Sweet Bobby - My Catfish Nightmare on Netflix. SPOILERS

[WTF0]

Posting on here for traffic!

So I understand this documentary was based on a podcast so I’m sure some people may know the story already but what the actual FUCK?!

I wish I could say that I felt sorry for her but I just couldn’t. How do you manage to have a friendship and then romantic relationship with someone online for so long? The fact that her cousin was behind it all was so fucked up but I find it even more fucked up that her family just accepted her being engaged to someone online.

My thoughts are all over the place because I just don’t understand how you can be so desperate to be in a relationship with someone that common sense goes out of the window. As for the cousin, pure evil.

Has anyone else watched it yet?

Absolutely agree with this. She knew something wasn't right but with the culture and her family, she just ignored the warning signs.

Her cousin is bloody sick. Just abhorrent, disgusting behaviour. I don't how she can live with herself having done what she did.

Tomorrow meet your fiancé during all those years! Potty as a hatful of frogs. Ridiculous scenario and I have no sympathy with the girl.

To not

Not tomorrow ( typo)

The film Catfish came out in 2010, it definitely was a thing 10 years ago.

I think I agree with a PP that deep down she didn’t actually want marriage and kids, and this was a way to have the fantasy and please her family, without actually having to commit to anything real.

Women in their late 30s who are “desperate” for kids do not hang around! How many threads do we see on here of “I settled for boyfriend I barely knew because I wanted kids, now I’ve realised he’s not right for me and I can’t stand him”. I just don’t believe someone would hang around for 10 years if they really wanted that!!

The more bizarre thing is that no-one in her family thought to Google the guy, or heard any whispers from the community that he’s alive and well (and married) in Brighton.

"Sim ran claimed fake Bobby had died initially when he was shot in Kenya. However he appeared in a New York hospital a few weeks later stating they told everyone he was dead was so he could be put in witness protection."

Anything like this (missing, shot, dead) would be picked up on all the community grapevines.

The Sikh community are very close knit and everyone knows everyone yet in nearly a decade, not one person close to Kirat had any contact with or gossip about Bobby or his wife?

Surely at weddings or any get togethers, people gossip and share news? Especially a gorgeous couple like Bobby and Sanj. I imagine they'd be pretty popular. In any community, people would talk and say how lovely it is that they've had a baby, etc.

I think Kirat knew deep down that it wasn't real but for whatever reason allowed it to keep going.

The big clue was when "Bobby" returned to the UK and she didn't meet him at the airport. After nearly a decade?

Why would anyone be in a relationship with someone they have never spoken to or had video calls with?

Why didn't Kirat or her mum tell her dad? If they were serious about getting married then they'd want to tell her dad so he could make arrangements to meet Bobby's family. You'd think they'd be wanting to marry as soon as possible considering Kirat's age and wanting children, she was already in her late 30s by this point.

The witness protection thing was crazy. He was shot in Kenya which surely everyone back home would be talking about it, even if it's in hushed tones. Then going into witness protection but he could still contact Kirat and his friends? That's not what witness protection is!!! Everyone knows that!

My feelings are shifting slightly, having got to the end of episode 5.

The legal aspects are interesting, especially it falling under the definition of coercive control.

I do feel sympathy for Kirat and what happened to her was horrible, but she did play a role in keeping the Bobby relationship going for all that time (it could have been ended with the click of a button after all) and perhaps, after Simran had confessed and it was clear that the police weren’t interested, she should have drawn a line under it and tried to move forward.

At the point where she was ascribing her difficulties getting a job or finding a new relationship to Simran, even well after the hoax had ended, then I found that somewhat questionable.

A bit of me wonders if making a podcast is the updated version of the revenge autobiography or ‘tell all’ interview?

I actually thought the same thing! She honestly should have just done the whole arranged marriage shebang and have done with it

You could be right. It’s still such a strange thing to consider doing let alone actually go through with it for years and years

It seems to me that Kirat has poor judgement with regard to men and relationships.

She had a boyfriend for many years before the Bobby thing started. That relationship ended eventually, without a marriage being contemplated.
I think that's unusual in Sikh culture.

I honestly believe that if they had told Kirat’s dad, he would have went into full investigation mode. He probably would have taken a flight to Kenya and arrange to meet the family and do what’s meant to be done! Simran would have definitely known that and I’m sure that’s why she made sure that fake Bobby made a big deal of Kirat not telling her dad as he’d like to do it the ‘official way.’

As soon as Kirat would have told her dad. It would have been a wrap. If only she had told him…

Thank you. As I’ve said, my sympathy is capped for these (and so many other) reasons!

Yep. They were together for what, 18 years?! And whenever it came to marriage, he’d get cold feet and ghost her/end the relationship. Her mum did say that she had numerous proposals so maybe they did try to arrange a marriage for her but she wasn’t interested.

That probably would have ended in way less heartbreak than this situation. May her cousin never know peace!

I have been wondering if Kirat was actually deliberately avoiding marriage, for whatever reason.

She had two very long relationships, didn't she? The first one dragged on for 18 years. The next was Bobby, and I think there is a case to be made that Kirat knew that he wasn't real, but played along with the deception so that she didn't have to marry him.

Is that possible? Is that likely? If she perhaps preferred women to men, but didn't want her family to know?

I'm not sure. But I think that in her community, if she'd really wanted marriage and children, it could quite easily have been arranged.

I don't think she knew Simran was behind the deception but she was intelligent enough to have googled Bobby, and to have known much more about him than she let on.

I don't think she could have believed all the stuff about witness protection! Nobody with a grain of sense could have believed it. And all the medical emergencies. Just nonsense.

There's another thread on this subject, where a lot of posters are saying that Kirat knew the truth very early on and that she's a stalker and nutjob herself.

Ooo really, can you link the thread pls?

Yeah I'd like to see it too.

I think this is the one.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/5186879-sweet-bobby-netflix

Thanks I'll have a look.

This is certainly bizarre. I have empathy for Kirat but the comments about Bobby lead me to wonder what part her emotions played in this. Does she even accept a small part of responsibility?
Bobby was a victim too; he owes her nothing. Her
expectations make me wonder if she believes he did play some role in this. Maybe she’s looking for blame. The sole blame lies at the feet of the cousin, not Bobby. He is innocent.

I couldn’t cope with her at all. I don’t care what anyone says NOBODY could be that bloody stupid. I honestly think she has her own mental health issues.

Does she even accept a small part of responsibility?

I don’t think she does at all!

@Sweepsthepillowclean
NOBODY could be that bloody stupid. I honestly think she has her own mental health issues

Intelligence has nothing whatsoever to do with the kind of decisions people make about their emotional lives. Do you honestly think that people with Phds are all living in happy relationships? Kirat is obviously a clever woman but she was manipulated. This can happen to anybody (even the most intelligent ) if they have emotional issues and/or come from a background which makes free choice challenging.

And, of course Kirat has mental health issues. We don’t know if these were pre existing or triggered by the unusually relentless and cruel deception. I think almost anybody would have become extremely unsettled if that had happened to them.

I think the MH issues worsened considerably when she was in this situation, but it's also the case she clung to the 'fiction' a lot longer than most people, once she was isolated and gave up her job. It turns out, someone said on this thread, that people had told her that Bobby was married but she didn't believe them- she could have googled that very quickly, and his current job, and found it all out. I suspect her family, her mother in particular, seeing she was having a nervous breakdown didn't want to push her or challenge her, and I think it was very unfortunate that the denouement didn't happen quicker as a result. Poor her, she definitely is a victim here.