Untold - The Girlfriend Who Never Existed

He's just lucky his gullible arse didn't need a job

This story didn't interest me the first time. He got catfished, so what?

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would blow up in the media like it did

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not interested in watching but it’s worth the reminder that it was deadspin (RIP) that investigated and broke the story, when every other media outlet was lapping up the bullshite and doing fawning puff pieces on teo and his story. It wasn’t until after the deadspin piece that major media reporters actually started doing their jobs

Very uncomfortable watch. ESPN almost won him the Heisman with their coverage.

I don’t think he was in on it. Just incredibly gullible. Irritated me to no end how they tried to give the person who catfished him a sympathetic angle. Doesn’t surprise me though. That fricking idiot (the catfish) said he hoped that his story would “be a light to other people who are trans”.

Like, mother fricker, you are a psychopath who says “I feel bad for what I did” but don’t really mean it. That sick frick doesn’t care and doesn’t see that he’s insane.

Te’o comes off as a genuinely good dude. Just an idiot

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I don’t think he was in on it. Just incredibly gullible.

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Where do the "he was gullible" people derive their conclusions?

Not saying there is hard evidence either way. But how does someone with an above average IQ (I may be being generous, but surely he's not dumb*) fall for a trick that obvious all the way up to almost age 22?

Even if there is a miniscule chance that he was duped at some point, I still maintain that by the time the media caught wind of the story, he had already found out and willingly went along with the ruse because it provided a human-interest angle for his emerging Heisman campaign.

*If he was still in high school and was not world weary yet, I could see even a 185 IQ person getting suckered in. But by 22, you've surely had your fair share of cons either attempted or pulled on you at some point. He couldn't have been that naïve.

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Where do the "he was gullible" people derive their conclusions?

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People can be intelligent and feel something is off (which he admits happened at times) but still lie to themselves so much that they start believing something that is obviously a hoax to the rest of us.

He was a young Mormon kid from a small town in Hawaii. He was a pretty sheltered kid from a very religious family. Then he went to Notre Dame. It wouldn’t surprise me if the “girl” was the first one he had ever really talked to romantically. He trusted talking to “her” and if they were in a relationship, he is a man of principal who was probably very strict on himself about not approaching other women.

Te’o comes off kind of like Tebow. Intelligent but socially awkward. He only recently got married.

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The Battered Bastards of Baseball

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Excellent, excellent documentary

And a lot of them aren’t. There’s more evidence that he wasn’t involved than if he was. Mainly, the catfish admitting Te’o didn’t know.

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Because it's weird, especially for a football star who should have no trouble getting girls. Pretty understandable actually.

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But he said he lied to his father…who, if we’re going on the “sheltered Mormon” theory, should be incredibly understanding of Teo not being romantically or sexually experienced yet. Should be like “Nah, dad no girlfriend yet. But I hope to find a godly woman who’ll please you and mom.”

Edit: If it had only been his friends his age, I could understand being shy about not divulging his lack of experience with women. But if there were people who would actually support his staying celibate until marriage and waiting to find the right woman, it would be his parents.