The Cat and the Fish!

The movie “Catfish” is a documentary film by Henry Joost and Ariel Shulman. A man named Nev started a relationship with a female on Facebook only to find out that he was deceived by this female. Posing as several different people on Facebook, Angela caught Nev’s attention when she created someone she named Megan. Angela created a fake identity on Facebook for the purpose of personal gain. Still, after realizing he’s been deceived, Nev chose ways of listening including informational listening, critical listening, and empathetic listening to better understand why Angela decided to deceive him.

“Sometimes we listen to learn.”(p.134) When Nev first met Megan and started speaking to her over the phone, he used informational listening to learn all about her. He related to and supported her because of this type of listening he was utilizing. When he found that the song Megan claimed to be singing was actually a recording of someone else’s voice, he began researching other things Megan had been telling him. During this time, while conversing over the phone, he also used informational listening to learn more about who Megan wasn’t. He was honing his informational listening skills and gained knowledge by separating what was and wasn’t said.

“Sometimes we listen to evaluate.” (p.134) When Nev showed up at Megan’s house he knew there was a high probability of finding out that there was no Megan. He used critical listening to evaluating what Angela was telling him as she was explaining to him why her “daughter Megan” was not able to show up. Nev became skeptical and evaluated Angela’s credibility by asking her a series of questions that required more in depth details. While asking Angela more questions, he came to the conclusion that Megan is actually Angela.

"Sometimes we listen to empathize.” (p.134) Although Nev was heartbroken; he stayed to listen to Angela’s story. Along with self-control of not aggressively confronting Angela, he utilized empathetic listening. He was still upset that she had deceived him but was listening to her nonjudgmentally as she finally told him the truth. Nev did not interrupt Angela and kept eye contact with her while she was speaking. He needed to know why she lied to him but he realized that he still had feelings for her. Although he knew Angela lied, he recognized and understood that she still had feelings for him as well.

After realizing he’s been deceived, Nev chose ways of listening including informational listening, critical listening, and empathetic listening and got a better understand of why Angela decided to deceive him. Although she deceived Nev while she was posing as several different people to engage in a relationship with Nev on Facebook, Angela fell in love with him. Nev also fell in love with Angela through nonverbal communication. This shows us that by utilizing these three types of listening skills we can find out more about people than what meets the eye!