Just like most Catfish episodes, last night’s offered some formidable red flags. Lauren had met her online love Derek eight years ago on MySpace when she was 14 and had never done a video chat with him. Once she was five hours away from him and wanted to visit, but he made up excuses and wouldn’t let her.
Over the past eight years Lauren has dated other people, she even had a child and later got engaged. But her ties to Derek still felt like the strongest in her life even though she’d never met him. She ended up breaking off her engagement when Derek unfriended her on Facebook.
Nev and Max were worried about Laruen’s attachment to Derek, and tried to convince Lauren to be cautious, and to not expect the best, especially when they found that Derek’s phone number was registered to an older, married black guy named R. LeVourne. When Nev called him to set up a meeting, Derek was trying to be evasive again, and sounded like he maybe, sort of could actually be R. LeVourne.
When they actually pulled up to Derek’s door, Lauren was crawling out of her skin, and didn’t actually want to turn around and face the door. It could be anyone behind that door, but when it opened and she finally turned around, it was actually Derek moving to embrace her!
It was obvious that they had chemistry immediately and genuinely cared for each other, so why didn’t Derek try to see her? Why didn’t he let her see him that one time? Why wouldn’t he get a webcam?
Derek said he avoided meeting Lauren all these years because he considered her his dream girl, and felt like he didn’t want to meet her until he had his life in order. As for the webcam thing? Derek claims he didn’t think it was weird that he didn’t have one, and didn’t know that it put a trace of doubt in Lauren’s mind that he was who he said he was.
Full episode:
Here’s an update on Lauren and Derek, where they talk more about their online friendship. Lauren says they were always “just friends” with future plans for more but would create pretend personas for each other to create a “fantasy” relationship. Lauren was called “Jessica” because when they first started talking she didn’t have a profile pictures and told him she looked like Jessica Simpson. Derek’s fantasy name was “Brad.”
These two are so sweet! Looks like they’re in this for the long-haul!
