Transcripts For CNNW CNN Newsroom 20130127

Always part of the fourth hour. Have you seen lincoln . I have not. But im told its amazing 37 hes number two, by the way. Daniel day lewis. Tommie lee jones is brilliant in that film. And a hell of a nice guy i hear. Are you still winning, charlie . Today i am with you. Absolutely. Its been brilliant to see you again. Likewise. Thank you so much. Come back soon because i really enjoyed it. Youre an absolute pro. Good to see you. Weve got a very special hour ahead but first we want to get you quickly up to speed on the days headlines. First to egypt where rioting has erupted over a Court Decision sentencing 21 people to death. These 20 people were killed in clashes with Security Forces today. This all happened after the Court Sentenced the 21 for their role in a postgame soccer riot last year. More than 70 people were killed in that riot. Thousands of people marched in washington today demanding new gun control laws. It comes just days after a bill was introduced in congress that would ban assault rifles, semiautomatic weapons, and highcapacity magazines. Longtime Iowa Democratic senator tom harkin says he will not run for reelection in 2014. Harkin served ten years in the house before his election to the senate in 1984. He is 73 years old. President obama released a statement praising harkins work on health care and his efforts to help americans with disabilities. Tonight, for the entire hour, were tackling the story everyone is talking about. Youve ahead the name. Manti teo, the notre dame star manti teo is trying to explain the manti teo fake girlfriend hoax. Biggest manti mysteries. In the already strange manti teo story. And if youve heard the story youre probably a bit confused. Were going to run it all down and get some insight from those who know. The experts on this type of con. The producer of the tv show catfish. Another victim who says what happened to manti teo happened to him. And the pretty face at the center of the controversy. Her images stolen right off the internet. Its really difficult to wrap my head around this. My true identity is going to be hard to take back. Reporter shes here live with our tech pro to arm you with the tools to help prevent anything like this from ever happening to you. All right. Its a story full of unusual names, a story of a football star and the girlfriend who never existed. But its about so much more than that, and it captures so much about the way we live our lives today. Until recently, and unless you follow football, you would not have heard of manti teo. A star player at notre dame, a university that symbolizes tradition and oldschool values. Caught up in the most modern online schemes known as catfishing. The stories about his girlfriend, his online girlfriend portrayed in this photo, who supposedly died but turned out never to have lived. It has shined the light on all of us, putting on display both the very new and the very old story. The new is the way we all depend on technology. And the internet. And the relationships both personal and professional that we try to build and maintain on and offline. The old, one of the most terrifying of all. The human conditions. Im talking about loneliness. Catfishing can happen, and it has happened to lots of people. Here now, this case, how it played out. According to manti teo, he first met the person he thought was lennay kekua over facebook when he was a freshman in college. This is what he told katie couric. I knew of her. Wed speak as friends, ever since my freshman year. But it didnt start to pick up until my junior year. And it was just since i didnt meet her and i didnt see her in person and she just seemed nice and from the pictures she seemed, you know, very beautiful. Reporter a week ago teo told espn their casual friendship over facebook escalated after the fictional kekua told him her father died. They grew closer and would talk on the phone for hours, according to teo, who provided katie couric with a voicemail from the girl he thought was lennay kekua. Hey, babe, im just calling to say good night, i love you. Reporter teo says they tried multiple times to meet in person but something always stopped them. But still, he says, he never suspected anything was wrong. This lennay person, there are so many similarities. She was polynesian supposedly. Shes samoan. Im samoan. She loved her faith. Reporter in april of 2012 teo says he received a call supposedly from kekuas brother telling him she was in a coma after a bad car accident. But still, he didnt visit her. They had supposedly been in a serious relationship now for about a year. Why in the world wouldnt you go visit this girl in the hospital . I end up in san diego, which was too far for me to go to the hospital. Then i fly to l. A. , and the layover time was too short. Reporter the fictional kekua said she recovered, and teo says he jumped for joy when he heard the news. But in june, according to espn, lennay kekua told him she had leukemia. Either youre the most naive person on the planet or this is the saddest story i think ever written. I mean, at this point did you think to yourself, manti, what . Are you