I Fell in Love With a Catfish During Chemotherapy... and The Internet Found Her (Part 3/3)

Chapter Three: I found her.

My Mum reads the last chapter of a book to decide if she likes the ending. If she does, she starts at the beginning and reads everything else.

I consider this behaviour to be a crime against humanity, but the United Nations won’t answer my calls (and I don’t have their phone number), so Mum is unlikely to be prosecuted.

If you haven’t read Chapter One and Chapter Two of the catfishing saga, you behave like my Mum. If you continue this behaviour, you will become my de facto mother, and I will be forced to get you a Mother’s Day gift (but not a book — I can’t have you committing war crimes).

If you missed out, catch up below on how I fell in love with “Saylor Tomasic” while receiving treatment for leukemia and my 15-year journey to find answers.

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I Fell in Love With a Catfish During Chemotherapy... and The Internet Found Her (Part 1/3)

I Fell in Love With a Catfish During Chemotherapy... and The Internet Found Her (Part 2/3)

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When we left off, the woman in the photos had refused to offer help and wanted nothing to do with me, so internet sleuths used clues from her life to track down the catfish, believing their orbits must have crossed at some point.

Their confidence brought me close to ending a decades-long search for answers. After so long (almost 15 years), I was ready to learn the truth but apprehensive about reaching the finish line.

Odds are you know that searching for answers doesn’t guarantee your desired outcome. Maybe you’ve been ghosted after a few dates or felt a long-term partner pulling away and gone looking for reasons why. There’s an outcome you hope for in these situations, but the search for truth isn’t a process guaranteed to give you what you want.

Think of it this way…

Imagine lining up to see a new movie when some jerk runs out of the theatre with a spoiler and tells you the main character dies at the end. You’d be frustrated. You’d throw your expensive cinema snacks at them (bonus points if you ordered a Choc Top, which can be used as a missile).

Looking for the catfish was the same. I didn’t know if I was the one in line or ruining the surprise. Sometimes, you’re both.

I knew there was no guarantee I’d find closure. “Saylor Tomasic” had pulled a disappearing act well over a decade ago. It was clear she did not want to be found. Even if my army of internet sleuths returned with a name, email and phone number, it didn’t mean I’d get answers.

This wasn’t my first time spearheading a search like this. As a curious kid, I wanted to know what I was getting for Christmas and didn’t have the patience to wait until Christmas morning. I also knew my parents hid presents in the back of their wardrobe. You can figure out the rest.

When Christmas morning rolled around, the joy of opening gifts had been ruined… by me. I would have been better off not spoiling the ending. If the universe had thrown a Choc Top at me as punishment, I’d have deserved it.

So, while I wanted to know who “Saylor Tomasic” was and why she had done what she had, I knew it could all end in tears. After being rejected once already, the most likely outcome was another vanishing act — blocked on every platform with nothing to do but pack up and go home.

Then they found her.

That’s a jarring way to tell you, but I can’t think of any other way because the same thing happened to me.

I received a message from someone I had never met. They said they had been following my story and wanted to help. And they had found her.

Before I made contact, I had to be sure it was the right woman, and the evidence was impossible to ignore. She was a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, which matched the NFL sports apparel she’d sent me over a decade ago. Her life had crossed paths with the woman whose photos had been stolen. And most notably, her name was an anagram of Saylor Tomasic.

It was her.

This was a woman I’d spent hundreds of hours speaking with while I was curled up in bed, chemo coursing through my veins. In my hospital diary, I described the experience of fighting cancer as being in a boat, drifting alone at sea. She was there to anchor me when the waves threatened to throw me into the churning depths.

This woman was so real to me that I said, “I love you,” for the first time. Looking back, it wasn’t real love—not the type I found when I met my wife—but it felt real to me then. So real that I imagined a future with Saylor.

The woman who, when I realised she was lying, told me that she had been diagnosed with cancer as a last-ditch effort to keep me in her life.

Now, I had her name and her Facebook profile. All I had to do was send a message, and it was over — one way or another. The questions that had plagued me for years might finally be answered.

Who was she? Why did she let me spill my heart while hiding behind a mask? Why did she choose me? Did any of it mean anything to her? Anything at all?

I think sometimes, stories like these are best left unfinished…

Part of me thinks I should leave the ending ambiguous. You might feel the same way—whatever you imagine might be more interesting or exciting than what actually happened. “Saylor Tomasic” left me without answers, and life went on. Would it be so different if I did the same to you?

But I spent too long trying to finish this story and too many years searching for an elusive truth—if such a thing exists. I owe it to you and to myself to be honest. I owe you an ending.

So here’s the truth…

The catfish’s Facebook showed she was married and a mother. She had a family, friends, and a whole life of her own. She’d sprinkled small parts of herself into the “Saylor Tomasic” lie and manufactured the rest.

She posed in photos with her husband, smiling and laughing on family vacations and holidays. She was religious, often turning to God for strength or guidance. And her kids seemed the centre of her world. There were no apparent cracks that would send her to a chatroom to strike up a relationship with me—a lonely kid trying to make sense of my blood cancer diagnosis.

Why did she do that to me? Why did she trick me? Why did she save me?

I had to know, but before I could open a message and ask, I noticed a post on her Facebook wall. It was a picture of a young man’s face, barely younger than I was when I first met “Saylor” in a chat room.

I learned that this young man was her son, and the post was asking for donations via a GoFundMe link to raise urgently needed money for his treatment….

For blood cancer.

Seven years after she catfished me during my blood cancer fight, her son was diagnosed with the same type of illness. It felt impossible. It still does. Years after anchoring me through cancer, her son suffered the same cruel fate.

Once I saw that post, my desire to contact her and get closure simply slipped away. She was fighting a battle on behalf of her son—one I knew painfully well—and I no longer itched for the truth. After a decade and a half of searching for answers, I didn’t need them anymore.

My fight was over; hers was beginning. If my cancer experience is universal — alone in a boat atop a churning sea — I hope her son finds someone to anchor him. I hope she does, too.

I’ll never know why she picked me, whether Samantha* knew her photos had been stolen, if her husband and family ever found out what she did, or whether any of it was real.

But I’m OK with that now.

Looking back on the last 15 years, I sometimes still wonder what it all meant. I spent so long trying to finish my story, only to discover that my ending was the start of something new for her and her son.

I don’t have all the answers — I never will — but that’s OK. Closure is something you give to yourself, not accept from others. I’m finally at peace with what happened.

I hope, someday, Saylor Tomasic is too.

With love,

New World Porter

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