Emotional Catfishing: The Dating Deception We Don’t Talk About
Conventional catfishing research describes deceptive or false identity presentation and documents substantial emotional consequences for people deceived; the academic literature I found does not establish our specific “emotional catfishing” framework as a clinical concept.
We’ve All Heard Of Catfishing.
You meet someone online. Their pictures are ten years old, heavily filtered or belong to someone else entirely. They tell you they’re 6’2” when they’re definitely not. They’re single, except for the inconvenient wife they forgot to mention.
The person you thought you were getting to know isn’t actually the person standing in front of you.
We understand why that’s deceptive.
You made decisions based on information that wasn’t true.
I’ve started wondering why we’re so much more comfortable calling out that kind of misrepresentation than we are another kind I’ve been experiencing in dating.
Because what happens when the picture is real… but the emotional profile isn’t?
What happens when someone presents himself as emotionally available, relationship-ready, self-aware and capable of the kind of relationship you’re looking for, and you make decisions based on that representation?
You trust him. You invest. You become vulnerable.
Maybe you start rearranging parts of your life to make room for him.
And then the relationship gets real enough to require the emotional capacity he told you he had.
And suddenly…
that guy is nowhere to be fucking found.
I call that emotional catfishing.
What Exactly Is Emotional Catfishing?
First, a disclaimer because the internet loves taking a phrase and running directly off a cliff with it:
Emotional catfishing isn’t a clinical term. And I’m certainly not the first person on the internet to put those words together. But I haven’t found a definition that adequately describes the dating behavior I’m talking about, so here’s what I mean when I use the term; emotional catfishing:
Emotional catfishing is presenting yourself in dating as having emotional availability, relationship readiness, self-awareness or relational capacity that you have not actually developed, or you cannot sustain once you’re in a real relationship.
The catfish is the gap.
The gap between who you represented yourself to be and who you were actually capable of being inside the relationship.
You told me you were emotionally available… were you?
You told me you were ready for a relationship… were you?
You told me you were a great communicator… can you communicate when the conversation is uncomfortable?
You told me you had dealt with your previous relationship… Has it actually be dealt with, or can your ex walk back into your life tomorrow and blow up the entire relationship you’re building with me?
You told me you wanted commitment… What happens when commitment stops being an idea on your dating profile and starts requiring vulnerability, compromise, accountability and consistency?
That’s the shit I want to know…
Because anyone can describe the man he believes himself to be. Dating eventually reveals the man he actually has the capacity to be.
And No, I’m Not Talking About Someone Simply Changing His Mind
This distinction matters.
Someone dating you for a while and deciding you’re not compatible is not automatically emotional catfishing.
Someone discovering feelings he didn’t anticipate isn’t automatically emotional catfishing.
One bad argument isn’t emotional catfishing.
Having flaws isn’t emotional catfishing.
Being imperfect at communication isn’t emotional catfishing.
Realizing after three dates that this isn’t going anywhere definitely isn’t emotional catfishing.
People are allowed to change their minds.
They’re allowed to learn things about themselves.
They’re allowed to discover the relationship isn’t right.
Dating would be completely fucking impossible if every disappointing ending became evidence that somebody deceived us.
I’m talking about something more substantial.
A material difference between the relationship capacity someone represented and the relationship capacity they could actually demonstrate.
My test is pretty simple:
If I’d known at the beginning that I know now, would that information reasonably have changed my decision to invest?
If the answer is yes, I think it’s worth looking at the gap between the representation and the reality.
But What If He Genuinely Didn’t Know?
This is where I think people get uncomfortable.
Because sometimes there isn’t a villain.
Sometimes someone genuinely believed he’s ready. He genuinely thinks he’s over his ex. He genuinely believed he’s emotionally available. He thinks he’s good at communication. He believes he wants commitment.
And then the relationship comes along and exposes something he didn’t know about himself.
I understand that.
I’ve learned things about myself by ending in relationships too.
We’re human.
