When I watched the movie Catfish I was struck by several thoughts, mainly about how this is a true story and could happen to anybody. Most people have been warned to be careful on what they post or what they share, but many people are still entirely too free with the information they give.
I remember seeing a post online about a girl who said some awfully crude things online where she thought she was safe, but she had posted her hometown and the name of the store she worked at on her Facebook page, which allowed people to find out exactly where she worked. I say she was lucky because she had generated enough hate online and given enough information that someone could have gone to her workplace and attacked her. Instead, someone called her workplace and got her fired.
Something similar could have happened to Nev in Catfish. Angela had his address long before he met her, so he never really verified that she was a safe person to talk to. Instead of Angela being behind the screen, imagine if it was a serial killer looking for easy prey, and Nev was easy prey. Things could have gotten real bad, real fast. Nev actually proved my point when he went to visit Megan without giving any kind of warning. If Angela would have hooked someone with a tendency for violence rather than kind ol' Nev she could have found herself getting attacked when they discovered her deception.
The best practices for meeting with people that you meet online is to meet in a public place. In the case of Catfish, where Angela never really wanted to meet Nev, the safest bet would have been for Nev to keep pushing to meet and when he kept getting refusals then he should have broken it off. That or use something like Skype. I mean, jeez, he didn't try to verify who she was for the longest time. Of course, his lack of secrecy with his personal information kind of ruined his chances of being safe from the get go, but still.
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