How to Investigate, Detect Lies, and Catch a Catfish with the Dating Detectives

Summary

Girls Gotta Eat – “How to Investigate, Detect Lies, and Catch a Catfish with the Dating Detectives”

Date: March 9, 2026
Featuring: Ashley Hesseltine & Rayna Greenberg (hosts), Mackenzie Faultz (Private Investigator) & Hannah Anderson (Comedian, Armchair Sleuth)
Podcast: Girls Gotta Eat x Dear Media | Episode Overview + Key Discussion Points

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Episode Overview

In this lively, candid, and laugh-out-loud episode, Ashley and Rayna of “Girls Gotta Eat” dive headfirst into the world of dating sleuthing, lie detection, and scam-busting, joined by the co-hosts of “The Dating Detectives” podcast—private investigator Mackenzie Faultz and writer-comedian Hannah Anderson.

With equal parts humor and actionable advice, the conversation covers the art of vetting potential dates, catching catfishes and liars, telltale red flags in modern dating, and the wild, sometimes dark, psychology of scammers. Memorable moments and practical investigative tips abound as the group swaps war stories, debates etiquette, and shares the secrets that keep women a few steps ahead in the dating game.

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Meet the Guests: The Dating Detectives

[32:15–36:12]

• Mackenzie Faultz’s journey: From a criminal justice degree and a “you’ll never make it as a woman” challenge to licensed PI. (“So I did all the things and before you know it, they sent me a license in the mail. And I said, I'll be darn. That's how it got started.” – Mackenzie, 33:07)
• Social engineering: Why bubbly women make the best PIs and why people (both men and women) tend to share more information with women.
• Hannah Anderson: Armchair sleuth, stand-up comic, and single millennial on a mission to learn from PI wisdom.
• Show’s Origin: Addressing “dogfishing” (lying with real images/info but hiding a secret) as distinct from “catfishing”.

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The Art—and Survival Value—of Dating Sleuthing

[36:12–50:22]

On Vetting Potential Dates

• Google is Queen: “If I can't find that your name is not real, you don't exist.” – Mackenzie, [40:51]
• Search Techniques:
  • Quotation searches (“Adam White” AND “doctor”)
  • Go deep, don’t stop on Google page one.
  • Leverage school records, alumni lists, tagged photos on Facebook
  • Reverse image search (especially for app profiles)
  • Data broker sites: Plug a phone number into Google, cross-reference addresses, tickets, etc.—can uncover hidden info for a couple bucks.
• “If you're going on dates and not googling before, it's just research. You're not crazy.” – Hannah, [39:56]

What’s a Major Red Flag?

• No online footprint/social presence at all—usually not a good sign in 2026, especially in urban environments.
• “No family, no friends, definitely a red flag.” – Hannah, [50:36]

Gender Differences in Cheating/Lying

• “I think women don't get caught as much.” – Hannah, [38:58]
• Men get caught more easily, often due to overconfidence or failing to cover up digital trails.

Psychological Tactics of Liars

• DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.
  • “That’s their strategy: deny, attack, reverse.” – Mackenzie, [44:13]
  • “The greater the lie, the greater the defense.” – Mackenzie, [45:46]
• Love bombing, trauma dumping, and early oversharing are often deception tactics.
• “If you walk out feeling guilty after bringing valid concern to your partner, that's something to clock.” – Hannah, [47:26]

Key Practical Takeaway: Pattern Recognition

• Trust your instincts, connect data points and patterns, don’t talk yourself out of noticing contradictions (“Pattern connection… Women are more prone to be overthinking because we connect patterns more…” – Mackenzie, [52:58]).

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Real-World Scenarios: Red Flags, Pink Flags, & Unsolved Mysteries

[50:22–85:15]

Most Common Missed Red Flags:

• Refusal to introduce you to friends/family/community (“No community feels like a huge one to me. Like, there's nobody to hold you accountable or vouch for this info.” – Raina, [52:06])
• Always only meeting at hotels, never seeing their place.
• Strange or shifting life timelines.
• “My ex is crazy” or “every ex was a narcissist”—often narrative control rather than truth.

The Ghost Date (Unsolved Mystery)

[72:39–76:45]

• A female match makes plans at her hotel bar, requests a specific drink, promises to come down—then never shows, unmatched instantly, never responds.
• Theorized explanations: Avoidance, last-minute nerves, possible catfish, or as Mackenzie suspects, a man behind the profile. (“This is totally someone who was not who they said they were…It was a man. Guaranteed.” – Mackenzie, [75:15])

The “Serial Canceler”:

[77:24–84:49]

• Multiple women report the same San Diego man making plans, weaving elaborate trauma tales (dead relatives, car trouble, crises), cancelling at the last minute, rarely shows in-person, and won’t initiate physical contact.
• Community consensus: Emotional/psychological manipulation, trauma dumping, possible fear of real intimacy, control issues.
• “The fact that he has the power that someone is disappointed that he didn't show up. This is someone who's getting off on them… It's a power for him.” – Mackenzie, [80:18, 82:07]
• “If someone told me they had cancer, I would not question it. Unfortunately, after the date, also, 15 minutes before the date is very crazy.” – Hannah, [82:54]

On “Are We Dating the Same Guy?” Groups

[67:02–70:57]

• Double-edged sword: Incredible tool for accountability and sisterhood, but use with discernment.
• “My favorite episodes are when, like, two girls come on and they’re like, yeah, we were both dating the same man...Weirdly, we have the same taste.” – Hannah & Ashley, [68:15]
• AI and image manipulation: Never trust a screenshot or a single photo—everything can be faked in 2026.

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Notable Quotes & Quick Wisdom

• “All women are detectives, 100%.” — Raina, [32:20]
• “If you can't find someone online in 2026, that’s a red flag.” – Mackenzie, [38:10]
• “I feel like when people cancel, it's because they think there's someone better, but they want to keep something on the books…That makes dating now so much worse.” – Mackenzie, [84:07]
• “The more you tell someone, ‘It's a bad guy, run,’ the more they are like: ‘No.’” – Mackenzie, [61:14]
• “Trust your intuition before all else. Women are pattern connectors…But the world will gaslight you out of it.” – Theme throughout

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Lighter Moments & Digestible Takeaways

• Hilarious farts-in-front-of-your-partner confessions, restaurant storytimes, and etiquette debates (e.g., splitting the bill on a first date: instant turn-off).
• Blunt relationship advice, like: “If I reach for my card and split it on a first date, we’re just friends. If I insist on paying, I never want to see you again.” — Ashley & Raina, [13:13–13:20]
• Actual PI tip: To become a licensed private investigator, “Google ‘how to be a private investigator in [your state]’.”

