If you follow MTV’s Catfish, you know the ins and outs of people fibbing of who they are online. I’ve always found the series so interesting because many online relationships (at least featured on this program) begin on Facebook. (you know the full-name mandated unwritten social rule of the social networking road?)
This show was clearly a surprise. As someone who has a hard time keeping a suprise, I was able to not spoil ANYTHING when my mother and grandmother watched this show On Demand last Thursday. As someone who has autism, its sometimes be hard to fib.
Well, the rest is a spoiler alert if you haven’t watched it.
Last Tuesday’s episode was so interesting. The show featured Lauren, 21 year old Texan who met a guy on MySpace (I had to search what was MySpace!) 8 years ago. They also got engaged. Lauren had moved a lot when she was younger and her mother had passed away when she was 6. Lauren tried to authenticate this guy named Derek, a guy that lives in Maryland to offer him a webcam, in which he had turned down every time.
The two on camera talent  met with Lauren, whom of which had a child a couple years ago at her house and she had touted “in her heart” she “knew” that he “was the right guy”. This line alone  “the fact that I haven’t met him doesn’t matter. I know what I want”  was how she was throughout the entire episode. When the hosts Nev Schulman and Max Joseph went to dig up the information, the “Derek” guy appeared to be legitimate, and the real red flag was the phone number. When they looked up the phone number it was another man, and when they searched that person’s identity it was an middle aged black man. The guys were skeptical, and concerned about Derek
Nev and Max brought this up to Lauren and she still believed in what her heart was telling her. The father and stepmother then came to meet with the three of them, which the father was surprised that there was a crew there, and never even heard of Catfish. They also didn’t know this Derek was someone who she met online and the father had some legitimate concern for his daughter and both parents urged caution if she choose to meet them in person.
When Max and Nev went to call Derek, he got nervous too. He explained needing advance notice, a set schedule, etc. What wasn’t mentioned on the air or even at all, could possibly be very well he was skeptical about Lauren. Maybe she was too good to be true too!  As they went to Maryland and on the ride to his house, she started to get very nervous, and Max and Nev were trying to be realistic as she was getting testy of them as she felt they were trying to minimize the legitimacy of Derek.
Well, it could’ve been one the most surprising moments of the series. As they got to Derek’s house, and Lauren ringing the doorbell, she got more nervous and turned her back against the door.  Derek opened the door and came right behind her. I was surprised to see it was really him. This show was kinda like the Friendzone because they had time to kill and featured a few minutes of them in their first actual date.
Her son Mason, did come with a best friend, and the following day Derek met with Mason. They seemed to get along right out of the bat. And about the phone number? Derek had the number as long as he had it, and doesn’t know why that other individual’s name is on his number.  A live (at least on the first run on the Eastern/Central time zone)  follow up program had both of them on, and they are still together, and taking it one step at time. They hope to get married within a year.  Both Max and Nev stated that they were skeptical and they were surprised to see it was really him.
This was so fun to watch, and there were a couple good tweets
@Bunch1402  “One of the best shows ever for catfish! So happy for Lauren and Dereck. We need more shows like that one!”
but I think this tweet is going to be back to reality
@thatoneguydrew: “This last episode of @CatfishMTV brought tears to my eyes. Seeing this come to pass was worth all the sadness from all the other eps!”
This was a nice distraction from the typical depressing experiences featured on Catfish. Out of 99.99% of the such online relationship, that .1% can be a story like Lauren and Derek. Very rare in a crazy world of online relationships. This needs to be bottled up!