Catfish in Real Time

A promising first date, and a twist no one sees coming: the person across the table keeps changing. We dive into a wild, true story of “real-time catfishing,” where a wig slip triggers a cascade of transformations, new hair, fresh makeup, and even a different outfit, turning a simple meet-up into a moving target for trust and recognition. It’s laugh-out-loud funny on the surface, but there’s a serious pulse underneath about boundaries, safety, and what honesty looks like when presentation is fluid.

We start by reframing catfishing for the offline world and why the environment matters more than most people think. Bright, public spaces help confirm what video calls and photos only suggest. From there, we unpack how mid-date makeovers can break rapport, why our brains need consistent visual cues to feel safe, and how to separate self-expression from misdirection. Wigs and makeup are valid and powerful until they disrupt continuity so much that the person across from you can’t recognize who they’re with from one bathroom break to the next.

You’ll leave with practical first-date rules that actually work: choose daylight or well-lit venues, read behavior over aesthetics, and keep a clean exit strategy when your gut warns you the vibe is off. We share graceful language for tapping out without shaming anyone, plus a few hard-won laughs that make the lessons stick. If you’ve ever wondered where the line sits between glow-up and red flag, this story draws it in bold.

If the tale resonates, tap follow, share it with a friend who dates, and drop your own wild first-date rules or red flags in the comments. Your stories help shape future episodes and might save someone from a very confusing dinner.