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Practical Takeaways & Listener Action Items

1. Don’t rely on surface impressions; do your research: Google, reverse image searches, check for community/friends, and look for pattern inconsistencies. 2. Validate intuition—if something feels off, especially multiple contradictory stories or evasion, believe yourself and ask more questions. 3. Be discerning in sharing and consuming info on “Are We Dating the Same Guy?” groups; screenshots and photos can be faked. 4. Red flags pile up: Lack of friends/family, only meeting outside their environment, odd explanations, or extreme defenses are signals to dig deeper (or, often, bail).

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How to Connect with the Guests

• The Dating Detectives Podcast: On all podcast platforms and socials
• Mackenzie Faultz: @freedom_barbie
• Hannah Anderson: @hannahandergraham

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For more info, stories, or to submit your own dating mystery, visit The Dating Detectives podcast website.

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This episode is a must-listen for anyone single (or not), offering both gut-busting laughs and genuinely life-saving dating wisdom. The collab between Girls Gotta Eat and Dating Detectives is pure investigative gold.

Transcript

[Mackenzie Faultz]

This is totally someone who was not who they said they were. From the beginning, it was a man. Guaranteed. It was another dude. No way. I'm telling you,

[Ashley Hess]

This podcast is a dear Media production.

[Raina Greenberg]

Hi, guys.

[Ashley Hess]

Hi, guys.

[Raina Greenberg]

Welcome to another episode of Girls Gotta eat.

[Ashley Hess]

I wanted to say hi in Singaporean, but there's. You just say hi.

[Raina Greenberg]

I mean, you can say. I mean, out of here.

[Ashley Hess]

It's very multicultural. Like, I'm not gonna say ni hao. I would love to, but, like, I'm not.

[Raina Greenberg]

You're not gonna appropriate hello in Singapore. It's.

[Ashley Hess]

There's not like a universal hello. I even just asked our friend who's Singaporean. She said, I say hi.

[Raina Greenberg]

I had never been.

[Ashley Hess]

A bunch of different languages spoke there.

[Raina Greenberg]

Hebrew is the opposite. Shalom means hello and goodbye and peace. We have one word for all three.

[Ashley Hess]

I love Nio.

[Raina Greenberg]

It's cute. It's cute. Are you gonna try to, like, learn the language?

[Ashley Hess]

What language? I'm confused on the language.

[Raina Greenberg]

Well, it's a. So it's a melting pot. So you will find, like, it's. It's one of my favorite places to eat because you have so many Indian and Chinese and Japanese influences, Thai influences. Like, there's so many food influences. Cuz people moved there from all over. Totally.

[Ashley Hess]

Okay. So anyway, I just got back. I'll recap it next week with a special guest host. Rayna Raina's getting a week off.

[Raina Greenberg]

I get a week off.

[Ashley Hess]

Well, I took. I had a week off last week. Hope you guys enjoyed this snack with Andrew. Colin. But. But while we're talking about languages right now, I have to tell you, something that happened to me. I've been holding back. Something that happened to me for the second time is that we went to dinner last weekend, and we think that we had a server who was doing a fake accent for what we think is practicing for a role. So this happened one night at dinner. You and I and, like, Shashank and our friends Halle and Billy all went to dinner, and the server came over, and she was closest to me, but you guys could hear her. But I was like, the. The accents, they're all over the place. Like, it sounds a little Australian. It sounds a little British. It's really kind of chaotic. And she walked away, and you and I were like, she's practicing for a role immediately.

[Raina Greenberg]

But then when she came back over and explained in the specials, I couldn't. She kept oscillating in and out of, like, Harry Potter talk.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Oh, yeah.

[Ashley Hess]

And Halle is. Her dad is British, and She was like, she. She's talking like a child. Talks like a British child.

[Raina Greenberg]

Yes. And I couldn't make eye contact with anybody while she was speaking because I was like, this is a fake accent. This is crazy.

[Ashley Hess]

So we went to dinner. We had a little date night last weekend. And she came over and she was super nice. And I got, like, a little British, but I also. Australia, New Zealand. And I said, shashank, what do you think? He goes, New Zealand, 100%.

[Raina Greenberg]

I'm like, oh. Like, he could differentiate.

[Ashley Hess]

He was like, I'm pretty certain. So I was like, I'm asking, because we didn't ask before. And so it got more chaotic as the night went on. Towards the end of the meal, I

[Mackenzie Faultz]

was like, where are you from?

[Ashley Hess]

I love your accent. She said, the uk. And I'm like, no, bitch.

[Raina Greenberg]

Like, the UK thought it was Australian.

[Ashley Hess]

Australia, New Zealand.

[Raina Greenberg]

Because I feel like when people are learning that accent, they can oscillate between the two.

[Ashley Hess]

And she had an answer. Locked and loaded. That sounded so fake. Like, Alex, she said this Village. Something, something. Like she had an answer. Here's the thing.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Village.

[Ashley Hess]

I'm not like a small town two hours south of London. Something. Here's the thing. We're not criticizing. We think this is a brilliant way to method act.

[Raina Greenberg]

Method act.

[Ashley Hess]

To practice. Totally. Like, I love. I live for this shit, and only in la. And when we cracked this code at dinner, we were so excited to, like, understand what was happening. And then it happened to me again and go off Queens.

[Raina Greenberg]

No, I love it. You. I mean, if you're at work, double down on the work.

[Ashley Hess]

I just think it's like, if you're trying to work something out and you work in the restaurant industry or in customer service, work it out.

[Raina Greenberg]

You know what it reminds me of is comedians we know that have done, like, the New York City bus tours that they, like, host the New York.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah.

[Raina Greenberg]

Shane Gillis used to do this. It was either Tim Dillon or Shane

[Ashley Hess]

Gillis that used to, like, do this.

[Raina Greenberg]

And anytime you take one of those boat tours, like the Chicago architecture tour, also Seattle, it's comedians working out, big improv.

[Ashley Hess]

Especially in Chicago. It's like second sixth city people.

[Raina Greenberg]

So funny.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah. I know a comedian named Tom in New York. He's been a New York tour guide forever. So, yeah, he can work his jokes out with this. Strangers, tourists. So anyway, I had to. I'm so excited to tell you it's happening again.

[Raina Greenberg]

Okay, well, I hope it keeps happening while we still live here. Okay, let's. Thank Our partners. Nice of me to tell you. Thank you to Shopify. See how easy it is to start your own business today at shopify.com GGE and Rocket Money. Reach your financial goals faster at rocketmoney.com

[Ashley Hess]

GGE and thank you to Nutrafol. Get $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping at nutrafol.com with code GGE10.

