Catfish: Can you love a stranger?

Just another show in MTV's long list of forgettable reality series, Catfish has seemed to have struck a cord with us. Meeting someone online isn't all that hard in our digital age. But the idea of falling in love with them and talking to them for years without proof of who they are sounds a little far fetched.

For those of you that have better things to do than watch MTV and are unaware of what Catfish is, here is a brief summary. Basically it is a show based on connecting long term online lovers. The team comes in and films everything as they investigate their mystery lovers. Then they try to get ahold of them and have them meet in person. Sometimes it's girls pretending to be boys or vice versa, or sometimes they just don't hit it off like they thought they would, on rare occasion it actually works out.

So how can it be possible to be in love with someone you've never met? Or is it even possible? I would have to say that in my opinion I don't think you can really truly be "in love" with someone you haven't physically spent time with. You miss out on all the little unspoken things about them that create the bond of love.

But why then are so many people open to loving strangers they have never met and may never meet? I think it really speaks to the loneliness our generation feels. Are we really that desperate to find love that we are willing to create it with a stranger? Apparently so.

Someone you will never meet can never judge you for you flaws or imperfections. They will only love you for the parts of you that you let them see. It's so much safer than real life. You can place all your hopes and dreams into that person and be relatively confident you won't get hurt.

I'm sure the idea of meeting this person they have created this fantasy with is somewhat appealing. Why else would they go on the show. But often times it seems like there fantasy doesn't match up with reality.

I guess the moral of the story is that we can't let ourselves be so scared of the real world that we choose to live solely in online relationships. Sometimes reality hurts but that's just a chance you have to take to experience real life the way you should.




As Always, Stay Classy
XOXO

Hayley