kidding . Now she has leukemia . I mean, it goes on and on and on. Yeah. And i thought this is how could all this happen to one person . Reporter three months later, on september 12th, teo was told his grandmother had died, and a few hours later he got a phone call from someone who says hes lennay kekuas brother. He was crying and kept screaming. And he just said, shes gone. Reporter teo then dedicated the rest of his football season to his grandmother and to lennay kekua. His coaches shared his story with the media, which along with his stellar performance on the field made him a star. But then on december 6 teo received a phone call. The voice on the other end of the phone said its lennay kekua. There was a long silent pause. And yeah. I was angered, to say the least. But you knew something was up at that point. Yes. Finally. You knew something was up. Yes. Reporter and then, even though the person he thought was lennay kekua was alive, he still spoke publicly about her death two days later. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer. Reporter those comments led many to believe teo was in on the hoax. If he knew the person he thought was kekua was alive, why did he say publicly she had died . Today teo told couric he was simply overwhelmed. This girl who i committed myself to died on september 12th. Now i get a phone call on december 6th saying that shes alive, and then im going to be put on national tv two days later and to ask me the same question. You know, what would you do . Reporter anderson cooper, cnn, new york. I want to introduce you now to diane omeara. Shes the woman, the real woman whose photos were used without her knowledge to portray the phony online identity of lennay kekua. Shes going to join me live after the break to share her side of the story, and throughout the hour were going to take beyond the manti teo case to get a broader view of the pitfalls of our digital world. One goes out to all the allergy muddlers. You know who you are. You can part a crowd, without saying a word. If you have yet to master the quiet sneeze. You stash tissues like a squirrel stashes nuts. Well muddlers, muddle no more. Try zyrtec®. It gives you powerful allergy relief. And zyrtec® is different than claritin® because zyrtec® starts working at hour one on the first day you take it. Claritin® doesnt start working until hour three. Zyrtec®. Love the air. Has oats that can help lower cholesterol . And it tastes good . Sure does wow. Its the honey, it makes it taste so. Well, would you look at the time. Whats the rush . Be happy. Be healthy. Can your moisturizer do that . [ female announcer ] dermatologist recommended aveeno has an oat formula, now proven to build a moisture reserve, so skin can replenish itself. Thats healthy skin for life. Only from aveeno. I just wanted to say i love and you good night and ill be okay tonight. Ill do my best. Yeah. So get your rest, and i will talk to you tomorrow. I love you so much, hon. Sweet dreams. You have no idea who the voice on the other end of the phone was for all those months . Mmhmm. Do you think ronaiah could have been playing the role of lennay . Do you think that might have been a man on the other end of the phone . Well, it didnt sound like a man. It sounded it sounded like a woman. And but if if he somehow made that voice, thats incredible. Thats an incredible talent. Such a bizarre story. Okay. So look at this photograph. This is diane omearas photo. Her photos have brought her publicity she never expected and never asked for. Thats because images like this one from her Facebook Page were used without her permission to portray the fictional girlfriend of notre dame football star manti teo. And when this story became National Headlines everyone wanted to hear from the woman who wasnt lennay kekua. Diane omeara joins me now from los angeles. Good to see you. How are you doing in the last couple of days . Hi. Good. Thank you. Its been hard. Its been a whirlwind of emotions, a whirlwind of just trying to keep as much normalcy to my life as possible. When did you suspect something was going on . Well, i was first contacted by the deadspin reporter who First Published the original story. I was contacted by him two days before the story broke, on that monday. And thats when i first heard about even manti teo. I had no idea who he was even. This is when i first realized that my identity had been stolen in this completely vulnerable way. But didnt they ask you earlier . Didnt someone contact you and ask you to take a picture with letters . You didnt suspect something then . I was contacted by ronaiah early december of 2012 ronaiah tuiasosopo, who is a High School Classmate of yours, right . Correct. Okay. It was also friends, excuse me. Also friends with manti teo. Go on. I was contacted by ronaiah early december. And since high school and Even High School i never really talked with him. I never heard from him, seen him, or spent time with ronaiah outside of the surface conversations in high school that we had. He contacted me and repeatedly messaged me on facebook saying that he urgently needs my help. Theres something that he needs my help with, that