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Transcript

Setting Up Catfishing Basics

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome back to another episode of Unstripped After 40, the podcast. Now, before I get started, let me talk about this, okay? Have y'all ever heard the phrase catfishing? Which I'm pretty sure most of y'all are familiar with the catfish, you know, or ever heard of the term catfishing before. But for those that don't or maybe forgotten, you know, like when you show someone a picture online and then when you meet them in person, they're like two different people, right? They they didn't match up. They even had a show back in the 90s called catfish, you know. They used to go, I think it was on MTV if I remember right. Like you people getting catfish. So, so that those are the people that's over 40, y'all pretty much understand what catfishing is. But apparently, you can get catfish in real time now. Like, mind blown. I didn't know that was actually a thing that you can actually get catfish in real time. Like, how they do it? What was the circumstance that led to that? Catfishing in real time. Guess what? I got a story for you, and I'd like to thank Chris for this story, okay? So, Chris, I know y'all are listening. Please don't be embarrassed. I'm sorry I'm putting your business out there on Front Street, but the world gots to hear this. I did not know until you told me that you can get catfish in real time. So we're gonna make sure that the world understands this and they see the warning signs against this so that they won't get catfish in real time. Like I say, it can happen to the best of us. Um never happened to me, but it can happen to the best of us. Uh it happened to you, Chris, but you know, sorry. So, but it happened to Chris. And if it happened to you out there, hey, look here. Don't no shame, no shame. On this podcast, we like Planet Fitness, okay? No judgment zone. I don't know how you got catfish in real time, but apparently it can happen, okay? So let's get to the story. I went out to the Blue Room in Raleigh, right? It's a jazz club. I went there to listen to some jazz, you know, get my wine down for the week. As I'm going to the bar waiting in line for a drink, I meet this young fella named Chris, and we sparked up a conversation. As we got our drinks, we went back and sat down. I started talking to Chris a little more, and I asked him why he didn't bring a young lady here with him to the club, you know, because it's a nice scenery, it's a jazz club, and I thought that he he could bring somebody there with him to, you know, instead of talking to me, come in talking to this young lady. He's a young man. Um, apparently he had a rough week that week. And um he decided to tell me his story. And and when he told me at the time, I was like, what? Like, that's that's a thing. Like, even this week, after I heard the story that I'm about to tell y'all, I went back and looked up catfishing in real time to make sure that I wasn't tripping or imagining this whole thing. But it's not a real sh, I don't know, it might be a real thing. I couldn't find no information on it. So if you do the research and you find the information on it, please put in the comments and let me know where this came from. Is it a trend that I need to worry about that we need to make sure we tell people about more rapidly and get this put out? But you heard it here first time if you didn't hear it. Catfishing in real time. So let's tell Chris's story. Chris told me he meet this young lady online about a couple weeks back, okay? Which is normal. I thought he was gonna say, you know, met this girl online, I met her in person, it didn't work out. End of story. No, no, Chris had a twist. Well about he had a twist. So apparently, Chris was talking to his young lady, like I said, met back online a couple weeks ago. Him and her were having cordial conversations back and forth, getting to know each other. So Chris made a leap to go to meet in real life. Because the girl had sent him a couple pictures to him in real life, like like cross thing back and forth, they were sharing pictures. He video or FaceTime the girl and saw the girl, you know, somewhat face to face, but cross the video and kind of got a real ideal, how she looked, and got her personality, right? So, which which is understandable. We we got the personality. So they go meet at a restaurant. His first mistake, and I got told him that when I'm thinking of my head, he meets the girl at night in a un well a dimly litted restaurant. Let me say one more time. He meets the girl in a dimly litted restaurant. That was the first mistake, okay? You don't go on the first date and meet somebody in a dimly litted restaurant. You go meet them in the daytime, okay? Where you can see them and make sure that's the person that you thought you were meeting. Because that's how you get catfish. That would say like catfish, but we were talking about earlier. But we digress, okay? He meets the girl, and it's the girl, apparently, that he was talking to online, and that he recognized her, right? Just maybe with a little more makeup on. I guess you know she wanted to look presentable and cute for him. So I ain't mad over putting makeup on, you know. Put makeup on. That would make you feel good and make you look like the way you want to feel, go with it. You know, she was trying to dress to impress, I guess, or makeup to impress, you know, I guess. Yeah, yeah, that that's what I'm gonna go with. That's that that's the saying I'm gonna go with. But that that's not the problem, okay? So as she was talking, I guess Chris was giving us some good jokes or something. They were laughing, they was vibing, and in the course of this meal, I guess she didn't, you know, strap down her wig good enough, and she shaped to the left and shaked to the right, and when she shaped back to the left, bam, the wig fell off. Okay, right when Chris told me that, I was embarrassed for her. I was like, okay, that gotta be embarrassing. I don't know if y'all saw that viral video that went back when this girl was at this interview and she was sitting on the couch and she was talking, and her little pontail fell back behind the thing. She like, oh my god. Oh my god. And her wig fell. So I I could I can imagine that can be pretty embarrassing for her, right? So the chick went to the bathroom, okay, you know, understandable, to go fix her wig. That's what I'm thinking, Chris is gonna tell her, right? So apparently she went to the bathroom and came back with another wig on. I don't even know why she would do that, but that that's not the the problem getting working. When she came back to the table, Chris did not recognize her because she had another wig on. So I'm not even mad at Chris right now for that. I'm just saying, who goes in the bathroom and changes a wig mid-date? I'm just who does that? Okay? I never heard that before. What wrong with the wig that she had on? Who, first of all, carried two wigs with them? Like she had a backup wig in her purse. That was like impressive to me. Like, why would you have a backup wig in your purse? So that's where the catfish in real time initially started. Now, in my head, if I'm on a date with you and your wig falls off, I'm embarrassed for you. I'm not gonna make you feel embarrassed because I understand that's probably an embarrassing moment that your wig falls off, but you're not gonna go to the bathroom, then come back