[Raina Greenberg]

So the reason why I'm not coming back to LA this week is because I had to be on the east coast for shows. I have two shows in Philly Wednesday night, two shows in D.C. thursday night. And, like, these are our favorite cities to perform in. We just, like, love them so much. But Philly, one of the strippers that we always hire messaged me and said, for our girls gotta eat show and said, can I come to the show? Do you have extra tickets? And I was like, yeah, I'd love to have you. And I confirmed to them this morning. He was like, all the guys want to come. Can I give them tick? Can I let them.

[Ashley Hess]

The whole squad?

[Raina Greenberg]

And I was like, invite all of them. So the 9:45 show, which I actually. It's the only one I have tickets left for. I think the strippers are gonna be

[Ashley Hess]

there, make them work.

[Raina Greenberg]

And I was like, should I incorporate them into the show? Yeah, the second show on a Wednesday night. I think people need like a pick me up.

[Ashley Hess]

So Leon, who we love, he did come to my. He's so supportive.

[Raina Greenberg]

I know he did.

[Ashley Hess]

He came to my show on my tour last year and I didn't make him work. But when he came. But when he came in 2022 to the camel to. And I was at the punchline in Philly, I like, just called him out to acknowledge him and then was like, I don't know, like, let's play pony. And he started. That show was chaotic. My parents made out on stage. It was like a whole thing.

[Raina Greenberg]

That's crazy. Your dad. Your dad loves to just get up

[Ashley Hess]

there, do something crazy, like let Lee on stage. But, yeah, so you could have them. You could do it.

[Raina Greenberg]

Although I think your cousin Lindsey and Buck are kind of coming the first show.

[Ashley Hess]

Are you so sad?

[Raina Greenberg]

She's cuff.

[Ashley Hess]

I'm jet lag.

[Raina Greenberg]

I'm too tired.

[Ashley Hess]

I'm too tired. No, I really do feel bad, so I really. I swear I'm not coming, you guys.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

No.

[Raina Greenberg]

This is actually the first show. She's sitting out of the tour. Billy, it's the first one you're not coming to.

[Ashley Hess]

I know. I mean, we get back from this trip. We will have just gotten back. And listen, if you guys are like, that's such a short trip to go to Asia. Yes, I know. Please leave me alone and I will discuss it next week with my husband. But I really just. It was. But it will be so hard to make it work. And I'm so sad.

[Raina Greenberg]

Try to be happy that it happened. I guess.

[Ashley Hess]

I'm not sad.

[Raina Greenberg]

No, I know.

[Ashley Hess]

I'm happy for you.

[Raina Greenberg]

We were in the car and I had this epiphany. I was like, oh, we're just on tour together.

[Ashley Hess]

I love it.

[Raina Greenberg]

I love it.

[Ashley Hess]

It's so fun.

[Raina Greenberg]

So if you guys want tickets to that raina greenberg.com.

[Ashley Hess]

okay.

[Raina Greenberg]

And I. Okay, so I have to tell you the story. I mean, you and I have talked about paying on dates a lot, but girlfriend of ours told me this and I just sort of like wanted your take on it.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Yeah.

[Raina Greenberg]

Okay. So our good friend. Let me give you some details. She'd gone out of town on a work thing. She met this guy. They went out and she wasn't sure if it was a date or if it was just kind of like work related.

[Ashley Hess]

We've all been there.

[Hannah Anderson]

Yeah.

[Ashley Hess]

Dale Moss. That's some of the girls. Gotta eat. Lore is when I went out with Dale Moss in my backpack and didn't know I was a date.

[Raina Greenberg]

I mean, I just assume as a girl you can turn anything into a date. But, like, how many of us take your pussy out? I touch people a lot. Way more than you. People know that they're on a date with me. Yeah, no one's confused. I just start sucking their dick.

[Ashley Hess]

They're like, so is this a date? Is this a date?

[Raina Greenberg]

I look up, I'm like, yeah, kind of. Do you like me? That's what I do. What are we at work events? Okay, so she didn't work event. So yes, she's out of town. She goes out this guy. She wasn't positive it was a date. She said it was like, flirty, but whatever, they go home. So she's back in this city last week, and he messaged her and said, can I take you out on a date? Like, made it clear. And he was like, normally if I had had, like more of a heads up, I would have planned something more fun for us or cooked for you at home. But, like, I really do want to take you on a date.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Is that okay?

[Raina Greenberg]

And she says, yes, great.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

And.

[Raina Greenberg]

And they go out and they go to this restaurant. They have two entrees, two apps, no drinks, non expensive meal, that's what I'm saying to you.

[Ashley Hess]

Okay.

[Raina Greenberg]

And she's like, he's flirty the whole time. He was like, I was. He acknowledges he wasn't sure if the last time was a date either.

[Ashley Hess]

Oh, he.

[Raina Greenberg]

But he's like, I do.

[Ashley Hess]

I.

[Raina Greenberg]

Like, I want to make it clear.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I'm.

[Raina Greenberg]

I'm into you.

[Ashley Hess]

I like you.

[Raina Greenberg]

And he's like, great. Okay. So they're on this date and the bill comes, and she said that she superficially, like, kind of reaches for her purse, and he's like, yeah, I'll split it with you.

[Hannah Anderson]

No.

[Raina Greenberg]

And she was like, okay. And she pulls her card out and puts it in the thing. And the waiter comes over and is like, okay, so split it right down the middle. And this guy's like, yep, split it right down the middle. And these are two people, by the way, with money. They both have money. We're not talking about people in their early 20s that, like, it makes sense that you go out for an expensive.

[Ashley Hess]

He has a lot of money.

[Raina Greenberg]

He has a lot of money. He has money, too.

[Ashley Hess]

I mean. But just to be clear, this is

[Raina Greenberg]

not some, like, person that needs financial help on a date. That again, she wasn't drinking the house down or anything. She said she had no drinks. Two abs, two entrees.

[Ashley Hess]

It doesn't even fucking matter.

[Raina Greenberg]

Okay, yes, but what I'm saying to you is it wasn't a $300 date.

[Ashley Hess]

Exactly.

[Raina Greenberg]

It wasn't one person sober, and the other person has four drinks. Which I've been on dates like that. So afterwards he was like, I had such a great time and I wanna see you again. Please. Like, next time you're in town, let me know. Give me more. Likes her, is intentional about seeing her. Wants her to know this is the date. But she said with his whole chest. Cause I said to her, walk me through. Exactly. She's so generous. I can see her being like, no, I insist. And she was like, I wasn't.

[Ashley Hess]

Right. Because if you say, no, I insist, they should let you.

[Raina Greenberg]

I.

