M.anti Te’o Gets Catfish’d

The funniest story in sports this week is that surrounding star Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o, who apparently made a big deal during the season about his play on the field being inspired by the passing of both his grandmother and his girlfriend within six hours of each other. I suppose I should know for certain if that was the case, but I don’t, because I don’t care about NCAA football. I like seeing the game played well, and that’s why I watch the NFL. You wouldn’t go to a barber college and expect a good haircut, so why would I watch college football and expect a good game? I guess I’m a sucker for successfully kicked field goals.

Back to Manti, Deadspin (can you ever read that and not thing meatspin–Google the word if you don’t know) reported this week that, while his grandmother was once very alive and now very dead, his purported girlfriend…didn’t exist. No birth certificate. No death certificate. No pictures atop Splash Mountain. In fact, the only known photo of said girlfriend belonged to a Facebook user who claimed to have no knowledge of who Manti Te’o is. Manti then quickly elaborated that the relationship was almost entirely an online one, though he did meet someone he believed he was his girlfriend at one point or another (again, I’m fuzzy on the details because I have AFC and NFC title games to think about).

So why would a kid who, as a star college football player, is able to get pussy with the ease I turn on a spigot, say he was dating an online girlfriend whose existence is dubious at best? Was he the victim of an Internet hoax? Did he make up the story so that her death would elicit sympathy during his run at a Heisman? Or, as some have suggested, is Te’o gay-o (see what I did there?) and the online girlfriend a convenient, modern-day beard?

I’m going to vote for Te’o loving the cock, because it’s what keeps this story most interesting. It also makes the most sense to me. Online girlfriends are for guys like this, not shredded linebackers. This dude simply wanted to silence questions about his sexuality, got sick of keeping the story up, and killed the bitch off.

Still, there’s a chance he really was duped. If so, I feel bad for him because he’s young and, even by jock standards, seems spectacularly dumb. So let me close with some advice to all you aspiring chat room Romeos. Live your online love life by these commandments and you shall never go astray:

1. Don’t send money. Ever.
2. Don’t get emotionally involved before you meet in person.
3. Get her to send nude photos, especially ones containing her face. A person tends to avoid stealing your credit card numbers if previously inclined to when they know countermeasure will include personal gash pics all over their Facebook wall.
4. Conversely, if inclined to show off your own goods, keep your face out of it. In fact, to be safe, just send pics of Harvey Keitel pulling out his cock in Bad Lieutenant. Yes, his body looks like it was forged via several trips to Old Country Buffet, and his inches are nothing to write a sonnet about, but that’s what makes it believable.
5. Get that phone number ASAP and make a call to make sure it’s not a dude.

I think that covers it all. Don’t get Te’o’d!