'Found out my BFF has been using my pictures to catfish a guy for five years.' UPDATED

"Found out my best friend (25 F) has been using my pictures (26 F) to catfish a guy she’s been talking to since 2015."

Man... My best friend, we’ll call her Maggie, and I met our freshman year of college. We are now roommates and moved in together two years ago. In 2015, my best friend spent spring break a couple states away, and matched with a guy on tinder.

When she came back to campus she immediately told me about him and how amazing he was and how they only went out to dinner once (edit: this was obviously a lie) but that they were talking 24/7. I got super excited and asked to see a pic. That was the only picture of him she’s ever shown me.

Over the past five years he’s literally been her whole world. She talks about him constantly. She always has her nose in her phone. She gets clingy when he takes too long to text back, she’s cried to me a few times because she’s lurked on his social media and seen he was around other girls (my roommate doesn’t have social media herself).

I had asked a few times why they have never met up again and she said they’re both too busy and don’t have the money for the trip. I even told her that he could stay with us and that would save some money. He’s sent presents and even flowers on Valentine’s Day every year. They’ve basically been dating this whole time.

So yesterday my roommate picked up a shift at work and was gone. I get a knock on our door and I open it to a guy. He says hi, and I give a confused hi? And then he barges in and scoops me up into a hug. He starts saying “I thought you were working? I was hoping your roommate was here so I could surprise you when you got back”

And I am so confused. I immediately get down and back away and let him know I have absolutely no clue what he’s talking about. My brain can’t even process what’s happening.

Then he looks confused, and says, “Maggie?” And I’m like no.... that’s my roommate? My roommate and I look nothing alike so I’m even more confused. Then something kind of clicks and I think oh my god is this the guy she’s been dating? So I say wait, are you Adam? And he gives me a very slow yesssss, and I get excited and say “oh my god I bet Maggie is going to flip out! I can’t believe you’re here.”

His demeanor completely changes. He asks me what I’m talking about. I’m Maggie? And I tell him no, I’m Summer. Maggie’s roommate. At this point I’m still completely missing something he has just pieced together. He just says “holy sh!t” and looks like he doesn’t know what to say. Eventually he asks if he can sit down. I invite him in.

He then proceeds to tell me for the past five years, he’s thought he’s been talking to me. Every picture he’s ever seen of Maggie has actually been pictures of me. I’m completely dumbfounded and we don’t know what to say to each other at first. So he gets out his phone and shows me proof.

He has tons of pictures of me saved on his phone, and went to their messages and showed me proof that she’s been sending them to him. I felt and still feel completely sick to my stomach. I get out my phone and show him real pictures of her. I tell him maybe they could just talk when she gets off of work? And he’s really pissed at this point. I say maybe we should call her first and let her know he’s here.

So I do that and she starts flipping out. Saying she’s not coming home. Tells him to leave and that she won’t talk to him. He calls her and starts yelling at her over the phone. After everyone calms she eventually comes home. He’s hurt and accusing, she’s crying, I’m sitting there awkwardly.

She tells him that she’s still the same person he’s had feelings for and he screams at her, “no, I thought I was in love with your roommate!” And that completely makes her break down so I tell him maybe he should leave for the night and everyone should have their own space.

He agrees and after he leaves she goes completely psychotic on me and starts throwing shit around the living room. Tells me she hates me, I start crying, it’s a mess.

I left to stay with a friend and haven’t been back so I don’t know what’s gone down. I feel like I have no idea who the person I’m living with is and I feel weirdly violated. Do I move out? Do I try to call her? She hasn’t even texted me. I don’t know how to deal with this situation

What do you think she should do? This is what top commenters had to say:

pinernarten said:

I was the Adam in a situation like this. It was three years. You need to move out, get away from this Maggie. People like that are not ok. Don’t put yourself through this anymore. I went NC when it happened, effective immediately. My Maggie messed with me for years to come and we were countries apart. Just get away and stay away. That’s all I have to say.

Archmago said:

Run

smarteapantz said:

Okay, your “best friend” is crazy. She’s clearly insecure about her looks, covets your looks and life which is why she “stole” it as her own, and resents you now for being the unintentional object of Adam’s affection —even though SHE’s the one that created the f-ed up situation in the first place!

Get yourself away from her as fast as you can. If someone can perpetuate a lie and catfish someone for 5 years, they are sociopathic. Move out, cut ties, and be safe!!!

Oldzoomie said:

She catfished him for years. This is a horrible human being. Get all your pictures off her devices. Notify your college security and file a police complaint against her. You have no way of knowing how many people she's sent your pictures to. What she did was a huge violation of your privacy and your rights as a person. She's totally untrustworthy.

Erbalzer said:

Holy shit. You need to get out of there ASAP. Even after catching her in this, she is telling you she hates you?? She has some serious issues she needs to deal with and you don’t need to be around for that.

Commenters agree: She needs to GTFO and cut ties with this "friend."

OP later shared this update:

Thank you guys for all of your advice and comments, many saying you’ve been in mine or Adam’s position, it’s made me feel better. I’m gonna go ahead and just post an update, because I don’t think there will be more of an outcome than this.

I ended up having a phone call with Adam, mostly because I wanted to know about the pictures she’s sent. Turns out she’s sent pics of me in my underwear, and nudes that aren’t actually of me. Or her. So we’re assuming she got those from google. He feels really bad and is actually having a hard time with all of this. I assured him I don’t blame him at all for the underwear pics, or anything like that.

He ended up telling me that they actually have FaceTimed, but she would never show her face, only the top of her head/hair which is dyed a similar color to mine (never thought anything of this, now I think it might be really weird) and her excuse was she felt like she looked bad on video, was self conscious, didn’t have makeup on, etc. He said he didn’t think it was weird. Idk.

He also told me he’s tried a ton of times to arrange visits to meet and she’s came up with excuses every time. Said that he’s been mostly content to talk through text/over the phone up until this point. Also said he’s going to try to reach out to her one more time to talk about everything but that he’s moving on.

As for me, I’m not sure I can break my lease yet but I’m going to go ahead and move out and in with a friend until my lease is over. We briefly talked when I went to my apartment, and she sort of half apologized but is still pretty hostile and defensive.

So I’m going to give her space. I feel bad for her, but I don’t think our friendship is going to survive this whole thing. Anyway, this has been some crazy shit, and I appreciate all of the responses I got. Y’all are awesome.