its an emergency and if i could contact him as soon as i can. You know, and i ignored it for a while. And i just finally simply messaged back asking if everything was okay. In my head im imagining since were from the same home town im imagining something terrible has happened to someone that i know, something thats happened in my home town what did he want from you . He then finally contacted me on the phone and related this story, that him and his cousin had been in a tragic car accident, and asked if i could send a photo of myself to support him and kind of comfort his cousin through this photo slide show that he was creating for his cousins birthday. But as it turns out, it was this fake he was giving the photos to manti teo and pretending to be the woman lennay kekua and it wasnt what he was saying that it was, correct . Correct. Okay. As i find out, last monday, that this was all part of this big scheme. Okay. Let me ask you this. What did he say to you . He admitted the hoax . Ronaiah called me that monday night when this was all coming to the surface for me. He admitted that he was stealing my photos for the past five years and that he created this alternate identity of lennay kekua simply because he was unsatisfied with his life and he wanted to create a life separate through my images and through my face. So he was friends with manti teo. He was friends with you. Why would he do this to a friend . Was there some sort of a what kind of relationship did he have with manti teo that would make him do this sort of hoax or this sort of trick, play this sort of trick on him . Im not clear on manti teo and ronaiahs relationship. So i cant really speak on that. As to why my face was involved in this, i have no idea. Its clear obviously that shortly after ronaiah learned about who i was in high school he began to obsess and stalk my photos clearly. What do you mean obsess and stalk your photos . Well, theres definitely an imbalance for somebody to prey on somebodys facebook profiles, and he was stealing them as quickly as i was posting them to my facebook profile, mutual friends that also were from my same high school were posting photos with me. Just as quickly as they were up, he was stealing them. And no one ever said to you, hey, theres someone else online who has your pictures . No one ever sent you photographs of this other account . No. And thats the thing, is i dont follow College Football and i dont follow girlfriends of College Football players. But even when this story came to surface, even some of my closest friends were contacting me saying, you know, check out this story. This looks like you. They couldnt even fathom that it in fact was my foeltos, it in fact was my face. Were going to have you back a little bit later on. But i have to ask you this one question. So you said you werent sure about the relationship between manti teo and tuiasosopo, right . So you dont know what kind of friends they were. And the reason im asking you that is because do you think that manti teo was in on this in some kind of way, that he knew about this hoax . You know, i cant speak about their relationship together and i cant speak on whether or not manti teo is lying. But you know, it just makes me think of what kind of state of mind that this was in and why he wouldnt want stronger closure when he did find out that all this came to surface. Okay. Thank you. Youre a very brave woman to come on and talk about this and tell the story. Its been im sure a very trying time for you. Again, shes going to be back a little bit more and talk to you about this coming up. So, i mean, who would fall for this sort of thing . Take a listen. Doctors, lawyers, law enforcement. I mean, people who are really smart. Cnn talks with a private investigator about cases just like this. And youll want to hear this. Joining me live, a man who was a victim of this too. But she loved it so much. I told her it was homemade. Everyone tells a little white lie now and then. But now she wants my recipe [ clears his throat ] [ softly ] shes right behind me isnt she . [ male announcer ] progresso. You gotta taste this soup. [ female announcer ] new roc® retinol correxion max. The power of roc® retinol is intensified with a serum. Its proven to be 4x better at smoothing lines and deep wrinkles than professional treatments. Roc® max for maximum results. Not all victims of catfishing are young or lonely or vulnerable. A lot of people who get caught up in these hoaxes are smart, savvy professionals. Cnns Deborah Feyerick says they come from all walks of life but virtually every relationship ends the same way. Reporter as crazy as it sounds, what apparently happened to notre dame Football Player manti teo happened every day. Doctors, lawyers, law enforcement. I mean, people who are really smart. Reporter private investigator dawn ricci says shes spoken to hundreds of men and women who get conned after falling deeply in love online. What is it theyre hoping for . Everybody just wants to feel needed and loved and find that romance, the wonder, the excitement of it all. The scammer just knows how to pull them into it. Reporter its called catfishing, a term