We’re not walking around with perfectly completed psychological audits tucked inside our purses.
But here’s where my opinion is probably less forgiving:
I don’t think lack of self-awareness automatically eliminates accountability.
Intent matters. Intent explains. It doesn’t absolve.
Because there’s another person involved.
A person making decisions about her life based, at least partially, on what you’re telling her and showing her.
And if you’re going to ask another human for her time, vulnerability, exclusivity, trust and emotional investment, I think you have some responsibility to know what you’re actually capable of offering in return.
Knowing Yourself Was Part of the Assignment
I keep coming back to this. We put an enormous amount of responsibility on the person who got hurt.
You should have seen the red flags.
You should have trusted your intuition.
You shouldn’t have invested so quickly.
You should have asked better questions.
You should have known.
And sure… Sometimes we should have.
I’ve ignored things I shouldn’t have ignored. I’ve rationalized things because I wanted the relationship to work. I’ve given people more benefit of the doubt than they earned.
That’s mine to own.
At some point we also have to be willing to ask:
What did you know, or what should you reasonably have known, about your own emotional availability before you asked another person to trust you?
Have you actually dealt with your previous relationship? Can you tolerate emotional intimacy once it becomes uncomfortable? Do you know how to respond to conflict? Are you capable of consistency after the excitement wears off? Are you looking for a relationship, or do you just like the feeling of being wanted? Are you actually available for the future you’re describing?
Those aren’t unreasonable questions.
They’re part of being a responsible participant in somebody else’s emotional life.
The Picture Can Be Real And The Representation Can Still Be Wrong
This is why the catfishing comparison makes sense to me. Imagine someone uses a photo from ten years ago.
Maybe he really thinks he still looks like that. Maybe he honestly hasn’t noticed how much he’s changed. Maybe he doesn’t intend to deceive anyone.
Cool.
It’s still the wrong fucking picture…
The person meeting him made a decision based on a representation that wasn’t accurate.
I think emotional capacity can work the same way.
Maybe you think you really are emotionally available. Maybe you genuinely believe that you’re ready. Maybe the version of yourself you’re describing is the man you want to be. Maybe it’s even the man you’ve been under easier circumstances.
But if that version disappears as soon as an actual relationship requires somehting form you, the discrepancy still matters.
You don’t have to know you’re using the wrong fucking picture for it to still be the wrong picture.
Where I think We Give People Too Much Grace
There’s a phrase I’ve heard some version of repeatedly in dating:
“He probably didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Okay. Maybe he didn’t.
But sometimes I think we rush so quickly to establish that someone isn’t a terrible person that we accidentally skip over whether his behavior was acceptable.
Those are two completely different questions.
Someone can be a decent human being and still behave irresponsibly in a a relationship.
Someone can care about you and still hurt you. They can have good intentions and still create damage. Someone can believe his own representation and still have been wrong about himself.
Understanding why somebody hurt you does not require pretending he had no responsibility for doing it.
That’s an important distinction for me now.
I’m not particularly interested in deciding whether every man who has hurt me is secretly evil. I don’t need a diagnosis.
I don’t need to figure out his attachment style by scrolling TikTok or listening to podcasts.
I don’t need to decide if he’s a narcissist… I just need to look at what actually happened.
What did you represent?
What did I observe?
What could you actually sustain?
This Is Why Emotional Catfishing Fucks With Your Head.
A normal breakup hurts.
But there’s something particularly disorienting about a relationship ending in a way that makes you question the relationship that came before it. Because now you’re not only grieving the person, you’re auditing the entire fucking relationship.
Was that conversation real? Did he mean that? Was I stupid for believing him? Did I completely misread what was happening? Was he pretending? Was I ignoring the obvious? Did he ever actually know himself at all?
That’s the part I don’t think we talk about enough.
Sometimes the pain isn’t simply:
He left.
It’s:
I made emotionally significant decisions based on who I reasonably believed I was building something with, and not I’m not sure that person ever really existed in the way I understood him to.
