I suspect that she might be a catfish. How should I approach her?

[Anonymous]

I matched with a girl on Bumble 2 weeks ago. Our first date will be 5 days from now. I started having some doubts about her so I reverse image searched her pictures and found her Instagram and TikTok. One of her TikToks was of her getting engaged on Halloween. Then she has a TikTok from Thanksgiving of her celebrating Thanksgiving with her fiancé’s family.

I went to Instagram and didn’t see any pics of her fiancé on there. But I do see a picture of his mom and she’s tagged. I go to his mom’s profile and find him. I go to his page and through his followers/followings… they don’t follow each other.

There’s also a TikTok of him in it from January. Then in February, she has a TikTok up of her talking about how she’s stressing out over getting married and is warning people to choose their partners slowly, but carefully.

Maybe they broke off the engagement, but why leave the TikToks up? And why is she on Bumble so soon, shouldn’t she need time to heal and not rush anything? Something’s not adding up. I want to send her another message on Bumble or DM her on IG to ask her what’s going on, but I feel weird for telling her I stalked her. What should I do?

[Oliverlogan263]

Damn dude, sounds like you may have uncovered a catfish situation here. That is super sketchy what you found on her socials. I would approach this carefully.

On Bumble, send her another message something like "Hey, hope you're doing well! Just wanted to double check logistics for our date - what's the best number to reach you at in case of any changes? Always good to have a backup way to communicate."

If she doesn't provide a number, that's a red flag. Or if the number seems fake/wrong, ditto.

I wouldn't call her out directly yet about the social media stuff. But you could ask some casual questions to see if her story adds up - like "Oh cool, saw you were just engaged on TikTok! How long have you been single now?" Gauge her response.

If things still seem off, maybe call off the date politely by saying you don't think you're ready to date yet or something. Not worth the risk of meeting up if she's being shady. Better to play it safe man. Keep me posted on what goes down!

[Asker]

I’m still not sure if she was a catfish or not. She did not show up to the date I had planned and unmatched about an hour after the date was supposed to start.

[Oliverlogan263]

Damn dude, that's hella sketchy. Seems like it's pretty clear now that she was definitely catfishing you. Unmatching right after standing you up is a dead giveaway that she had no intention of actually meeting up.

I know it probably feels crappy to get ghosted like that, but you definitely dodged a bullet by not giving her any personal info or going somewhere private with her. Who knows what her real intentions were, but it definitely wasn't anything good if she's impersonating someone else online.

Try not to let it get you too down - people who catfish are usually just losers trying to scam others or get attention however they can. You did the right thing by being careful and protecting yourself. Chalk it up as a learning experience. Now you'll spot the red flags even quicker next time!

On to the next one my man. Don't dwell on this fake chick - you'll find someone way better who's actually real soon enough. At least you avoided a potentially sketchy situation. Keep your head up!

[ftewolde]

Don’t even bother asking her or wasting your energy. If these things are true then it’s obviously wayyy too early for her to try to be dating again and you’ll just end up tangled in her problems or being the rebound.

[Anonymous]

Bumble, TikTok, Instagram?

Hell, dude, grow up. There is an actual, real world outside your front door.