[Ashley Hess]

You know, then. But, ladies, why are we doing that? Actually, I want to share that other story after this. Go ahead, keep going.

[Raina Greenberg]

I'm just curious what you think about it. Like, this guy was really intentional. This is a date. I like you. I'm into you. He picked a cool place to take her to.

[Ashley Hess]

Like, isn't he British?

[Raina Greenberg]

Yeah, he's British.

[Ashley Hess]

Is it cultural? Are we, like, I have to know. I think that everyone is going into dating situations, especially men. If they're kind of supposed to like lead, ask you out, make the plan pay in the early stages, which we do think they should. They're basing however they're acting on past experiences. I don't know, is he running into a lot of independent women who insist on paying? And so has he been in awkward situations before where a woman does offer and then he battles them and it's wickets awkward. I don't want to defend it. What happened the first time with the bill? I cannot remember.

[Raina Greenberg]

She picked it up.

[Ashley Hess]

She picked up the bill the first

[Raina Greenberg]

time but she said she wasn't sure if it was a work thing, so she put on her work thing.

[Ashley Hess]

Okay, so let's just assume this is their first day, first date. He wants to make it clear he likes her, he's taking her to a place, they have a reasonably priced dinner. You just pay like, I'm sorry, there's a million reasons. I don't need to defend this. We say this all the time. But a woman, she's less safe going out to meet with a man she doesn't know. She's done her hair and makeup, she spent money, she picked out an outfit. Like it doesn't even need to be like this. It should just be chivalrous and just be like, you want to impress her, press her and turn her on. In the early days, if they were to date, she would pay for stuff, he would pay for stuff, they both make money, they would have a great life together. You know, that's how the relationship that I want to be in, that I am and we both be paying for stuff. But like those early days, like you what are you doing? You should know this turns women off.

[Raina Greenberg]

That's what I said or I said. Haven't we like kind of brow beaten men enough? Like there's so much information on the Internet now and tick tocks, just saying like date one, just pay. And if you have a relationship, you will both oscillate paying. I don't think anybody owes me money. If I'm never going to see somebody again, I am reaching for my card, I am insisting on putting it down. Nobody owes me money. But a first date, it's just chivalry. And again, this guy has plenty of money out. I haven't seen his bank account. But like comes from family money, has a good job, makes money.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah, and you know my stance. If we run around all night, I'll pick up the next round of drinks maybe, but I've done it before. But that first time. This is their first technical date. What are you doing?

[Raina Greenberg]

Splitting it.

[Ashley Hess]

I don't like to split the bill with my friends. I don't. If I go to especially a lunch, like, you know, Taylor and I, we go to Barry's, we go to lunch, someone will get it or whatever it is like you, you'll get it next time. Like when you and I go to dinner, when we're together, we usually put it on our card and then friends will venmo us. If it was really expensive like I get. Especially if you're younger and it really matters. I mean, I didn't used to be able to pick up the tab for people. But splitting the bill in general at this nice place in Miami, one of the best restaurants in Miami. Why are we even splitting? It's embarrassing.

[Raina Greenberg]

I curious, like, what that guy was trying to communicate to her because it certainly wasn't that he couldn't afford it. And I think men know that you want them to pick up the check on the first date. And he seemed like he liked her. So to me, I'm like, if everything else is good, if he seemed like intentional and nice and he was fun to hang out with, what is this person trying to communicate to you by allowing you to pay for this? That's all I have to ask myself is like, what was he thinking? Because men know that it turns us off.

[Ashley Hess]

Do they know that in London, Britain?

[Raina Greenberg]

Yeah. I think TikTok is rich Britain. I don't know.

[Ashley Hess]

Like, are there some slight cultural differences with, you know, a woman offers letter. That's why I'm not offering. I'm not doing the fake reach on a first date. Absolutely not.

[Raina Greenberg]

I mean, my feeling is if I reach for my. If I reach for my card and I split it with somebody on first date, we're just friends. That's what I'm communicating to you.

[Ashley Hess]

Yes. And if I insist on paying, I never want to see you again. Never.

[Raina Greenberg]

You're never touching me.

[Ashley Hess]

It's a bummer. It kind of takes the wind out of your sails. Does.

[Raina Greenberg]

Because again, what I would have to do since this person doesn't like me and wants me to know that.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah.

[Raina Greenberg]

Like when she said he looked at the waiter was like, yep, right down the middle. I was like, oh. I felt that in my body.

[Ashley Hess]

Oh, my gosh. We had a friend recently who, what was the story? Didn't she insist on that like, gluten free place? Like she took him to some, like it was like gluten free, but it was really bad.

[Raina Greenberg]

It was bad and it was gluten free.

[Ashley Hess]

I don't Know, it was the whole restaurant, gluten free. Whatever she took him to, it was bad.

[Raina Greenberg]

She did victim blame herself and she

[Ashley Hess]

insisted on paying, and he let her. And she thought it was a little bit of a red flag, but I'm like, I don't know, girl. You drugged me to that place and had a bad meal.

[Raina Greenberg]

You can pay.

[Ashley Hess]

There was some other layer of it, too. She asked us if it was a red flag that he let her. And when we got all of the information, we said no, which is rare.

[Raina Greenberg]

We blamed her.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah.

[Raina Greenberg]

See, we will blame women sometimes.

[Ashley Hess]

No. We were like, no. You were in your right to pay, and it's okay that he didn't.

[Raina Greenberg]

You ruined everybody's fun. You also didn't have sex with him after you.

[Ashley Hess]

There's also something else too, that whatever it was, all the details of the story, we were like, no. You know, sometimes it's okay.

[Raina Greenberg]

Yeah. When you ruin everybody's time.

[Ashley Hess]

So, yeah, I don't know.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

What.

[Ashley Hess]

Is she gonna go out with him again?

[Raina Greenberg]

I guess so.

[Ashley Hess]

Don't do the reach. See what happens.

[Raina Greenberg]

I said I haven't reached in years. No, I'm not doing that. I don't even pretend. If you get to date me, you are so lucky. I will take care of you forever. I have somebody staying with me right now. I said, I'm like the nicest match. There's food in the fridge for you. Help yourself. Make yourself at home. Here's where this, that, and the other thing. People are so lucky to just be in my airspace. Like, all you have to do is pay for a couple dates. I. I love to cook. I love to give blowjobs. I wish I would find somebody as obsessed with me as I am with me.

[Ashley Hess]

I mean, yeah, you're a great wife. You don't blow me, but, you know, I can vouch for all the other things. Okay, so it is funny, though, because, like, blow jobs, Shashank pays for, I mean, 90% of our meals out, and he always has, and I pay for other stuff, and we have a good thing going, you know? But I do sometimes like to treat him to dinner, like, if it's his birthday. You know, there's times when I'm like, it's my treat.

