It looks harmless.
But the truth?
This isn’t just a story anymore.
It’s a mirror.
A mask.
A beginning I might not be able to end.
Kiss me with Lies: The art of catfishing
By Penn FIND LAST NAME, Editor-in-Chief
I start with the headline bold, detached, and professional.
It’s the kind of title that promises insight, not heartbreak.
The kind that hides how close the knife really is to my own skin.
I take a sip of lukewarm wine, steady my hands on the keyboard, and start to type.
We live in an age where love is a transaction of pixels and half-truths. Where connection comes in curated bursts filtered faces, clever bios, and the illusion of being seen.
But what happens when the person behind the screen isn’t who they say they are?
I pause. The irony is heavy, almost cruel. Because tonight, I’m not just writing about the lie. I’m building it.
Catfishing the act of luring someone into a relationship through a false identity, has evolved from a fringe deception into a digital epidemic. It’s not always about money or manipulation. Sometimes, it’s about something far more human. Loneliness. Loss. The desperate hunger to be loved again.
My reflection glares back at me from the laptop screen tired eyes, smudged mascara, a woman haunted by what-ifs and maybes. I think about Blake. About how easily he smiled for strangers, how his words once made me believe in forever. And then I think about Dane the way he saidbreathelike it was a promise. The way his voice steadied the shaking in my chest without even trying.
I shouldn’t think about him. But I do.
Sometimes, catfishing isn’t born from cruelty. Sometimes, it’s born from grief. From the unbearable silence after someonestops choosing you. From the need to be seen, even if you have to become someone else to make it happen.
The words pour out faster now, less journalism, more confession. My chest aches with every paragraph, my heartbeat syncing with the rhythm of the keys.
We pretend it’s research. We call it curiosity. But what we’re really doing is searching for the version of ourselves we lost when love left the room.
I stop, fingers hovering over the keyboard. The cursor blinks at me, impatient.
Outside, the city hums lights flickering in windows, strangers falling asleep next to other strangers, everyone pretending they’re okay. And in here, I’m building a mask. A name. A face.
I am becoming a woman who isn’t me.
I am becoming…Pandora.
I close my laptop but sleep never comes.
The alarm doesn’t go off anymore. I just wake up. Like my body remembers the ache before my mind does.
The ceiling above me is pale and quiet and far too clean for the mess inside my head. I lie there for a while, breathing in the stillness, pretending I don’t have to move. The sheets cling to my skin like they’re trying to keep me here, in this space between sleep and remembering.
But I can’t stay. I never can.
When I finally swing my legs over the edge of the bed, the floor shocks me with its cold. It bites at my toes, and I curl them against it like I can anchor myself there. The air smells faintly of rain, damp wood, and the faint ghost of yesterday’s coffee.
