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Have you ever fallen for someone who pretended to be somebody else? Today we’re talking to visual artist and personal trainer Tim Webster about his online romance filled with lies and deception.
Join us as we talk about Facetious disorder- fake Internet profiles, con artists and co-dependency.
Fausto Fernós is the host of iTunes’ #1 LGBT talk show, the Feast of Fun podcast, which he produces and hosts with his partner, Marc Felion.
Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Fausto Fernós created the Feast of Fools in 1998 as wacky artists variety show in Chicago, Illinois. Feast of Fun grew out of an audio blog to promote the live show into the world’s most downloaded talk show aimed for gay people.
When he’s not blogging, recording or sleeping, Fausto can be found at the gym or appreciating the beauty found in nature.
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Comments
Wow! Thanks for sharing a fascinating, yet unnerving story, guys. I can relate to Tim on a lot of levels. Way back, before I moved to Chicago, I had a really bad romance with a guy in my hometown. He lied. He manipulated. He drank heavily. He initiated random three-ways after the bars closed. Then he would come over, to my home, at 2am in the morning, sobbing, apologizing, and banging on my bedroom window. Some nights, I was riddled with fear, while listening to him rant outside. But he never got loud enough to disturb the neighbors. Somehow he always knew when my landlord was away. I just couldn’t walk away, because like Tim, I felt I owed him something. He took interest in me. Finally, I realized I needed to end it. I minimized all communication. Disconnected my answering machine. Changed my cell number. Stopped going to the bars for 4 months. Then, in the Fall of that year, on a night where I ventured out for a drink with a friend, he sees me look in the general of a cute guy. I didn’t even see him in the bar! Two minutes later, I have a note scrawled on a bar napkin, shoved in my face by his girl. “I see you’ve moved on,” it read. So, he “broke up with me” through a beer soaked napkin. Seriously! LOL. I can laugh at it now, because I have no other way to process it. I think he had facetious disorder. What do you say?
Fantastic show 2day continuing this relationship theme. Totally reminds me of Catfish (2010) about a guy that falls in love with a woman over the Facebook & becomes intertwined in her web of lies as well.
Lesson Learned: It’s always good at the end. If it’s not good, its not the end.
What an incredible story. I heard stories about fake profiles, guys and I also once chatted, connected a bit with a fake guy but Tim’s story is really horrible. Glad Tim found now a guy he is happy with and can have a real relationship with.
Nowadays if I meet a guy online I never chat too long with him and always ask to meet in person for a coffee/meal. In case that is not possible due to the distance I ask for a skype video call.
I guess the first time when you fell for a guy it is very difficult to act reasonable. My first bf who I met online was actually from Australia and flew to Germany to meet me. We had a good time but after some months we both realized it would not work out due to the distance.
Wow this is insanity. I’m sorry this happened to you.
I see nothing wrong with creating a fake profile and having friendships as this fake person online provided you’re well aware that it’s fantasy and it’s never going to go beyond that . . . If you’re using stolen pictures that’s not cool but, really, if someone puts their pictures online and doesn’t put a watermark on them to show who they are of . . . Then they’re more or less fair game sadly.
This guy you’re talking about though . . . This is well beyond harmless online fun . . . He’s part con-artist part psychotic and all something that should be avoided. At least it never escalated beyond where it was. There was a lot of mental abuse there but
Back in my teen years between 1997 and 1999 I did some volunteer work on a suicide/depression help and prevention forum and we had people that did this type of stuff regularly. The internet attracts all kinds of people and those people like to prey on those that are in a vulnerable state . . . Such as those that would be logging into this type of forum. The worst was the people that would get some members involved in their story and emotionally invested in this persona . . . And then “kill themselves”. If they only knew what kind of a chain reaction that set up . . . (Never triggered a real suicide but would upset a lot of people greatly) Maybe they still would have done it but I’d like to think they wouldn’t.
Beyond that though once I came out I had the pleasure of dating people that lied about various things that were . . . Well kinda large. Because of my experience on the forums however I got pretty good at getting to the truth. Unfortunately getting down to what really was in one person’s past after close to a year of dating and things just not adding up the more I got to know him involved me taking a long drive to another town to visit their library and sift through microfiche newspapers and contacting government regulatory agencies to verify licensing status . . .
Once I had the information all compiled I went to our next dinner with a folder of information. That was fun. 🙂 The part that I regret however was that, like you, I stuck around after I found all this stuff out. It lasted for longer than I’d care to say here but it all came apart in the end as could be expected.
I can’t figure out my reasoning for why it lasted for so long . . . There were so many times I thought of ending it before I started to realize things weren’t adding up with him. I guess I felt like I owed him something, I felt like that was the best I could do etc etc etc. Not to mention the crying fits he’d have when we’d start talking about breaking up. I also had to deal with that we started dating when I had first moved to the area and was just coming out so most of my social life was through him. I finally had to do something I swore I’d never do to someone because once the crying started I’d lose my nerve to follow through. I broke up with him over the phone so I could just hang up when it started. I then asked that he ship my stuff to me and I’ll ship his stuff to him through UPS. We saw each other some time afterwards and things were fine and we both agreed it was for the best . . . But it had to happen however it was going to happen.
Then there was another one that was portraying one image of himself to me but was just a lying manipulative cheat in reality. That’s a bit more of a standard situation most people deal with at one time or another however. 😉 That one was far easier to break off. Hearing stories of how people were figuring out what he was all about after this made me feel vindicated though I must say.
I’m loving Feast of Fun’s “Tragic Gay Love” Series. First the guy who didn’t think to look into international marriage laws and now this… Can’t wait for the next installment!
In all seriousness though: Yowza. I’m glad no rabbits ended up getting boiled on the stove.
wow, i was enthralled! what a great episode. thanks tim for being so courageous and sharing your experience. keep it up marc and fausto! love, sid