Trashley: Forty-Six

Fake Aimee

After refusing to leave my apartment and fake-swallow a bunch of pills, Ashley was taken away by LAPD officers in handcuffs. Her parents drove down from Bakersfield to pick her up, and I knew Ashley would not be showing up at my place anymore now that there were consequences to her actions.

I was officially Ashley-free. 

I celebrated by creating a new profile on Hinge so I could finally meet the woman of my dreams. I knew she was out there, I just wasn’t sure where she was or why she was spending her entire life hiding from me.

The excitement drained from my body when the first profile that popped up belonged to Ashley. The Universe had gotten me again. Her profile listed her as living in Los Angeles, which she didn’t. And claimed she worked as a Data Scientist, which she wasn’t. She made no mention of her kids or wife. She was still hiding them.

The first thing I did was send screenshots of Ashley’s account to Cecelia and Michelle, and the second thing I did was report her profile to Hinge, letting them know that she was a catfish and lying to women about her identity. I figured Hinge was backed up with complaints and her profile wouldn’t be examined for a while.

I had to be proactive before Ashley got her next victim, so I texted the Queen and King of the Los Angeles lesbian scene. “If you see this woman on Hinge, she is a catfish. Pass it on.” The news of Ashley’s predatory behavior spread quickly in East LA. I was even tempted to print out photos of her Hinge account and place them at Baller Hardware and Sunset Nursery. 

Anywhere the lesbians would see it.

Danger! Beware! Peligroso!

My little sisters were worried my relationship with Ashley was so traumatic that it would scare me back into dating men. But I assured them that would never happen, and even the worst lesbian is still better than the average male.

Catfish her? I hardly know her.

I couldn’t help but wonder what Ashley’s new story was. When we dated, she stole most of her stories from Cecelia’s life. I wondered what aspects of my life she was going to adopt, and what her new story would be. And if she was going to lie again, or be honest this time around.

There was only one way to find out: I had to catfish Ashley back. To my post-Ashley mind, this made perfect sense: in order to understand a catfish, first, you must become one.

I got on the group chat with Cecelia and Michelle, but Cecelia wanted no part in it, so she opted out. Michelle, on the other hand, was all aboard. It seemed fair, if Ashley could catfish people, why couldn’t we catfish her?

Michelle asked a gorgeous friend if we could use her photos to make a fake Hinge account, and with her permission, we created the wonderfully talented and delightful fake Aimee. She had high cheekbones, a banging body, perfectly arched eyebrows, and she looked fun. 

Aimee was cat-nip to a person like Ashley.

As soon as Aimee’s profile was live, I tapped the little heart emoji on one of Ashley’s photos. I barely blinked before Ashley responded.

It’s Friday!

“How are you? It’s Friday!”

Indeed it is. TGIF, bitch.

It was almost too easy, all I did was tap on a photo and Ashley was engaged.

I had no doubt she was juggling several different conversations, along with ours. She needed to do two things: scramble to get into another free living situation, anything that could keep her from moving back to Minnesota. And she also needed to get vengeance on me for breaking up with her. But revenge only works when the other person cares. I didn’t care about Ashley, but I did care about all the gay girls of Los Angeles, and I didn’t want anyone else to get sucked up into her con like I had.

Fake Aimee responded to Ashley’s message, and I had front row seats to watch Ashley in action.

“I live in Silver Lake but I’m looking for a new place.” She said, leaving out the part about why she was looking for a new place, the part where I had kicked her out due to the lying and the catfishing.

“What are the most important things to you in a relationship?” I asked.

“I value trust and vulnerability,” she said.

I spit the sip of coffee I’d taken onto my phone screen.

“I don’t think I’ve had that in the past,” she continued, “and it’s really disappointing.”

Her answers made me want to put my brain in the microwave and press nuke.

“Are you originally from here?” I asked.

“I grew up in a lot of different places, but LA was always my favorite.”

She was back to lying about where she grew up.

“What sort of work do you do?” I asked.

“I build AI for a human capital firm,” Ashley said. 

She was no longer a physicist. It was the end of an era at MIT.

“What exactly are you looking for?” I asked.

“A committed monogamous relationship.”

I looked off to the side like Jim from The Office, as if there was a camera in my living room catching my reaction.

Oh, you want the thing you had with me and Cecelia while you were off cheating with women you lied to on dating apps?

“Can we take this conversation off Hinge?” Ashley asked.

Shit.

Thinking quickly, Michelle and I created a phone number with Google Voice. 

“Yes please,” I wrote back, giving her the number.

Her career path is incredible.

“Greetings and salutations, it’s Ash.”

“What are your weekend plans?” fake Aimee said.

“I’m going to Chicago this weekend to get out of CA for a second,” she said.

“What brings you to Chicago?” I asked.

“I just like the city and was bored, shrug emoji.”

Right, because that’s what normal people do when they get bored in LA. They fly to Chicago for the weekend.

Greetings!

Ashley was immediately suspicious about the green text bubbles because only a psychopath or a person pretending to be Aimee would have an Android phone these days.

“You have an Android and it’s causing me a lot of internal conflict, lol.” Ashley said.

“Please don’t speak to my android like that LOL,” replied Aimee.