[Raina Greenberg]

I like the stuff you'll do anal on birthdays. And you're like, I will pay.

[Ashley Hess]

I'll pay for dinner. But whatever. There might be something, like, listen, I want to go to this place. I want to. You know, I do. I pay sometimes. And I always. I don't know.

[Raina Greenberg]

I Always feel a little weird.

[Ashley Hess]

Like, the server's like, oh, I see what's going. I feel. I just. I don't know, say I'm a fake feminist. Like, this is when I am old fashioned. Like, when I turn over my card, I'm like, ugh. They probably think that I'm like his sugar mama and I'm older and, like, all the things I don't know, I feel a little weird about. I don't like it. He doesn't like it either.

[Raina Greenberg]

He's got salt and pepper hair.

[Ashley Hess]

He really doesn't want me to pay, but sometimes I insist. And in those moments, I almost regret it.

[Raina Greenberg]

Yeah, because you're like, everyone here thinks you're a beta. The servers are all talking about you. You didn't even blink when I handed the card over.

[Ashley Hess]

You're like, no, no, no.

[Raina Greenberg]

I'm married. Server's like, I don't care.

[Ashley Hess]

So anyway, I mean, I don't. Whatever you think about this is just, like, an interesting thing. They should go out again, and she should not do the fake reach and see what happens. I agree. He has money. He wanted to take her out.

[Raina Greenberg]

Yeah, he reached out.

[Ashley Hess]

Ready for this? She spent money on this. She already spent her share.

[Raina Greenberg]

Also, she doesn't even live in that city. And I think that there's, like, a little bit more, like, I'm out of town. I'm staying in a hotel.

[Ashley Hess]

So true.

[Raina Greenberg]

Hotel. Then he said to her, oh, my

[Ashley Hess]

God, one more thing.

[Raina Greenberg]

He was like, when are you free next? You should come back down. She lives in a cold place. He lives in a warm place. And he was like, you should come back down soon. So she's got to fly back there. The way I would never reach for a card if I flew somewhere 100%

[Ashley Hess]

the cheapest guy I ever dated. I mean, there's a big backstory. And we dated in Atlanta, and then he moved to another city and we fired things back up. Whatever. I, like, thought he was the one that got away for a minute because I broke up with him the first time. So anyway, I go visit him. I'm, like, so excited. We've been sexting. He was, like, a plus sexter. Like, we had this whole thing. I was so excited fly to see him get there. And I had a friend with me, and we go to the bar, and he let me open my own tab. Insanity. I have flown here to see you. I mean, there was so many other cheap things about him. It was, like, shocking. It was such a bummer. But I have flown here on an airplane.

[Raina Greenberg]

That's insane.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

That's.

[Ashley Hess]

You should pick up the tab for me and my friend right now. You also want to impress her. Like we were in like a dive bar.

[Raina Greenberg]

Yeah, turn me on, please. Act like a gentleman. By the way, do you remember all three of these are the same city. Okay, so years ago on like Valentine's Day, I think Valentine's Day, 2021, we were all together in this city and my one friend was supposed to go down there with her boyfriend. He canceled last minute. So she flew down and took the trip with us.

[Ashley Hess]

Yes.

[Raina Greenberg]

And it was. Oh my God, it was the three of us and another girlfriend. So four girls. He does finally fly down, we're all getting drinks. The bill comes for a couple drinks and he asks the server to split it up among the checks. And I was like, you motherfucker, I gave your girlfriend a hotel room to stay in after you canceled on her. You're not going to pick up our drinks. Okay.

[Ashley Hess]

Actually this is an interesting conversation. I saw this, I think on TikTok and it was this, the sentiment that if a man is out with his girlfriend, wife, fiance, and there's a tab that he should pick it up for everybody. And I don't know if I agree with that. And actually I thought the comments, I mean, I'm sure there's thousands of comments. So I'm sure there was a mixed bag. But a lot of people were like, yeah, if they're the someone's man's at the table, he's picking up the tab for everybody. And I was like, no, around the drinks. Yes, like everybody's dinner. I don't really think my man needs to be on the hook for all my friends dinners.

[Raina Greenberg]

Oh no, I just mean like a cup. Also, that was a unique situation. I'd paid for his girlfriend.

[Ashley Hess]

No. But I thought about this and I was like, that's interesting. I'm surprised. A lot of the comments are kind of this, like, you better pay for me and my friend's energy. Like, yes, that round of drinks, you look good. And Shashank always wants to do that. But we go to dinner, maybe there's. It somehow is like three or four girls and him. I don't expect him to grab that tab. And I actually haven't really experienced that too many times.

[Raina Greenberg]

That's so I, I'm always, I'm always third wheeling as somebody who's always third wheeling when I have gone out with my friends. So like I went out with two friends to Beethoven market recently. Like she and I Had been together all day. She had dinner plans with him. He invited me to come with them. We sat at the bar. We didn't order that much food, and I had one drink, and he picked up the tab and was like, you don't have to pay me back. I'm not gonna make you.

[Ashley Hess]

Vengeance also got one person.

[Raina Greenberg]

That's different.

[Ashley Hess]

The first time the three of us went out, me and Shashank went to Oah. He insisted on paying for you. Like, he loves to pay for you, Whatever. But it's like a group. I'm like, eh, they're good.

[Raina Greenberg]

No, that's different. And also, it's like, are these things can be reciprocated? Like this particular couple. He had been to my place for parties. I've hosted him lots of times. Him picking up 60 bucks for me, fine.

[Ashley Hess]

But yes, when that guy came down and there was a few. We had just had one drink each and he insisted on splitting it up. It was so awkward. And yes, like you'd said, like, he had kind of fudge his girlfriend up with her travel plans and you gave her a place to stay. Like, of course he wasn't clocking that insane.

[Raina Greenberg]

Okay. You know, men should just know how horny it makes you when you do stuff like that. That's the thing.

[Ashley Hess]

Okay.

[Raina Greenberg]

Do you remember when we were in Vegas? That guy showed up and that was insane. I think we bankrupted him. He showed up, he picked up the tab for five of us to have dinner at Motherwolf Vegas. So hot. I think that was all the money he had in the world.

[Ashley Hess]

I think he had just come into some money and thank God for. For that. No, it was crazy. And he didn't eat much. Like, he showed up late to the dinner.

[Raina Greenberg]

Yeah. We had already actually, like, made decisions on the whole bill and everything. He swooped in in pain.

[Ashley Hess]

Listen, it is hot and I recommend it.

