Emma being continuously hurt and strung along. They wanted her to cut contact with him, but Emma didn’t want to listen. Finally one night she uploaded one of her favorite pictures of Ronnie to a reverse image search application. The app confirmed that the man in the photographs, the man she thought she had been talking to all of this time, wasn’t Ronaldo, or Ronnie, or even an Italien. He was Adem Guzel, an actor and model from Turkey. Of course, Adem could have been the image thief, right? Except that Adem as a person was widely corroborated, from an official twitter to a profile from a model management site to an actual facebook page. All Ronnie had going for was his word. A word that just wasn’t adding up anymore. 

One day, after talking with “Ronnie” for over six months, Emma finally asked, “Do you have anything to tell me about Adem Guzel?”

Ronnie, or rather, the adept liar behind the character of Ronnie, quickly responded that it was him, but that it was from a long time ago. Emma demanded that he reveal himself on Facetime, but Ronnie said that Facetime was for teenagers. Even still Emma didn’t want to believe the truth. This was someone she talked to every day, she didn’t want to believe such an elaborate lie was possible, she didn’t want to believe that the person she trusted, the person she told everything to, wasn’t a person at all. The fantasy was still far easier to believe. Especially when recognizing the truth meant the loss of someone she cared for deeply. And so the relationship continued. 

Later in 2016, Alan purchased a new computer. When he emailed Emma for the first time on it under the persona of Ronnie, he didn’t know that an email address revealing him as Alan Stanley would show up on Emma’s end. He said he bought the computer from someone else and hadn’t managed to change the email yet. 

As the doubts mounted, Emma slowly but surely began to conduct her own investigation. One of the pictures Alan/Ronnie sent her was of a clownfish from an aquarium. Emma’s trusty reverse image search turned up a result for that very picture. A review on Trip Advisor. Signed, Alan S. From there she found social media profiles, twitter accounts, everything. 

Alan was in the car one morning when his phone rang. Emma, on the other lined, asked him point-blank if his name was Alan. At first, he denied it. Emma had had it with all of the lies and denials. She finally refused to believe them. She hung up. Later, when Alan called her back once he had arrived at work, he finally let the truth out. He finally told her everything. 

Emma continued talking to Alan for two reasons. She wanted to find out why and just how someone could do that to her. And she wanted to protect other girls from falling for the same thing. To that end, she eventually wrote a message on Facebook to Adem, the Turkish model whose pictures Alan had stolen for his elaborate masquerade. 

“Hello Adem, we don’t know each other but a year ago I met a guy online and that man is using your picture and pretends he is you under another name. I wasn’t sure if getting in touch with you was a good idea but I needed you to know, kind regards, Emma.”

If the story ended there it might be another typical full-circle catfishing story. Someone steals pictures from another person, pretends to be them, is found out, comes clean, the person whose pictures were stolen is notified. That’s usually that. 

Something about the straightforward sincerity of Emma’s message prompted Adem to respond. He even eventually FaceTimed her. 

Emma teared up, “you really exist!” 

Adem eventually had to return to his hometown in Turkey. With the dismal cell service, their conversation briefly fizzled out, but when it picked back up later, in 2017, and Emma invited Adem to London, he accepted. 

And what of Alan? During the period when Emma and Adem’s conversation had lulled, Emma and Alan actually met up. Alan, just two years younger than Emma’s father, apologized. They walked around London for a long time, and that’s about where the similarities in their separate accounts of the evening end. Alan maintains that the day was a sort of date, they strolled through a park filled with couples in love, they had dinner, and Alan even hinted in a “gentlemen never tell” sort of way that Emma stayed the night in Alan’s hotel room. Emma denies this. In her account of the night, the park was empty, no lovers locked arms ice-skating in pairs, just a walk around the town to hear the apologies and explanations of a man who lied to her for months. 

Alan and Emma continued to talk. Alan seemed convinced of the possibility that Emma would overlook the sins of the past. Alan thought he had a real chance but could sense that her attentions were on Adem. The Turkish model Alan had unwittingly introduced her to. Emma eventually decided she was done with her catfish. She didn’t need any more explanations or apologies. She didn’t care. By this point, Adem had already accepted her invitation and would be in London the next day. On March 31st, 2017 she sent Alan Stanley one final message: “Alan I wanted to tell you that tomorrow I’m going to pick up Adem at the airport. And I still don’t know if it’s good or bad but I’m going to meet ‘my Ronnie.’ You built up all this shit, I’m not sure if I should thank you or detest you for that. But this is happening.”

The next day, April fools day, Emma found herself waiting for Adem’s arrival at the airport, no doubt nervous that this whole thing was another elaborate prank. She even recalled a woman asking who she was waiting for. When Emma told her it was a stranger from the internet, the woman warned her that people on the internet can lie about who they are, what they look like. 

When Adem’s flight arrived, and the two finally met face to face, she kissed him. Love at first sight is the only explanation. Adem agreed, he felt like he had known her for a long time in that moment. The rest, as they say, is history — both agree that they have found their soulmates.