A few years ago, I was obsessed with the TV show Catfish . I couldn't understand how so many people were duped by others pretending to be someone they weren't. This weekend, it almost happened to me, for 24 hours, I believed I was exchanging messages with 'John' after he found me on Instagram. My gut feeling from the beginning was that something was amiss, but I went with it anyway. After about an hour, I reverse searched one of his Instagram images. That's a trick I learned on Catfish . Immediately, the photo came up on the profile of a respectable New York businessman. For the next few hours, I was cagey and John persisted - even when I called him on the photo issue. He just got hurt and then forgave me. That was nice of him. So, here are my top ten ways to spot a catfish, based on this weekend: If your instinct tells you something is wrong, listen to it. You're probably right. The more perfect they seem to be, the more likely they are to be imaginary...
Music and words