popularized by the 2010 film catfish, about a man who has an online love affair with the ideal woman, who turns out not to exist. Its a scam built on trust, one email, one text, one phone call at a time over months. Or in manti teos case, perhaps years. He fell in love with a fictional character. I mean, just a thought and a fantasy in his head. Reporter ricci believes teo is like many of her clients, the target of a cruel hoax. The bottom line is that theres money. Theyll always ask for money. Reporter ricci says shes had clients and tens of thousands of dollars to pay outstanding bills or buy expensive gifts like airline tickets, jewelry. In one case a new bmw. Teo told espn he never gave money to his socalled girlfriend, though admits she wanted to send him money and asked for his Checking Account number. He says he refused to give it. Its very hard for people to accept the fact that this person doesnt exist. Nothings going to match up. Phone numbers arent going to match up. Addresses arent going to match up. You can send me to an address, and its not going to be the person. Reporter in most cases once the money dries up the scammer disappears. In manti teos case his girlfriend fakes her death. My clients are truly embarrassed of what has happened to them in their life. They dont want to talk to their friends, their family. Theyve depleted their bank account. They feel completely humiliated. Reporter humiliated and left asking questions. How could it happen in the first place . Deborah feyerick, cnn, new york. So how could it happen in the first place you . Dont have to be young or naive or gullible or a lovestruck jock to get duped by one of these online scammers. This guy has a story to tell, and he kept it to himself until he heard about manti teo. Really . Gregory crosby, a writer and a poet, a successful one he. Gregory, you got catfished. I read your article. I know exactly how you feel. He said, manti teo, i know exactly how you feel. That was the time of your article. Are you kind of embarrassed . No, im not embarrassed because its something that happened five years ago. In fact, before facebook became ubiquitous. I mean, i was embarrassed at the time and kind of messed up by it. But now im not embarrassed by it at all. So how can someone like you whos successful, whos a smart guy, be duped . And youre not alone. Many more have been duped as well. Were going to talk about that after the break. Dont go anywhere. My story was i felt was a guy who in times of hardship and in times of trial really, you know, held strong to his faith. Held strong to his family. And i felt that that was my story. Even if that hardship was perhaps exaggerated . No, it was what i went through was real. You know, the feelings. The pain. The sorrow. That was all real. Welcome back, everyone. We are back now with gregory crosby. He is proof that all catfish victims are not all starryeyed schoolboys. Hes a professor at the City University of new york and writes for Pacific Standard magazine. Gregory, you were in an exclusive online relationship with someone who was faking it. You said you were in love. How did you yes. Let that happen to you . Were you lonely in were you rebounding . What was going on . Well, id gone through a divorce. Id had an even worse rebound from the divorce. And then i moved to new york city, which as many people know is sort of a perfect cauldron of loneliness, as i put it in the essay. The person who created maella, which was the name of the woman that i fell in love with, was kind of like the meryl streep of pathological liars. She went to Great Lengths to incarnate, to truly create my dream girl. And when your dream girl comes knocking, even though it doesnt seem that theres something fishy about it, doesnt seem like its quite right, its very hard to let that go. How did she how was she the meryl streep of doing that . She created not just an online persona. She and she did this by stealing about 2,000 photos from a young womans flickr account that she repurposed as maella, but she we talked on the phone all the time. It was really love at first voice when we talked on the phone the first time. And she had an ability to create a character, to live that character, that was utterly convincing, even though part of the reason we kept not meeting was because of all of these traumas, all of these horrible things that had happened to her in the past. She was an actor. She was very much an actor. She would pick up on what you bo talk about and what you would want and then she would add to that. You know, what if shed just used her powers for good instead of evil, she could have been a novelist. Because what she did was her life sounded like a soap opera. And if you looked at it, you know, objectively, youd think this is a soap opera character. But she had this genius for picking out just the right details to make it seem convincing to me. People who are scammers dont do that. People who are in love with the idea of being in love or want to just be in relationships do that as well. Yes. They pick up on what the other person wants and oh, i want to be with you so much, i want, this i want this, but they just want