[Raina Greenberg]

That guy. Later on when we were having sex, I threw up while we were having sex. And I let him finish because I was like, you deserve this.

[Hannah Anderson]

He.

[Ashley Hess]

He like, yes. Came in hot in a suit, picked up the tab in an expensive restaurant in Vegas. We had been drinking and eating. We'd ordered the whole menu for five girls. And he was like, I got it. I was like, well, I'll suck your dick. Everybody was, he's in prison now.

[Raina Greenberg]

I do think he might be in prison.

[Ashley Hess]

So he's got all this money. Well, wait, I saw Elizabeth Holmes tweeted from prison. What is going on in these prisons? Like, social media?

[Raina Greenberg]

Yeah. No, Joe. Exotic From Tiger King. The Tiger King is always tweeting and on Facebook and stuff. You do have access to social media from prison?

[Ashley Hess]

This is news to me.

[Raina Greenberg]

Oh, so I knew this because this guy who I dated in high school, who was supposed to be, like, a professional major league baseball player, but instead he became a drug dealer and went to prison. He's so hot.

[Ashley Hess]

Smasher. Pass.

[Raina Greenberg]

Smash, then pass. Yeah, he posts photos from jail, like, with him and all of his friends in jail.

[Ashley Hess]

Can we just deep dive on this in the snack? I need more information on social media privileges in jail.

[Raina Greenberg]

Who took photos of you in your prison outfits with all your friends? Like, how did you get the photos?

[Ashley Hess]

Maybe prison isn't so bad. Okay, so I have one thing to share. Rain already knows this, but we're going to recap it for you guys. Something happened last weekend in my relationship, so that hadn't happened yet. And this was that I did fall fart in front of my husband, audibly. And we are married now. We've been together coming up on three years total. And so I went this long. The first time I heard him fart, but I didn't see it was when he left the hotel room and he went to the hallway and he cracked the door. And I heard it down the hallway over Thanksgiving in Boston. And the situation was that we were at the house. We were watching love story on JFK Jr. And Carolyn Bissette. And the volume was up, you know, it wasn't paused. And I went to the kitchen, I think, to get a drink or whatever. And I did know I had to fart. I was feeling a little gassy. I did know what I was doing, but I thought it was going to be silent and just air. And my body betrayed me. And it came out so loud again. The TV was on. It was over the tv. He could hear it all the way from the kitchen to the couch. And I just crumpled onto the counter. I couldn't believe it. I was like, laugh. Crying. I was like, I can't believe it's happening. He, like, perked up. I was like, he didn't hear that. It's all the way across the room. The TV's on. No, it's like he had a sixth sense for it. And he's dying laughing. He's like, oh, my God. He starts like, oh, my God, Azul. Did you hear that? He's talking to Azul. And then within 30 seconds, is voice noting Reina.

[Raina Greenberg]

I have never been more honored in my. I actually forgot how embarrassing that was because I was Just so honored. He was like, I gotta loop Reyna.

[Ashley Hess]

Does anyone else have this trio of a marriage? Like, it's. This is crazy.

[Raina Greenberg]

Like, I so honored.

[Ashley Hess]

He picked up his phone. I'm like, what's he doing?

[Raina Greenberg]

He's not his sister. Not a guy friend.

[Ashley Hess]

He's in the shocky tonk chat. I gotta tell Raina.

[Raina Greenberg]

He's like, we gotta get this on a girl's gotta eat episode. I gotta talk about this now.

[Ashley Hess]

Oh, my God. So, I mean, it was bound to happen.

[Raina Greenberg]

I'm curious if you guys leave a comment. How long you guys waited to fart in front of your partners? Like, is it forever? Are you all just walking around tummy aches?

[Ashley Hess]

I would have waited forever.

[Raina Greenberg]

I would have waited. I mean, I. The amount of stomach aches I have when I'm in a relationship, because I don't. I never realized how much I fart until I'm in a relationship, and then I'm like, oh, my God. It is constant.

[Ashley Hess]

And plenty of couples fart in front of each other all the time. And if that's what they got going on, we don't judge. That's just not the relationship that I'm in or I want to be in. I want to just kind of not have that cross a boundary. And we know what we do in the bathroom, and we are open about, like, oh, you know, like, fart walks. Fart walks. And just. I got to go upstairs. You know, he has his bathroom. He would never. He doesn't even use our bathroom in the primary bedroom at all. That's mine. He has his own.

[Raina Greenberg]

When he pees, like, in the middle

[Ashley Hess]

of the night, he'll pee in there. He's. He's never pooped in there.

[Raina Greenberg]

His butts never touched the seat.

[Ashley Hess]

Never. Yes, he has his own.

[Raina Greenberg]

You know, I don't use my guest bathroom. Like, if other people's butts have touched a seat, I only go upstairs to

[Ashley Hess]

go to the bathroom. It's like, Beyonce, she doesn't like to sit on toilet seats that other people sit on. And I get it.

[Raina Greenberg]

She bring her own toilets.

[Ashley Hess]

I heard she brings her own toilets. I don't think she does. I heard she brought her out something. This could be a. I actually think this is probably a rumor of someone trying to say she's such a diva. But if I'm Beyonce, I'm not sitting my ass down on a toilet seat that someone just sat on.

[Raina Greenberg]

This is not diva behavior to me.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

This is.

[Raina Greenberg]

I've been working for 25 years. I made all the money in the world. And I'm gonna accommodate myself as much as I need to.

[Ashley Hess]

It's actually even crazy to picture Beyonce going to the bathroom. Like, I can't even, like, I just picture on a. On a literal throne. Like, I can't picture her like, taking a shit.

[Raina Greenberg]

It's crazy that this is like the great unifier. Like, Kim Kardashian takes his shit.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah, I can picture that because she's

[Raina Greenberg]

such a big dumpster.

[Ashley Hess]

Just like, Beyonce's different. So that happened. We crossed that boundary. And it's so funny because I was joking. I was like, you look at me differently now, don't you? And like, the next day. So this was a Saturday. The next day, Sunday, I was like, we haven't even had sex since it happened. It was one day. You laughed so hard.

[Raina Greenberg]

You were like, are you not attracted to me anymore?

[Ashley Hess]

Be honest. He's like, we had sex literally yesterday. I'm like, yeah, but not since. Not since it happened.

[Raina Greenberg]

That is so funny. Well, you guys let us know in the comments how long you waited.

[Ashley Hess]

I'm very curious, but it's like I wasn't like, I'm going to do this now. This snuck. Oh, no, no.

[Raina Greenberg]

I mean the way that I would be oscillating between just like humiliation and laughter.

[Ashley Hess]

Yes, that's what it was. I was like hunched over the counter, like silent cry, laughing, tears streaming on my face.

