No, I wouldn't get involved with someone I've never met IRL. The closest I've had is going on Tinder dates where their pictures were deceptive, but I barely invested any time, so I didn't care, they just didn't get a 2nd date

The nerve what did you say to them?

I was 'real-life' catfished one time. It's funny to talk about it now, I guess, but it was super weird at the time. Anyway, I was getting lunch from our cafeteria in college one day and this girl randomly came up to me and asked "could I have your number?". She wasn't bad looking at all but hind-sight, should've known a random girl I'd never spoken to or seen before asking for my number was a red flag. However, being the horny, naive person I was at the time, I gladly gave it to her. Hours later I started receiving texts about "how's it going?", "what are you up to?", etc, that's not too much the weird part. A couple hours more, I soon started getting sexual texts to which I was like 'hol up' and out of NOWHERE, the person said, "it's not actually the girl you met it's the GUY that works at Burger King" - we had a Burger King in our caf. Instantly I knew exactly who it was because I pretty much went there every day and he always seemed so awkward. Needless to say, my mouth literally DROPPED. I changed my number the next day and never went to that B.K. again. It was changed to a Quiznos that next semester anyway.

I don't even know what that means.

I put up the definition lol

yes
but once he was honest we were able to become really good friends

Yeah, some guy tried it on me once. I had spoke to him for a while, and one day he had sent me this supposed pic from 'work' (it was like of his legs or something). Eventually, I had stopped talking to him and one day this random guy adds me on Facebook. I went through his pictures and lo and behold, I came across that picture from 'work'. Needless to say, I had a good laugh then promptly deleted the fool.

Nah I'm not stupid enough to fall for that BS. I can always tell who is fake and who isn't.

I'm just going to copy my story/experience directly from the "do you think catfishing is ok?" thread earlier this week:

It happened to me once and it was so awkward. I should have known his photos were fake. They were of this really muscley blonde guy, who said he was 26. I was only 19 at the time. We met in a public place, downstairs from my work in the inner-city after I finished, and he had been at a pub/restaurant down the road. He turned out to be this kind-of-chubby business man in his early-mid 30s. But it wasn't who I was expecting so I was kind of scared. More annoyed than anything else. There was like an awkward hello, and then I was "I'm gonna go..."

So anyway, I got on the train home and started receiving text messages from him saying "I just wanted to say that you are the rudest person I have ever met in my entire life, walking off like that" and I went OFF. I was like "excuse me?! You sent me fake pictures. Do you have ANY ****ing idea how scared I was just then? You're not the blonde guy in those photos that you sent me. Thank god I asked to meet you in a public place, you ****ing creep. Don't ever come near my work again" and he was like "oh, sorry...I must have accidentally sent you photos of my ex. Can't I make it up to you?" and I was like "you accidentally sent me 14 different photos of your alleged 'ex' over the course of a month? **** off. Stop talking to me" and then he was like "but what about all those things you said to me? [drunk sexting ] I'm just so lonely at my house in Mosman [a really expensive suburb of Sydney] Why don't you come over for a drink or two? We wouldn't have to do anything." And then I threatened to go to the cops if he ever came near me again.

Anyway that was like 3 years ago, and I've since discovered Google Image search (or they introduced it, not sure which) so I just run a search on someone's picture if I suspect they're fake. If nothing comes up and I'm still not sure if they're real, I ask them to take a really specific picture. Like "wear a red t-shirt, write your name on a piece of paper, hold it up in front of a mirror and take a photo with your tongue sticking out." It sounds ridiculous, but if they're real, they laugh, do it and then ask me to do the same (usually because they've been catfished too and they know how annoying it is) - if they're a fake, they're normally like "lol no, I don't want to" or they come up with some excuse, or they block me instantly.