to be in love. So how did you finally find out that you were being scammed . Oh. Well well, i want to make the point that i wasnt really being scammed. Maella, the woman who created maella and impersonated her, really just thought that the only way she could be loved was by becoming a completely different person. Wait. Sow dont think you were being scammed . You just thought this person was just a perpetual liar . Or what . Well, not scammed in the sense of she was trying to get money out of me. Im a poet. I dont have any money. She wasnt a con artist in that sense that she was trying to clean me out in terms of my money. But what she wanted was to be loved. Mm. And she wanted to be this beautiful, tragic character that shed created. And i was complicit in that because i wanted it to be true. It was what i said before. She just yes. Okay. Go ahead. Yeah. She did it all for love. Which of course doesnt make it right by any means. And i found out because she got arrested for unpaid traffic tickets and i couldnt reach her on the phone. We talked several times a day every day. We went to sleep tonight at night with the phones at each others ears. She got arrested. I couldnt raise her for two or three days. By this point i was suspicious. I knew something had been wrong for a very long time but couldnt let it go. I finally had the strength to call a third party. And after questioning that third party suddenly everything was revealed, that this person had actually created maella and that maella didnt exist. Well, gregory, im happy to say youre in a real relationship and were told by the people at cnn that your actual girlfriend is in the green room and its a real person. Yes indeed. Whats her name . Her name is abigail. Abigail. Yes. Good. Thank you. Keep it real. Thank you. You too, don. This apparently happens so much there is now a Television Show about this very problem. If there ever was an expert on catfishing, it is the executive producer of of course catfish. Hes up next. [ female announcer ] imagine skin so healthy, it never gets dry again. Can your moisturizer do that . [ female announcer ] dermatologist recommended aveeno has an oat formula, now proven to build a moisture reserve, so skin can replenish itself. Thats healthy skin for life. Only from aveeno. You dont need me to tell you this. Relationships are hard. Fake relationships may be even harder. The whole catfish phenomenon got its name from a 2010 film which is now being repurposed as an mtv show. Hello . Hey. Megan . Hi. How are you . Your voice is not at all what i expected. I mean, she must be pretty awesome. At least from facebook. How long have you been calling each other babe . Two weeks maybe. Im good. Last night we had a great talk. She told me about how a chicken makes an egg every day. Did you know that . Megan. Id take you to my room and dry you off, Touching Every inch of you. All right. So the executive producer of mtvs catfish, ariel schulman, joins us live from los angeles. The original film followed your brother your brother is nev, right . Before he began thats right. His relationship with this online girlfriend. Suspicions grew as you guys filmed. And discovering that she wasnt who she claimed she would be. My question, though, is you guys must have known she was lying. Otherwise, why would you have begun filming in the first place . How much did you really know . I had no idea that the lie was this big. Were we suspicious . Sometimes. But were you suspicious in the beginning . Why would you even film why were you filming this to start with . Well, you have to understand, we film everything. I shared an office with my brother. And the guys a great storyteller. Hes in love online, and shes got a big family, and theyre sending paintings and the stories are amazing. Turn on your little camera. Its this big and its sitting on my desk. You know, were filmmakers. Thats what we do. Okay. So lime ooking at this clip. You, nev are both goodlooking guys. Why do you need to fall in love with a woman online . I mean, you know, you dont need that. Relationship, and maybe theres a sort of relief in just talking. You know, all that sexuality is sort of forgotten, and you can maybe you can just be yourself. Okay. I dont know. I guess im just an old head and i come from a different time. I dont get it. But the show catfish on mtv, the format is people reaching out to you to help them unveil the truth about the people theyre in an online relationship with. My skepticism is if they have been lying so long why would they choose to come clean to you guys with the eyes of the world on them . Well, i think theyre coming clean to the person theyve been lying to more than anyone. And usually, they reach out well, theyre not reaching out. But i think it becomes too much of a burden. And a lot of these start out as small white lies that just sort of snowball into something huge. And like in mantis situation the only way to stop it is to kind of commit like facebook suicide, you know, and kill your character. And before you get to that point, i mean, youre living with a lie. In my brothers case the woman who was doing this to him was spending the majority