How i got catfished by a Japanese Woman

I looked at the calendar today and I

noticed that it's nearly September. And

you know what happened in September 3

years ago? Yeah, exactly 3 years ago,

2017. I got catfished

by an old Japanese woman and I thought it

was a pretty funny story and I would like

to talk about it again now that we've

reached the 3-year anniversary. And I

think it's one of the strangest things

that has ever happened to me. And I feel

kind of stupid that I was tricked so badly

and so easily, but I don't regret it. And

it was a good thing that it happened

because it eventually led me to Osaka and

it led to me getting married in Japan.

And I think one of the main reasons my

channel blew up was because I was in

Japan. Most of my videos that got a lot of

good views were my videos about Japan and

life in Japan. So I am thankful that it

happened and it was an interesting

experience. So let's talk about it again.

So we have to go all the way back to

around the beginning of 2017. This is

where the story really begins. So at the

time I was working at a petrol station

doing night shifts and I was meeting—

well, I was going to meet this single

mother Japanese woman who had a daughter.

And I met her for 2 weeks and I was

planning to meet her again. However, I

ended up meeting this new woman called

Tomoko on an application called HelloTalk.

HelloTalk is, is this app where you can

practice Japanese and then native speakers

will correct your Japanese. And I used to

write a lot of blog posts in Japanese on

that app. At the time, I was kind of

starting to get interested in learning

Japanese again, and it was a pretty good

app to practice on. And this one lady

called Tomoko started replying to nearly

all of my posts and we started chatting in

the DMs. And we eventually exchanged LINE

IDs and we started talking. She told me

she was a 27-year-old Japanese woman and

she sent me— she sent me some photos and I

quite liked her photos. I thought she

looked attractive and we started to become

very flirty with each other and we started

talking about meeting up. And that's when

I decided to call it off with the single

mother woman. And I wanted to go with this

new 27-year-old Japanese girl called

Tomoko. Well, that's what I thought she

was. I was getting very excited at the

time. My YouTube channel was very small.

I think I had about 3,000 or 4,000

subscribers and I used to do livestreams

and then she would come on to the

livestream and be in the chats and people

would chat to her. And I really hyped up

about how she was my new Japanese

girlfriend. And I talked about her and she

also had a channel and I promoted her

channel as well. I think the community I

had at the time really enjoyed being a

part of my new relationship right from

the beginning. And it was like, we're all

going on this big journey together to go

to Japan and meet this girl, and it's

going to be amazing. We're going to fall

in love. I guess I was getting carried

away with it and I was pretty naive and I

genuinely thought that she was being

honest and she was real because Up until

that point, I had never been catfished

before. I had never had a Japanese lady

lie to me about her age. So I eventually

quit my petrol station job and I booked a

ticket to Japan, booked myself into a

guesthouse. It was actually the same

guesthouse I stayed at 7 years ago. So

that was kind of strange for me. And I

went to meet Tomoko. Now, if you remember,

things didn't turn out as planned. So I

met her and I instantly could tell

something was off. I didn't actually

realize that she was lying about her age

straight away. I thought she was just

really ugly. There was just something

really off about her. Like she was kind of

hunched. She looked kind of bony. Her skin

was kind of wrinkly. And I wasn't quite

sure at first why. I was really confused

because I still When I met her in real

life, I still thought she was 27. I

thought maybe she just had some kind of

disease that ages her faster than normal

people. And I didn't know what to say. I

felt really unattracted to her, but still

we held hands. I held her hand because I

didn't want to make her feel bad. We ended

up walking around for a few hours. It

wasn't really that fun or interesting. We

barely said anything to each other. We

didn't really talk much. I was just

praying for the whole thing to end. I was

actually trying to think of how I could

escape this situation. There's one moment

when she went to the toilet and I did

think about just leaving, but I just

couldn't leave. I felt like that would be

too rude. That would be too mean. So I

stuck around and I was getting bored. And

the thing is with me, when I get bored,

my man drive starts to become more and

more active because my mind starts going

into daydream mode and I just thought to

myself, well, well, this is a pretty bad

experience. We might as well do it, you

know, might as well get something good out

of it. And I asked her, I said to her,

this was really difficult for me to ask

because it took a lot of courage from me.

I said to her, I don't really want to be

in a relationship with you, but I would

like to go to a hotel. What do you think?

And then she said yes. We went to a hotel

and we spent about 4 hours in the hotel.