with a different wig on than the wig we start with, okay? You're gonna come back with the same wig on, so I at least know who you are. So when she came back to the table, Chris stopped her and said, Hey, uh, my lady friend's coming back, someone's sitting here. Which mostly I probably did too, because she looked like a different person. I'm not even mad at Chris for that. Different person, right? Come back with a different wig on, you're a different person. So she said, Chris, stop. And when he heard a voice, he said, Oh, crap, that's you. He said, Okay. He didn't want to state the obvious, but I would have, why did you change your wig? What? What's going on with your hair? You know, that's why I would have asked. What's going with the hair right here? Did we? Is there a hairstylist in the bathroom I don't know about that we can get like a is like I can give me my I probably can go get me a quick shave or something. There's somebody in the bathroom doing that stuff. But okay, I digress and come back. So now to him and to everyone else, I guess, especially to him, she was a different person. She looked totally different. I guess she had like you say, she had like a bob and came out with a hollyberry. So how you go from a bob like a neck bob and then come out with a hollyberry? Like, no one would go and notice that. Like, like, no one. Like, I understand. So that was the first thing. So, me, I would have left. But Chris, he stayed. Because, like I say, he was talking to her, he understands it's embarrassing. He didn't want to bring up the hair thing, so he let it go, right? So they kept talking, and you know, next thing you know, she wastes something on her top. Normally, when people waste stuff on their top, they just dab the rag in some water, dab it on their shirt, and wipe it off. She went to the bathroom again. Now, I saw this coming. I don't know why Chris didn't see this coming. I knew she's gonna come out there like Superman, dressed in a whole different goddamn costume. I I knew this was gonna happen. Okay? So she goes in the bathroom. Not only did she change her clothes, she came out with a third wig. Like, who carries that many wigs in their purse? Like, what is going on here? Now, like I'm saying, okay, now I understand where he got the phrase that he got catfish in real time. How do you alter your appearance while you're on a date? Why? Why would you do that? That's what she did. She altered her appearance while she was on a date in real time. I don't know what young ladies out here doing that, but bravo, bra bravo. I I never saw it done before. Like I said, it never happened to me. But if every time you go to the bathroom, you come out with a whole new wig and outfit, hey, that's that's amazing. I call that you a superwoman. That's the only person I know who do that, superwoman. So you you a superwoman. Come out bathroom with a new outfit and stuff. So I now he don't even know who she is. Because not only she came out with a new wig, she changed her makeup. Now I'm thinking to myself, how long was she in that bathroom? That's what I should have asked Chris. Because he made it seem like that she went in the bathroom, then five minutes later, she out of the bathroom, totally different person. That that's amazing. Uh like amazing. To me, that that would have messed me up. Okay? That that's red flags all along. You don't even know who you date right now. To me, that's the night she got split personalities. So you need to date somebody that got three different wigs in their purse. That that's a red flag. Red flag, Chris, red flag. So I'm glad that he he decided to leave her alone because that that was the thing of thing. So after she came out the bathroom with the third change, Chris a nice guy, you know. He wanna make it awkward or do something different or or you know, make her feel ashamed. But at his time, and I'm I'm mad for him. He's thinking of an exit strategy. How can I get out of this situation here? Because apparently I'm dealing with I'm not with the same person I came in the restaurant with. I feel sorry for him. Like, how you I can't even I can't even keep a straight face talking to him about this. Like, what was going through your head when she came out of the bathroom the third time with a different wig on? Like, like, like what was the people around you, how they face reacted? I that's why I want to know. I wish I could have been there to see that. Like, like, it's like a movie. Like, you get catfish in real time. Like, that that is a thing now. So, um, so for those out there that can go in the bathroom and pop right back out, be a whole different wig, makeup, design everything. Hey, good for y'all. I like I say, that but that that's still that's still catfishing. You you can't change your alter your appearance during a date. That's just wrong. That's wrong. It should be a law against that. You know, I I understand, like I say, the first instant her wig fell off. Got it. Got it. Embarrassing. Change your wig, put some of that stable. But the the third wig, okay, that's old boy. That that that's wrong. And then you change your whole makeup and everything, and your outfit. Like, how big was her purse that she had, extra outfits, extra wig, and a makeup kit in there? Or what restaurant they went to that had all that in the bathroom? Like, that there gotta be some five-star Michelin restaurant they went to that where you can go in the bathroom and it alters your appearance as you go in there. I need to find that restaurant. So, Chris, put me the name of that restaurant. I know you told me the name of that restaurant too, but put it in the comments. I I need to know that restaurant, cause I need to go to that restaurant and see if they can, you know, alter my appearance mid-day. So, like I said, okay, I got the glasses on, and I take my glasses off somebody else. Put the glasses back on, it's me. Take the glasses off, I'm somebody brand new. And I can give me some wigs. Oh, be awesome. I give me some waves. That's what I'm gonna do. Give me some waves. That's what I'm gonna do. So, my next date, when I go out, I'm gonna come in with a bald head, I'm gonna go in the bathroom and come back out with some goddamn waves. That's what I'm gonna do. That's what I'm gonna do, and I'm gonna catfish somebody in real time since it's a thing you can do these days. So, like I say, that's a story for the day. Um, catfishing in real time. So, if you're out here getting catfish in real time and it happened to you, please let me know. Okay, like I say, Unstripped It After 40, the podcast, unedited, unrehearsed, real talk, real people. But before I sign out, thank you all for the comments. Y'all made me laugh. Um, thank you all for the topic suggestions. When I get to that topic, I'll make sure just like I give Chris credit, I will give you credit, and hopefully, I can get you on the podcast with me so you can tell the story, and I can ask you weird questions about why you let this happen to you. Because I if you can see the comments, please go back in the Facebook page and Instagram page. Look at some of the comments that people put down there for new episodes. It's it's hilarious. I I can't wait to go through the numbers on no episode. But like I say, um thank you for rocking with me. Until next time, please do not get catfish in real time. If somebody altering their appearance on a date, get the fuck out of there. Personal goddamn killer or something. Until next time.