of her day, hours and hours and hours, for months living a lie. You know, and building the characters and talking on the phone and creating profiles and stealing pictures. Its exhausting. Yeah, it is. I mean, anyway, as i said, i dont get it. So you guys are investigating manti teo. What are you learning . I mean, do you believe his story, that he really didnt know . Yeah. I do believe him wholeheartedly. His case, situation reminds me a lot avenue what my brother went through. Just sort of like a wholesale dupe. He wanted to believe it. My brother wanted to believe it. You ignore the red flags and, you know, the human mind has a tremendous capacity for believing what it wants to believe and ignoring everything else. All right. This is fascinating. Rel, hold on. I want you to stay right there because were going to be talking about motivations next. Why would people do this . How could manti teo fall for this . And rels brother as well. Coming up. If loving you is wrong i dont wanna be right [ record scratch ] what . its not bad for you. It just tastes that way. [ female announcer ] honey nut cheerios cereal hearthealthy, whole grain oats. You cant go wrong loving it. Hearthealthy, whole grain oats. So if ydead battery,t tire, need a tow or lock your keys in the car, geicos emergency roadside assistance is there 24 7. Oh dear, i got a flat tire. Hmmm. Uh. Yeah, can you find a take where its a bit more dramatic on that last line, yeah . Yeah i got it right here. Someone help me i have a flat tire well its good. Good for me. What do you think . Geico. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. [heart beating] [heartbeat continues] [heartbeat, music playing louder] im feeling better since you know me. Announcer this song was created with heartbeats of children in need. Find out how it can help Frontline Health workers bring hope to millions of children at everybeatmatters. Org. One of the theories, theories, manti, making the rounds is somehow you created this whole scenario to cover up your sexual orientation. Are you gay . No. Far from it. Far from that. This story of course is where the question of motivation comes. Whats the motivation sneer theres been a lot of speculation, like we just heard from katie couric. When people heard that we were doing this special, i had people come up to me, asking me, do you think this guy is gay . He says no. So thats what we go with. However, hes not the only one in this story. Wendy walsh is a Human Behavior expert. And you can preorder her book. Its on amazon. It comes out very soon. The 30day love detox. She joins me from los angeles. And rel is with us again here. Hes the producer of catfish, a show about scams like this one. Okay, wendy. I was out last night talking about this. Were watching some friday night, watching some basketball on television. I said what do you think of the manti teo story . Every Single Person i talked to said i think hes gay and hes covering it up. What do you think . Well, in our culture i think we have a really hard time understanding how a heterosexual male can have a sexless relationship. But i think rel was right. This is about love. This is about the biggest delusion. Its i swear a bigger drug than heroin, love. And we want to feel connected to somebody. And thats how you slowly fall into it. Youre actually in love, though, with your own projections, don. So it wasnt about money or anything like that . You said its just youre in love with your own projections. Talk thats very interesting. Talk about that a bit more. Okay. Heres a great example that will help you. My apologies to those who believe deeply in astrology. I dont. But if you shuffled the deck and handed out people a bunch of astrological forecasts and says, well, here, youre the taurus, youre the gemini, read into it, people would always see themselves in it and always think that its right. There have been studies on this. So in the same way the keyboard becomes that way. Whatever you want to see about yourself and that fictitious person comes. And they tease you with just enough feedback for it to play out in your fantasy mind. Now, keep in mind, a digital relationship is like listening to your favorite band without the lead singer or the drummer. So youre missing pheromones, youre missing vocal tone, youre missing body language, youre missing any kind of thing, the ways that human beings take in information. And its almost like youre just reading morse code. So youre imagining what it is. Right. And it doesnt have to be a fictitious person. You can project onto someone a real person as to what you want as well. Rel. While youre doing the show catfish, what commonalities did you see between the perpetrators . I think we usually find that theres a deep insecurity, that theyre projecting someone that theyd like to be. And thats the commonality that you saw . The only one . Yeah. Theres an element of loneliness. Theres an element of fantasy on their end. Theyre insecure with who they are. And without, like you said, without the drummer and the lead singer you can be you can start a whole new band. Heres the thing that many people dont understand, wendy and rel. Rel, when