[Raina Greenberg]

Okay. I also to celebrate that I walked into the house the next day and I farted so loud. To celebrate just being alone. I voice noted you guys to tell you so lucky.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah, he leaves for work. I usually roll around in the be another like 30 minutes to an hour before I get up and far. Yeah. Okay, let's talk about our partners and then we will get into it with our guest today. We're so excited.

[Raina Greenberg]

Okay. If one of your goals this year was to get a hold of your finances and just kind of have like a better picture and understanding of what you make and what you spend, I have the perfect tool for you. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. So the interface is really easy to use. There's tons of different tools that can help consolidate your checking, savings and loans, investments into one single dashboard. You receive real time alerts from large transactions, upcoming bills, refunds, low balances. I mean, do you guys hear what I'm saying? Is like a full picture of what you are spending so you can set Budgets and goals. Get personal insights and regular reports. All of us have like, subscriptions we don't even know about. I have tons of them. And they're going to help you find and cancel the unwanted subscriptions. I can't even tell you how many times I've opened up my bank account and just saw like $4, $5, $6 or stuff that I had no idea I was paying for. Just like all kinds of stuff. So it's going to help you, like, reveal spending patterns and add some context to it. And if you have anything coming up, maybe you want to, like, plan for a vacation, summer travel, maybe you want to move or upgrade your furniture in your apartment. Whatever it is you want to save money for, this is a great way to do it. I think people are always looking for a real actionable tool to track their spending. So rocket money is the way to do that. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at Rocket Money.com/GGE. That's Rocket Money.comGGE Rocket Money.comGGE okay.

[Ashley Hess]

And if you are dealing with any sort of hair issue, whether it's thinning, excessive shedding, or your postpartum, really anything that you feel like your hair is not what it used to be or what you want it to be, Nutrafol is the answer. We were just on Jackie Schimmel's podcast Bible talking about this, her four and a half hairs. And she takes Nutrafol. We take Neutrophil. I've been taking it for years. I really rely on it. I take the women's formula for capsules daily. And this really is the best out there. I mean, there are so many different products, quote, unquote, miracle products that you're probably being sold and advertised. And this is actually the one that works when it comes to your hair. Nutrafol is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement. And it's the number one hair growth supplement brand personally used by dermatologists, so used by the people that really know what's up. So it is not a one size fits all approach. There are multiple formulas for men and women tailored to different life stages like postpartum or menopause and lifestyle factors such as plant based diet. So you get support that's actually right for you. And I mean, I can't imagine my life without it. I've been in this like hair journey. I'm going to like talk more about it because I just feel like I was having a meltdown at the beginning of the year and I feel like I figured out a lot of the factors but Nutrival has always been there and that's when I feel like my hair is like growing and strong and my nails are so long and strong they're like insane. My nails are like the heart is hard as nails. So really adding it to your daily routine is easy. You can order online, no prescription needed and with the Nutri full subscription you can save up to 20% and get added perks to support your hair health journey. So we can't recommend this enough. Again, any hair issues, this is where I am directing you personally have used it for years, have it in my pillbox marked by the day so I never skip a day. Take it with me when I travel. It's going to be come with me to Singapore or it will have just and so we can't recommend enough. You can let your hair be one less thing to worry about. See visibly thicker, stronger, faster growing hair in three to six months with Nutrafol For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering our listeners $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping when you visit NutraFool.com and enter promo code GGE10. That's NutraFool.com spelled N U T R A F-O L.com promo code GGE10.

[Raina Greenberg]

Okay, and what is one thing you could put into place this month that would make the rest of 2026 easier for your business? So as spring is approaching, if you want to do spring drops for your business, level up your marketing, tighten operation. Shopify helps you go from idea to execution to growth without losing your speed. So Shopify is the best place to start and grow business just like ours. Ashley and I have used it exclusively for all of our girls. Got to eat merch and everything we do with vibes only since the beginning, it has truly helped us launch and grow the business. So Ashley and I know every single thing we're selling at all times. We can check our phones. The reporting is unbelievable. Attracting every product tracks inventory. We can initiate sales right from our phone, discount codes, everything. We have tons of users that can log in and manage the business with us. There are tons of ways on there. If you're like, I don't, I don't even know how to build a website and do this. They have all kinds of AI tools to help you with descriptions with building the website. If you need to write product description, Shopify can help you. If your photos look a little janky, Shopify will help you make make it look like a million bucks. It doesn't need to be perfect. And I think that truly this is what stops most people is thinking, like, I don't know how to use these tools, but it couldn't be easier. There's tons of plugins. It makes payments really easy as well. We just love Shopify. So if you're hungry for a chance to start or grow your own business, it's time to take your ideas and head over to Shopify today. Go to shopify.com GGE to get started today and we promise you'll be so happy you did.

[Ashley Hess]

Okay. Now let's get into it.

[Raina Greenberg]

Okay, guys. We are really excited to welcome our guests today. They are the co hosts of the Dating Detectives podcast. They share gripping stories of scammers and con artists starting vulnerable singles, as well as these horror stories of relationships of all kinds. Please welcome to the show Private Investigator mackenzie Faultz and her co host, writer, comedian, all around. Just great girl. I mean, I just want to hype her too. Hannah Anderson. Welcome to the show, guys.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Thank you for having me.

[Hannah Anderson]

I'm an armchair sleuth.

[Ashley Hess]

Aren't we all? Yeah, exactly.

[Hannah Anderson]

Exactly.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah.

[Raina Greenberg]

I think all women are detectives 100%.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I found a way to get paid for it.

[Ashley Hess]

You are living my dream. So let's hear a little bit about you each personally and also how you came together and started this podcast. Okay. We love the ide.

[Hannah Anderson]

Yay.

[Ashley Hess]

So we.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I actually got started as a private investigator because I was in college getting my criminal justice degree. I wanted to be on the SWAT team. My college professor said, you can't have your nails done. And I said, fine, I'll do my own thing and be a private dick. And because I was embarrassed and I was in a class of other 20 year olds and when you say the word dick, they laugh. And it was fine.

[Ashley Hess]

Oh, you were doing a bit kind

[Mackenzie Faultz]

of, I guess, like, I was like, I'm gonna be funny. And he said, a private investigator, huh? You'll never make it in that industry because you're a girl and that's a man's industry. And I said, I didn't watch.

[Ashley Hess]

So then I went home, googled it.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I said, can you be a private investigator? How do I do that? And I went on the Google machine, told me all the answers. It said, do this, follow this step. Get your background check, go to the FBI, get your fingerprint, all the things. So I did all the things and before you know it, they sent me a license in the mail. And I said, I'll be darn. That's how it Got started.

