When I was about 11 one of my friends introduced me to making fake profiles and using them to get friends, but her purpose was to trick people and bully them without it being traced back to her. When I was 12, we had made over 20 profiles of different people, all run by us, pretending to be a large group of friends, what we thought was a smart way to seem even more real. We took pictures of Google and usually catfished our friends at school. I would laugh when people would talk about the profiles and say things like "They probably all go to that street down the road." At the time, Google didn't have the 'search by image' feature, so we could easily use popular pictures without being traced. Some of the accounts are still active on Facebook and they are so obviously fake it's ridiculous. Later on, after my friend left, I started to make my own profiles without telling her. Once, I had acted like myself on one of the Catfish profiles, really pretending I was this person instead of bullying people, my friend found this strange and told me that it was weird and always looked at me funny. I became so indulged in this fake person and every time I got caught I learned a new way to not get found out and I could right an entire book of Do's and Dont's for Catfishing. In my latest profile, I used photos of a guy that used to live in my city, but moved to a different country recently. I have almost no connection with this guy other than being friends on Facebook, I've never even met him. This profile is the one I've become so connected with, I've made so many good friends and they have no idea. I act like myself and use the pictures of this guy every so often when I feel people are doubting me. This guy doesn't post many pictures in real life, so I don't have much material to work off of. I have every excuse ever as to why I can't Facetime or take new selfies or anything. It's not like I don't get a lot of attention elsewhere or that I'm lonely, because I have a big group of friends and I'm pretty popular in my year, it's just, as a writer, I love to take over the character of somebody completely not me, but everyday when I get home I go online, I've become so attached to this profile I don't know what I'm supposed to do, I really need to find a way to let go, because it's controlling me a lot, who knew I could get addicted to being a fake? What are your thoughts? Ever had the same experience? I'm curious, I hope I'm not just crazy.