I left a lot of LOL’s at the end of Aimee’s sentences to throw Ashley off, since I’ve never said LOL in my entire life. 

Ashley never said it either, until now. LOL.

“So tell me about yourself,” I asked.

“I’m SUPER close to my family,” she said. 

I gagged at the thought of them all sitting around in their Bakersfield swass, “They’re the best and most loving and accepting people, I’m really lucky.”

That’s not how I’d describe them at all, but go on.

“I’m an avid reader, I’ll read literally anything.”

One of the reasons I was originally drawn to Ashley was that she told me she was a big reader. But that was a lie. The only time I have lied about reading was in sixth grade, because the class that read the most books won a pizza party sponsored by Scholastic and Pizza Hut, Making It Great.

“My most useless skill is juggling,” Ashley said.

 She told me the same thing, but then I asked her to juggle later on, in person, and it was, uh, how do you say in English, cucumber? It was bad. If I were to give notes, I’d say it was time to retire the juggling lie from her repertoire and replace it with easier, like yo-yo-ing.

“I think there’s a difference between being nice and being kind and I try really hard to be the latter.”

If that sentence were a mad lib I’d change it to, “I think there’s a difference between being a bitch and being a cunt, and I try really hard to be the latter.”

I was literally going to punch my face off.

“I don’t know, I’m an open book.”

And then there was the good old I’m an open book line. The book, of course, being a work of fiction

“What are you doing in Chicago?” I asked.

“I mostly just want to hit up some museums and knock around.”

Knock around?

She would never speak that way, but she was mirroring British Aimee.

“I’ve ended up in a casino playing a Shark Week game… it’s FINtastic.”

I felt second-hand embarrassment at Ashley’s attempt at humor. Had I taught her nothing about being funny?

“How in the bloody hell do you wind up in a casino in Chicago LOL what now?!” Aimee asked, Britishly.

“I mean, the life I lead moves very fast,” she responded.

I had heard this line before, and it took me a second to realize where it came from. A lightbulb went off in my brain as I made the connection– Ashley had stolen that line from a shirt I bought at a thrift shop in Carmel. She was with me when I bought it. It was a quote from Elvis.

Elvis is alive and well.

“I was at the Field and I asked the elevator attendant what I should do next and this was the suggestion so I did it.”

She used to tell me stories like this when we first started talking, and I believed her. But alas, none of this happened. There was no Field Mesum, no elevator operator, and no casino.

“I like blackjack sometimes because the only thing I’m good at is math, really.”

She loves pretending she’s good at math as if it’s the most impressive skill in the world. Nobody cares if you’re good at math, when you’re an adult you hire people to do that for you.

Ashley also never played a game of Blackjack in her life, she lifted that lie from me. When I was in New Zealand filming Ex On the Peak, I went to the casino on nights off, and people would gather around to watch me play. I was incredibly good for no reason other than I’d been touched by God. I never lost, and I’d usually walk away with at least four hundred dollars a night after only buying in for fifty.

“I need to know what kind of phone you have,” she could not drop the Android of it all.

“It’s a Samsung Galaxy,” I lied. I don’t know anything about Androids, but that felt right.

Samsung Galaxy life.

I was veering off track with this conversation, but it was so fascinating to know she was lying. I had to bring it back to talking about exes; I wanted to know what her new story was.

“I want someone that’s close with their family, that has an actual career, that has goals and ambitions that they actually intend to accomplish, that can make me laugh, that isn’t afraid of intimacy, that is actually interested in a partnership that’s strong enough to take a few hits and roll, you know?”

Oh, I know.

Ashley had just described me. She had all of that, and then it blew up in her face.

“I’m so relieved you’re not all, “i’M eTHiCaLly nOn MonoGAmous,’” Ashley said. 

Her insistence on being in a monogamous relationship was comical because both Cecelia and I were monogamous, while Ashley constantly cheated or tried to cheat during our relationships.

I got Ashley to elaborate on her ex, me.

“Mine was a selfish jerk but at least she wasn’t a cheater,” Ashley said, “what a fucking nightmare.” Yes, I was such a selfish jerk because I didn’t want to be lied to anymore.

I’d told Ashley I had gone through a break-up recently but was on the apps being social.

“I should probably take that as a red flag, huh? Haha.” Ashley responded.

She was so funny, because she was fresh out of a break-up and also on the apps. Her hypocrisy was limitless.

“Are you emotionally available or not, bro.” Ashley said.

There she was, the asshole inside of her. 

This was where Ashley and fake Aimee took a turn for the worst. Unless you’re Hulk Hogan, don’t call a woman you’re trying to swoon bro, or brother.

“I’m emotionally avail!!!” I responded.

“I hope so,” she said.

“Well you sounded over it,” I replied.

“Over what,” Ashley said.

“Over…. Me.” I said.

“I’d prefer to be under you,” Ashley replied.

Yikes, wrong answer.

Ashley had been chatting with fake Aimee for less than two days before trying to initiate a game of sext. She sounded like a toxic dude, and no thanks. 

I wrapped up my conversation with Ashley. I’d had enough. She was creeping out women on dating apps, and if this was how she talked to women, she was her own repellent.

“I only did this to show Lauren who you truly were, and that you’ll never change.”

Fake Aimee, signing out.

Bloody yikes, indeed.