we were talking about your brother, hes a aboutlooking guy. You saw from the video. When youre talking about a bigtime College Football player, who can walk across campus and im sure the ladies are hes throwing women off of him many days. Why would this person be lonely . Why would this person have a relationship with a computer . Most people dont understand and im trying to put myself in his shoes. And listen, everybody has been lonely before. Dont get me wrong. Ive been lonely before. But to have a relationship with a computer or somebody you havent met for years is a bit odd to anyone, dr. Wendy. Especially when youre a bigtime College Football player. Well, ill tell you how he can do it, don. In fact, he probably preferred this kind of relationship because remember, this was a faithbased young man who did not believe in Sexual Activity before marriage. He was probably assault by the aggressive females on College Campuses these days. So this was a way to create a big sexual boundary for him. He could have this emotional relationship without having to consummate it so that he could stay true to his faith, he could focus on what about Holding Hands . What about going to dinner . What about watching movies together . What about whispering Sweet Nothings in your ear . What about blowing, you know, flowers out of dandelions . What about all those things, those human reactions that people are supposed to have . You dont have to have sex to do that. No, i agree with you, don. But were actually living, you know, because youve read pieces much my book, were living in a high supply sexual economy and plenty of people dont know how to say no to sex because theres so much pressure to have sex, any sex at any cost. And one study out of australia recently showed men aged 18 to 23, when youd think like serious horny devils, actually wish they could have less sex. Theyre feeling too much pressure right now. Just saying. Okay. I know its hard for you to believe. Okay. Rel . Go ahead. I dig that. I think wendys on to something. I think my brother had something similar, which was you can he just wanted to talk. I mean, it sounds crazy. But maybe the guy was spending his whole libidinal energy on the football field and whats he got left at the end of the night . Hed rather just lay in bed icing his knees and talk on the phone. Hey, rel, when can we see catfish . Monday night. Every monday night on mtv. Next episodes going to be wild. All right. Thank you, rel. Thank you, wendy, as always. Thanks, don. You know, this sounds difficult for so many people who got caught up in this. But there are things that you can do to protect yourself. And people you care about. Diana diane omeara joins me again to talk about with our tech expert as well. And they talk about the moves that you can make right now to avoid becoming the next victim of catfishing. Oh oh what do you know . Oh bacon . Oh oh oh [ female announcer ] with 40 delicious progresso soups at 100 calories or less, there are plenty of reasons people are saying progressoh share your story for a chance to win a progressoh makeover in hollywood. Go to facebook. Com progresso to enter. Go, go, go one day when i drove home from a Little League game i saw a homeless man with a cardboard sign that said need a meal. So i told my mom i wanted to do something. Will larcy is a 9yearold child. I hesitate to call him child. I think hes in a category of his own. As a 7yearold he decided he was going to take on this issue of hunger. Welcome to frogs. My group is called frogs. And it means friends reaching our goals. And our motto is having fun while helping others. I want you to write what we could do for a spring project. Wills Big Personality does not come from me. Fire me up. Pepper me. I think every time you meet will you look at him and you say, are you kidding me . But together with his buddies they have raised over 20,000, or the equivalent of 100,000 meals, for tarrant area food bank. How about some fresh baggetts . A man from india. These peaches are a delight. When you see somebody who gets so engaged and gets so much of the community engaged, its an endorsement of the battle we fight to end hunger. Thank you. Youve heard tonight of how of seemingly innocent exchange on the internet was [ lane ] are you growing old waiting for your wrinkle cream to work . Neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair has the fastest retinol formula. To visibly reduce fine lines and wrinkles in just one week. Neutrogena®. Your soups are so awesomely delicious my husband and i cant stop eating em whats. That. On your head . Can curlers tomato basil, potato with bacon. Weve got a lot of empty cans. [ male announcer ] progresso. You gotta taste this soup. Youve heard tonight of how of seemingly innocent exchange on the internet was used to dupe someone else. And as you heard earlier from diane omeara, you dont want anything like this to happen to you. Diane is back with us, along with mario armstrong, who is a tech pro. Mario, lets talk about this. And diane. Okay. There are people online saying, don, youre being very judgmental like you dont understand whats going on. I dont understand