Catfishing.. an acceptable getaway?

Catfishing... an acceptable getaway?

     I recently watched the documentary Catfish. It was very interesting to say the least. The documentary was centered around Nev Schulman and the relationship he developed with a person online through Facebook. The woman that he created the relationship with was supposedly a woman by the name of Megan. He ended up talking to Meagan because of  connections he had made through Facebook, with her sister Abbey. Abbey was an kid who  made art. Her art was great, she painted pictures the Nev had taken photographs of and other things. She sent a package to Nev all the time with different photos that she painted for him. Through Facebook he talked to Abbey and eventually her mother. They frequently had conversations and passed mail between one another, he had become attached to the family. Even though he had never personally met anyone in the family. He has only talked with them on the phone and sent messages through Facebook. Eventually Nev felt that something fishy was going on. he got the notion that Megan (the family member that he started a romantic relationship with) was lying. he came to this conclusion when he caught her in a lie about her music (she took someone else's music off of the internet and tried to pass it off as her own). He then felt the need to meet her to find out if everything else that she said was also a lie. When Nev traveled to Megan's hometown it was revealed that he had been Catfished. He never had conversations with Megan, Abbey did not actually make art, the other family members on that were on Facebook were also fabricated. It was all made up by the mother Angela. Angela was Megan (she was the one who Nev had private conversations with) she was the one who he spoke to romantically. It was a large web of lies, Angela also continued to lie to Nev when he confronted her. 

   While Nev was confronting Angela about her lies he found out the reason that she Catfished him was because it felt good for her to pretend to be someone else for a few hours everyday. This hobby of her's was born through a discontent with her current living standards. It was agreed that Angela was living a hard life. She was a woman living a life that she did not envision for herself. She was a house wife that had two mentally disabled step-sons, an eight year old, and a less than attentive husband. I can understand why she would want to escape from her life a few hours a day. Though she was Catfishing Nev through Facebook this was not born through Malicious intent. I feel like she went too far with the Catfishing when she started to talk romantically with Nev. She should have ended the relationship when it started. Besides her dragging out a romantic relationship with a man that she has never met over the internet while she herself was married.I feel that Catfishing if done safely can be an okay past time. I say that because for people like Angela who don't see other options in their life and need an out. I feel that its acceptable to catfish as long as its done safely and without malicious intent.