MTV hit the jackpot with the concept of the show “Catfish.” It teaches you a lesson of the perils of finding love in a hopeless Facebook page while laughing at the naivety of the victims subjected to public scrutiny. But that is exactly what I cannot seem to wrap my head around: how is it that people, in this highly technologically advanced period, are not vetting their prospective internet conquests?

It is almost archaic to believe that if one has found love on Facebook, that they would not at the very least request within the first week to Skype, FaceTime, or Oovoo. These victims have dealt with it all: talking to men for months, almost years, at a time yet only speaking three or four times via telephone and never seeing the individual in person. Being used as payback from a scorned, vindictive teen with an inherited niece from their drug riddled sister and even stealing photos from random modeling agencies that look nothing like the lover on the other end of the computer.

All this show did was reveal to me how desperate we have become as a society in our quest for love. That we have been reduced to falling for fake profiles on Facebook, or Twitter even, hopelessly believing that the soul mate we have all been conditioned to believe awaits us is only a Wi-Fi connection away. It’s depressing seeing these human car wrecks, but I understand that the quality in the dating pool is relatively non-existent. I don’t encourage dating online but I also don’t encourage approaching anything without a large amount of a “by any means necessary” attitude behind it. Using any and all sources possible to find what you believe you need takes a lot of courage.

Love in itself takes a lot of courage. Humility, vulnerability and a general openness to understanding another person flaws and all are not easy qualities to submit to; but we still manage to. The bond you share with a person purely on the basis of communication can often exceed any personal encounter you may have. I understand how these catfished victims build these full on relationships with these people because once you have opened yourself up to receive love and to love, logic tends to be a concept that is as hopeless and non-existent as these fake profiles. We have all been duped at one point or another by people who were not who they said they were whether that be the mysterious Darrell Fox Facebook profile with only three photos and 20 friends, or the person we sleep, talk and eat with every day who finally gets comfortable enough to shed the facade that lasted long enough to emotionally hook you into a relationship that was doomed from the start. In both situations you’re often too far gone to remove yourself and dig deep for the logic you put to the side to see hopeless love for exactly what it is: hopeless. We all try to make the best of situations we put so much time and effort into, but at the end of the day if it feels suspicious and fraudulent no amount of love can mask that powerful intuition.

The point I’m trying make is to take it easy on the online daters, because in a way we have all been catfished at some point in our romantic lives and logging off and deleting your profile was probably the scapegoat we wished for when reality wiped away the love we thought we had.