Manti Te’o – Catfished?????

If you have a big football fan hubby like myself or if you are a football fan your self, you probably have seen, heard or read by now that Manti Te’o‘s dead girlfriend story was a big hoax.  That’s right people the story is breaking open wide that the woman Manti has been claiming to be his dead girlfriend has never before existed.  If for whatever reason you haven’t heard about Te’o and the amazing story of his struggle through grief to keep playing football after losing both his grandmother and girlfriend on the same day, then maybe you don’t have big college football fans in your home.  Just to catch you up a bit on the back story (or hoax).  Supposedly Te’o meets his girlfriend back in 2009, they were friends until 2011 and they became a couple in early 2012.  Then in August she was in a near death car accident, she survived and then she was diagnosed with Leukemia, she got very ill, got a transplant, got better, got sick again, was hospitalized, she went home, his grandmother died and then she died hours later.  That’s my summary of the events.

This is about the time we all get dragged into this twisted tale by the media.  We (me because my husband is a football head) heard over and over how he had to overcome such diversity and deal with the death of his grandmother and girlfriend all on the same day.  We felt sorry for him and part of that sorrow made us want to know more about this girlfriend and this young man.  Well now we know it was a lie and the girl is actually a boy playing a joke (according to Teo) it makes you wonder.  Who dropped the ball in this whole mess.  Who didn’t do the research and check any of the facts?  Who didn’t do the background checks in this story when Teo was the one telling us about their relationship and how she would visit him?  I guess now that it’s out he wants us all to see him as a victim but in his first statement he said

 “This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online. We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her. To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone’s sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating. It further pains me that the grief I felt and the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother’s death in September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another significant loss in my life. I am enormously grateful for the support of my family, friends and Notre Dame fans throughout this year. To think that I shared with them my happiness about my relationship and details that I thought to be true about her just makes me sick. I hope that people can understand how trying and confusing this whole experience has been. In retrospect, I obviously should have been much more cautious. If anything good comes of this, I hope it is that others will be far more guarded when they engage with people online than I was. Fortunately, I have many wonderful things in my life, and I’m looking forward to putting this painful experience behind me as I focus on preparing for the NFL Draft.

 

Maybe it’s the common sense in me that makes me wonder why someone so popular would fall for such a hoax?  Maybe if it was someone who was a loner and didn’t have much friends or was shy but lots of the things in this story was odd and remains odd.  Here’s my problem with this whole thing even if he fell for this horrible hoax then why make up all the details and lies to add to the story himself?  Teo said he met her before, but obviously that wasn’t the case.  At the very least he should apologize for stretching the truth and using the story for a platform.  I don’t remember him ever declining to talk about the dead girlfriend.  Here’s a great lesson to learn and a tip.  Even people we met are not always who they say they are, make sure you take the time to get to really know someone and their family and friends before you start calling them a loved one.  Apparently there are some odd people out there.  Remember my post from before this is actually happening to people besides Manti.  I’m still wondering Manti Te’o catfished????  Really?