I think did it 3 times. It was Actually,

it was not bad, to be honest, after we

turned the lights off. And then we got

dressed, said goodbye, and that was the

last time I ever saw her. However, that

was definitely not the last time I ever

heard of her from her, because there was

going to be a big, massive drama series

that happened straight after this.

Afterwards, I made a video talking about

how disappointed I was. It's kind of funny

now I think about it. It's just so mean to

make that video in the first place. And as

you can imagine, she was pretty upset.

And then she messaged me and she told me—

she came clean and admitted to me that she

wasn't 27 and she was actually 42 or

something. 44, I can't remember. And that

was when I was really shocked because then

I finally realized that she was lying

about her age. I still refuse to believe

that she lied to me about her age even

after I met her. I made a whole bunch of

videos complaining about how disappointed

I was and how she lied to me and how

unattractive she was because she looked

old. And I kind of expected

people would be on my side and they'd be

sympathetic because I got tricked. I went

all the way to Japan to meet this girl and

she ended up being a fake and being a

catfish. And you know what happened

instead? Everyone— well, not everyone,

but I feel like it was a lot of people who

started getting angry at me because I

called her unattractive and I said that

she looked old. And they all started

siding with her and started saying I was a

horrible person because I was being mean

to her, even though she was the one who

lied to me about her age. And she also

said something about being married. I

don't know if that was true or not,

because after I told everyone that she was

married and had a kid, she suddenly took

that back and said she was lying about

that as well. I don't know why you would

lie about being married if you weren't

married. Seems like something unnecessary

to lie about. And I think this is the

moment when I started to get pissed off at

my audience. Up until then, my audience,

my community had been very supportive.

You know, they loved my videos. They

thought I was funny and interesting. They

had always been on my side, even though I

had admitted to doing some pretty bad

stuff. But it was the Tomoko story,

the Tomoko arc, that was the real turning

point when I started to feel like my

community was turning against me. And then

I felt like I started to hate my community

back. I felt really pissed off because all

these people were defending her, even

though she lied to me, tricked me, and got

me to come all the way to Japan to meet

her and send me all these pictures of

herself, which looks nothing like her in

real life. And then somehow I'm the bad

guy just because I told everyone that she

didn't look like— she wasn't as attractive

as her photos that she was sending me.

And she lied about her age and she lied

about being single. And somehow I'm the

bad guy because I just said she was

unattractive and she looked old, which was

true. She did look old. She looks really

old. And people were saying, she doesn't

look that old. Look at her videos. She

looks pretty good. Well, yeah, obviously

in the videos she looks good. She's got a

bloody skin filter turned on to max level.

I look good in my videos because I put a

skin filter on. So yeah, I know I can't

really judge someone for using a skin

filter and I'm not. I think it's fine if

you want to use a skin filter, But people

were saying she's really pretty when they

don't know what she looks like in real

life. My point was, yeah, she looks okay

in the videos because she's got filters

and good lighting and stuff, but in real

life she doesn't look anything like that.