I’ve experienced that feeling.
More than once.
And it can absolutely fuck with your ability to trust your own judgement.
So How Do You Protect Yourself?
This is the annoying part.
I don’t think there’s a magical checklist that makes it possible to protect yourself.
Sometimes there isn’t a giant red flag flapping in your face.
Sometimes the person you’re dating genuinely does behave consistently… for a while.
Sometimes you didn’t fail some secret dating test.
That’s exactly why I’m much less interested now in finding the perfect questions to ask a man and much more interested in giving reality enough time to answer them.
I just watch.
Not in a paranoid, I’m waiting for you to fuck up way… I just don’t let someone’s description of himself become my evidence for who he is.
He says he’s consistent… great. Time will tell me.
He’s says he’s emotionally available? Great. The emotional intimacy we create will tell me.
He says he’s a good communicator? Fantastic. Our first difficult conversation will tell me a hell of a lot more about if that’s actually true.
He’s proclaims he’s ready for commitment? Okay… increasing closeness, responsibility and vulnerability will tell me.
He says his previous relationship is behind him? Good. His behavior around that previous relationship will show me.
Words matter. I am not pretending they don’t. But words need to match behavior. And behavior needs to remain reasonably consistent when circumstances change.
That’s why one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned dating in my 40’s is:
Intensity is not capacity.
Someone can feel strongly about you and still lack the capacity to build a healthy relationship with you.
Your Heart Isn’t Someone Else’s Practice Field
I want to be careful here because I don’t believe anyone needs to arrive in dating perfectly healed.
I certainly haven’t. We’re all works in progress. We’re going to make mistakes.
Relationships themselves teach us things we couldn’t have learned alone.
But there is a difference between entering dating as an imperfect human and repeatedly asking other people to absorb the consequences of the work you refuse to do on yourself.
You’re allowed to be figuring your shit out. You’re allowed to change. You’re allowed to realize you aren’t ready.
You’re allowed to discover that what you thought you wanted isn’t actually what you want.
But other people are allowed to hold you accountable for you involve them while you’re figuring that out.
That’s the piece I care about.
Your self-discovery isn’t happening in a vacuum if you’re actively dating.
Her time is real. Her trust is real. Her vulnerability is real.
Maybe He Wasn’t Lying To You
This is probably the hardest version of emotional catfishing to accept.
Maybe he wasn’t lying to you. Maybe he was just lying to himself.
Maybe he believed every word he said to you about who he was and what he had to offer. Maybe the version of himself he presented was aspirational rather than calculated. Maybe he didn’t know the difference until reality forced him to find out. I’ve lived through that.
I can have compassion for that.
And I can still believe the other person shouldn’t have to absorb the entire cost of his lack of self-awareness.
Both things can be true.
That’s probably where I’ve changed the most. I used to think understanding someone’s reason meant I had to excuse the outcome.
I don’t anymore.
I can understand you. I can even empathize with you. I can also believe that you never intended to hurt me.
But I can still decide:
You represented a relationship capacity you couldn’t actually sustain, and I deserved better information before I invested in you.
So, Yes. I Am Calling It Emotional Catfishing.
Maybe some people will think the term is dramatic. That’s fine. I’ve been called worse.
But I think we need language for the particular mindfuck that happened when the person standing in front on you is physically exactly who he presented himself to be… while the emotional and relational capacity you thought you were investing in turned out to be something else entirely.
Not because every relationship that ends was fraudulent. Not because everyone who changes his mind is a liar, and not because imperfect people shouldn’t date.
But because representation, especially in dating, matters.
Accountability matters.
Self-awareness matters.
If you’re going to invite someone to trust you, I think you have a responsibility to make a reasonable effort to know whether the version of yourself you’re asking her to trust actually exists.
You don’t have to know you’re using the wrong fucking picture for it to still be the wrong fucking picture.
And maybe… it’s time we started holding people accountable for both.
XOXO,
That Mama