whats going on. And i dont think listen, i dont think you have to have a sexual relationship to be in love with someone. Thats not it. But to be in love with someone, to have a relationship with someone, you do have to see them physically and be there with them and touch them and kiss them and whisper in their ear. Otherwise, youre not in a relationship with someone. Its not a real relationship. Mario, am i wrong about that . Don, i think look, i think your look, everyones going to have a different definition on what love means to them and what being in a relationship means to them. You obviously were growing up in an era where that he more of the touch and the physical connection meant more. Were growing up now, though, in a digital age. We have to raise our kids and our children to be digital citizens i understand that. But that is not real. No, it is real. Absolutely. Don, it absolutely is real. Ive been in a longdistance relationship before. But i established a relationship did you skype you skype and you do all those things. But i had met the person before and we had kissed each other. We had gone to dinner before. It was a real relationship, not a virtual relationship. Thats the best online relationship. If theres any lesson that people should be learning from this, it is that is the best way to do it. Youre going to meet people online. Youre going to be able to skype with them, see them, talk with them, chat with them. But you need to physically at some point meet these folks and establish some type of physical relationship in order for i agree with you. To be a fully fledged relationship. So you are not a manti teo. Otherwise, thats what it becomes, diane. Right. Well, the thing to remember here is exactly what is the acceptable timeline on Online Dating . Online dating, social media, internet interaction, engagement, its increasing, and its going to continue to continue to increase. But at what point in the relationship do you say, okay, we need to meet face to face, we need to make a relationship concrete and become a reality by meeting . And oh, by the way, they tell you with these dating sites as well, be weary before meeting. Dont just jump to meet a stranger. Make sure you go with more than one person, you go to a public place. All of these things also tend to say dont just jump out to physically meet someone, establish a relationship online first, which is the exact opposite of what we usually learn to establish a relationship physically first. Exactly. And thats the whole and i think the important Lesson Learned is you need to treat your online identity and online relationships the same you that do your offline relationships. And that goes with sharing your information. Its the same thing as would you walk around in a public place with your full name, date of birth, phone number, and just start handing business cards out with your photo on it . Yeah. You need to have the same reservations, the same gut instinct as you do when youre participating online and engaging in these relationships. Dont just value the friend that facebook defines it as. Use your own definitions of a friend and really trust who youre revealing the most intimate details of yourself with. I agree with you. I know people on social media are really upset with me right now. It is not real if you have not physically met the person and you dont know. Its not a real relationship. If i have a facebook friend, it is a facebook friend but it is not a real friend like a High School Friend that i went to college went to high school with or went to college with and its someone i know and hang out and go to the movies. Its not the same thing. But mario, what are the steps you can take so 1347b doesnt take your image or try to pretend they are you and you never know what theyre going to do with it . Yeah, let me break this down for folks. This is really important. Number one, you cant stop anyone from taking your photo online, as weve seen here with diane and other cases. If your photo was out there in public places, people can grab can that and use it. But heres what you can do to be proactive. Search on your images. A lot of people dont know that you can upload your facebook photos or your photos that are on these social network sites, you can upload them to Google Search. You go to images. Google. Com. And as you can see here on the screen you click the little photo icon and that will then prompt you to upload your own image that you want to see if that image is available on other sites. I did it with one of my photos thats being used on a lot of sites that i am aware of. But there maybe sites using my image that i dont approve of. Thats one way to find out. The other thing is do these video calls, make sure these people really exist, do a Google Search on their real name, try to find out make sure these people really exist . How about just meeting the person . I knew you were going to say that. Thats all you have to do this case would have definitely gone away a lot sooner had he done that. However, im glad that this case actually happened. I dont mean it happened in the way that its affected diane. I want you to understand that