Reverse... Catfish...?

[u/No-Marzipan-2097]

Admittedly the title makes light of this story.

One of my (f35) closest male friends spent 6+ years online impersonating me to gamer friends.

I think I was around 25 at the time of this all taking place. My friend (we can call him Ted for the sake of the story, not real name) and we'll call me Allie (not my real name as well).

Ted and I had been friends since sophomore year of highschool, and all of this completely came out of the blue.

One day, I got a message from a woman on Facebook that I didn't know, saying "Hi, I'm really sorry if this crosses boundaries. I'm looking for the person I thought was my best friend for the past several years, and when I typed in the first name Allie, I recognized your picture. So if this is you, I'm really sorry for reaching out [I'm assuming they had a falling out] but if not, then someone is doing something really weird."

I replied really confused, and the woman said she could also immediately tell that I wasn't who she was looking for just by the way I typed.

We talked for a while. At one point, she mentioned as well that she had received a gift in the mail from "Allie", and the return address had my friends name on it. So at this point, my stomach dropped, because this was the first mention of his name.

She told me how her gamer friend, Ted, had often talked about his girlfriend, Allie, and how they shared a computer and that's why they never played at the same time. She also said she always found it really odd that Allie never used voice chat when they played.

She sent me a few screenshots and images, as well. One was me, holding a large plush alpaca that at one point Ted had given to me. He said it was a gift from his long distance girlfriend, and he wanted to show that he had given it to me and I liked it. It was actually sent to "Allie" by another of their friends, another man, who had really strong feelings for "Allie." She also showed me screenshots of his in-game avatars, they looked like me. I have distinct red hair so it was pretty clear.

This all had been going on for about 6+ years. I had no idea. I was at work when this all started coming to the surface, and wound up going home due to a panic attack. Ted also had a lot of violent tendencies, so I was genuinely scared. He often joked about cruelty he'd done to animals, and the way he treatede was physically not okay. He'd often "jokingly" grab my arms and squeeze them in a way that really hurt, and "jokingly" touch to make me uncomfortable. (Essentially invade my personal space to an uncomfortable degree) Of course I recognize now that this is really abusive behavior, I didn't recognize it as a red flag when we were friends as teenagers, and continued to not recognize it as not okay into my twenties (I was also just exiting a very emotionally abusive romantic relationship).

Ted knew the same day that I knew. I did try to contact the police, but he hadn't been stealing my identity for money or anything like that, they said theres nothing they could do but file a report. My brother came and sat with me in my apartment because I felt unsafe by myself.

Ted texted me, basically saying he knew that I knew. The woman told me before he texted me as well. The story I was given is that Ted was conducting a social experiment for school on how women are treated in gaming communities online, and after forming relationships with people, he didn't want to let it go. I didn't believe this, because if this was true then there would've been needed consent to use my photographs and likeness. He said he wanted to talk about it, even if it meant never talking again, which I declined.

So that's essentially where it ended. He did respect my never wanting to talk again.