That was my point. But still, people were

calling me a hypocrite because I also use

a skin filter. I don't know what that has

anything to do with. I just don't

understand how calling someone

unattractive or saying that they look old

is worse than lying to someone about your

age and pretending to be this version of

yourself that you're not in order to get

that person to come and meet you. I think

that's way worse than just commenting on

someone's physical appearance. But I ended

up getting a lot of negative backlash, a

lot of criticism, a lot of people who were

formerly fans of mine who liked me turned

against me just because I was upset that I

got tricked and catfished. I just think

it's kind of a dumb idea to lie about your

age. I mean, what was she thinking? Was

she thinking that we would meet and I

wouldn't realize that she looks completely

different to her photos? Would she think I

wouldn't realize that she was actually

older than she said she was? I'm not

really sure what she was thinking about

the whole thing. When I asked her why she

lied to me about her age, she said she was

worried that if she told me her real age,

then I wouldn't come and see her. Would I

have met her if she was honest with her

about her age from the beginning? If she

told me that she was 40-something straight

from the beginning, I think I still would

have gone and met her because just because

a woman's in her 40s doesn't mean that she

can't be attractive. There's plenty of

women in their 40s and they still look

good. But I guess I wouldn't have gotten

all excited about being in a relationship

with her. I would have just thought,

well, it's just going to be a one-time

thing, just like a bit of casual fun. And

I wouldn't have gotten my expectations so

high. I wouldn't have gotten so excited

about it. And then I guess I wouldn't have

been so upset about being disappointed and

I wouldn't have ranted about how

disappointed I was. Another stupid thing

people were criticizing me for at that

time was they were saying that I cheated

on Tomoko before I met her, because even

before I met Tomoko, I had Tinder

installed And I had the location set to

Japan and had a bunch of women lined up

that I was going to meet. And yet one of

those women was Chihiro. She was— I think

she was the second or the third date I had

in Japan before meeting Tomoko. And people

were saying, but you were saying Tomoko

was your girlfriend and yet you were

lining up women on Tinder and you were

going on dates before you even met Tomoko.

And yeah, that's true because I had this

feeling that it wouldn't work out because

every time I met a girl online and went to

meet her, it has never worked out and I've

always been disappointed. So I thought I

better line up. I better prepare some

dates to go on in case this Tomoko

thing doesn't work out. And yeah, I did go

on a lot of dates before and after meeting

Tomoko. And I don't understand why people

were saying I was cheating on her. Well,

I guess I do kind of understand because I

was telling everyone she was my

girlfriend, which is something I used to

do. I used to just, I used to just. Title

people, give people titles like the single

mother. I used to say she's my future

wife. People got pissed off at that as

well. I don't know why people get pissed

off at such stupid little things, but

yeah, I like to call her my girlfriend for

the videos because it would get more

views. People used to get— well, they

still get so excited when I announce I

have a new girlfriend and I'm going to

make a new I have a new girlfriend video

soon because I feel like that's the only

topic that people are interested in when

it comes to my channel. I can make videos

about anything and it'll get crap views.

But the 2 topics that always get views

is either job stuff or money stuff and

girlfriend stuff. I don't know why I have

such a simple-minded audience, but that's

like the only 2 things they give a shit

about. I guess Japan is also a topic that

gets not bad views sometimes, but I really

am limited to the amount of to the types

of topics I can talk about that will get

views on my main channel, which is kind of

worrying because when the 2 topics that do

get views no longer get views, then what

am I going to do? I don't know. But I just

thought it was kind of dumb that people

were saying I cheated on Tomoko before I

even met her. I mean, we weren't even in a

proper relationship. We had never even

met. So we were just doing the whole, oh,

she's my boyfriend, I'm her girlfriend

thing, you know, to hype it up. To get

people excited about us meeting and making

videos together and all that stuff. So

yeah, the whole thing was a massive mess.

It made me look really bad. And I

think that was when it started to— when

things started to change and people

started hating me, started to hate on me

more and more. And it was kind of like an

irreversible chain of events.

If I could go back in time and change

my actions or change my behavior, I don't

think I would change much. Maybe I'll tone

it down a little bit on calling her old

looking and unattractive. I guess that was

a bit unnecessary. I should have just

said, well, she looks completely different

to her photos and I didn't really find her

attractive. But then even that sounds kind

of bad, doesn't it? I don't know. Maybe I

should have just said something else like

we just didn't really click. Or there just

wasn't really any spark. But no, I don't

regret meeting her. I did have a fun time

eventually, even though there was a lot of

disappointment. And I think the drama that

happened afterwards was pretty funny and

did get me a lot of views. And also there

was more drama with this guy called

Kanaeito who ended up exposing me because

me and Tomoko did have— we did start

messaging each other again about a year

later and we were flirty again. And then

she got upset for some reason. Then she

leaked my— our conversation screenshots to

that stupid English guy who then made a

video about me, about how I'm a liar and

a cheater and blah, blah, blah. I wonder

what would have happened if I never met

Tomoko and I ended up meeting the single

mother Japanese girlfriend again. Maybe I

would have ended up getting married to her

and I'd be a stepfather. In the

countryside of Japan. That would have also

been a pretty interesting story arc,

wouldn't it? Daniel, The Stepfather.

That's actually pretty funny. I watched

this movie the other night on Netflix

called The Stepfather, and it was pretty

good. It was pretty simple plot. So it's

about this crazy American guy and he meets

this American woman and she has kids,

grown-up kids from the previous marriage,

and he moves in with her and they plan to

get married and He ends up going crazy for

some reason and he murders her previous

husband and he tries murdering her family,

but they managed to escape. It was quite a

good movie, actually. I was surprised with

how much I enjoyed it.