TikToker warns against toxic friends with story about 'sociopath' catfish: 'My jaw dropped'

This TikTok story has everything: Getting stood up at a wedding, a surprise pregnancy and a case of catfishing that would even stun Nev Schulman.

Kaelyn Nirmaier shared the story on TikTok as part of the #putafingerdown trend, a derivation of the game “Never Have I Ever,” where people take turns sharing personal experiences they’ve never experienced and others put a finger down if they’ve done it. In the TikTok trend, however, it’s usually used as a creative way to tell stories.

Nirmaier’s story is definitely one of a kind. It starts out seemingly normal enough with, “Put a finger down if your friend was getting married and you didn’t know anyone at the wedding.”

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Nirmaier then goes into how her bride-to-be friend shared a phone number of another single guy, Tyler, who was also going to be at the wedding so Nirmaier would have someone to talk to. The pair texted for months and got close, but then Tyler didn’t show up to the wedding.

“That’s OK, you guys are still friends, you’re still going to talk to him,” Nirmaier continued. “A few more months pass and he ends up getting a girlfriend named Lexi, who he eventually knocks up.”

As Nirmaier and Tyler got closer, Nirmaier became more aware of Tyler’s deteriorating mental health that he claimed was caused by Lexi, who he called “crazy.”

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“[Lexi] starts making his life a living hell,” Nirmaier says in the clip. “You say he needs to leave Lexi for his general health and wellbeing, but he decides that the best course of action is to commit suicide.”

Nirmaier explained that she spent years feeling guilty over what happened to Tyler. But then “about 10 years later, you find out that nobody in the story was ever real.”

That’s right — Tyler and Lexi were entirely made up.

“You were catfished, by your friend who got married,” Nirmaier concluded, putting a finger down.

“When I tell you my jaw DROPPED,” someone commented.

“I think your friend is a sociopath,” another added.

“This is like a whole Netflix series in one TikTok,” a commenter said.

Catfishing — which is the act of using false information to create a fake persona, usually online — is fairly common in online dating, but really anyone can be a victim of it. As of now, there isn’t much information as to why people are drawn to catfishing, aside from the fact that they typically are insecure about themselves or are trying to craft an escape.

According to one survey, catfishers also tend to feel a “high” from successfully deceiving people, which can make it hard to stop.

You can learn more information about Nirmaier’s catfishing story on her TikTok here or through her episode on the podcast, “Something Was Wrong.”

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