[Ashley Hess]

Wait, I'm doing this?

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I never had a dream of being a private investigator. Cause I was like, no, but how do you do. Like, that's not real. Sure enough, it's real. And sure enough, I did it because he told me I couldn't.

[Hannah Anderson]

And wouldn't you tell her your secrets? Like, if she came to your dorm, was like, oh, my God, I thought this was the. I was trying to go to the house next door. Is your neighbor home? I'm so sorry. I'm just. You'd be like, come on in. Like, I can't imagine a PI not being a bubbly girl.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

It's called social engineering. And he. My college professor said, you'll never make it as a girl. And so I've always had this, like, lack of belief in my job.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Because I was like, well, I shouldn't be here anyways. He said, I shouldn't. But I get information so easily because

[Raina Greenberg]

I can say that.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Imagine, like, a dude that's, like, ex military, ex FBI. He's got, like, a bald head and,

[Raina Greenberg]

like, flake tattooed on his leather jacket. Like, I'm turned on by this guy. Are you just my exact type? She's like, imagine this loser. I'm like, I am imagining it.

[Ashley Hess]

But you're so right. Like, women want to open up to women. And men want to open up to women, too, because they need a therapist.

[Hannah Anderson]

They're like, oh, I want to flirt with you.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Men want to give me information because they want to flirt with me. Women give me information because now I'm a girl's guy.

[Ashley Hess]

They feel safe.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

They feel safe, and so I get better information. That's why they call me. If there's a man on a case, he'll call me and say, hey, I need a girl. I hate to say this, but I need a female. And I'll go do his case and get information. I can find people that don't want to be found because they tell me everything.

[Ashley Hess]

We're also just, like, wired better for this. Like, it's innate.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Yes.

[Hannah Anderson]

I mean, we have to be.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah.

[Hannah Anderson]

True survival.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

True women do better research than the FBI already.

[Hannah Anderson]

Yeah.

[Raina Greenberg]

And, like, honestly, I mean, we are bred from, like, little girls to be safer in the world and to question things and to, like, trust your information.

[Ashley Hess]

You're right.

[Raina Greenberg]

And we grow up hopefully being like this.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Also is that as a private investigator, the more questions you ask, the more questions you have. Like, the more. The more answers you get. You just have more. More questions for everybody. And so you always have more questions. To ask. And if you can have enough moxie to ask those questions, you're going to get the answers. People are just afraid to ask the questions because they're afraid of looking stupid.

[Raina Greenberg]

Okay.

[Ashley Hess]

Okay. But when you.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

When that's your job, when this is paying your bills, I'll ask the questions. Pay me my money.

[Ashley Hess]

There are so many stories I feel like, especially ones that have been made into movies or television, that, like this case that no man could solve. The woman comes in and solves it. Yes. And it's like the hero.

[Raina Greenberg]

Yeah, yeah.

[Hannah Anderson]

I'm thinking of mayor of Easttown. That feels like it. But maybe there's something else. With Kate Winslet, I was kind of like a woman detective on the case. I can't do the accent.

[Ashley Hess]

And now they're doing a lot of

[Mackenzie Faultz]

female led roles because, like. And obviously this was four score and seven years ago that this professor told me, like, this was back in the day when we're getting out of that, like, sexist mentality. But still it happened, and now we see that. Yes. Huh? Like, you know what I mean?

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah. Okay. So, Hannah, let's hear about your backstory.

[Hannah Anderson]

Well, you know, you guys came together. I'm the guy who's seen some shit, and I'm a single girl who's trying really hard not to. Like, I just want to learn as I can from this show. But, yeah, I was. I think I was just complaining in stand up about my dating life on the Internet. And our producer, Molly, who I was telling you before her friend dated a guy who was sketchy, he was not on the Internet because he claimed he coded himself off the Internet, which I guess, you know, men can do that, apparently. And Molly was like, ask him why he's not on the Internet. And so her friend did, and then he left the state and blocked and deleted all their messages and was like, sorry, I have to ghost you now, because they were onto him. So you never really got to the bottom of that. Molly's over there. She thinks he's a jugular. But that was the idea for, like, there are more stories like this where it's not quite catfishing. We call it dog fishing.

[Raina Greenberg]

Okay.

[Hannah Anderson]

Where someone is who they say they are. Like, you look like yourself and you are yourself, but you're using your own

[Mackenzie Faultz]

pictures, but you're not, but you have a secret.

[Ashley Hess]

Okay, I like this. A little bit of an insult to dog, but we'll take it. I like the term Azul.

[Hannah Anderson]

Cats had to take it for.

[Ashley Hess]

You know, how they.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

You know how a lot of women will say, men are dogs.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

And so it's like, that's kind of. And it was like, I swear.

[Ashley Hess]

No, I believe you.

[Hannah Anderson]

And fish people, nothing against them either.

[Raina Greenberg]

But I know what you're saying. It's not like criminal what they're doing.

[Ashley Hess]

It's just bad.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

A lot of times it is criminal.

[Raina Greenberg]

The secret family thing is so crazy to me. So, like, one of the questions I wrote down for you guys is like, how easy or harder has it gotten in 2026 to, like, find out information about people on the Internet or hide stuff and like, secret family seems pretty hard to, like, feel today, don't you think?

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Well, especially today with the Internet. But that's why with the whole thing about, oh, they're not online. Some people aren't online because they know that if they are online, they're easily findable. But then other people are not online because they know how crazy online can be. So it's like, we, Hannah and I, I think, look at it as a red flag, why aren't you online in today's day and age?

[Hannah Anderson]

But we get pushback and I do think it's generational or, I don't know, like everybody.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Some people are like, not everybody wants to be online.

[Hannah Anderson]

Right. But in la, everybody does. So I don't know anyone who' I don't want a public facing life, but I get that some people do. It's hard for me, though. I'm like, if I can't find a friend of a friend.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Right.

[Hannah Anderson]

I don't even want to go on a date with you.

[Raina Greenberg]

But I think that's fair. I guess you're right. It doesn't mean that you're necessarily like second family, but it's totally fair to say, like, that makes me feel unsafe.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

And if you're someone who says, I choose not to be online, it also opens doors for them to do things a little secretly because they're not easily put on. It's like, oh, he's just not. He lives a private life or whatever. And not only he, it's she too. But we get a lot of females that. Come on. I think a lot of men just aren't comfortable sharing stories like that because they're supposed to be so masculine.

[Hannah Anderson]

I also think women don't get caught as much.

[Ashley Hess]

It's true 100%.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I think they're doing it, especially in surveillance on cheating cases. That's not true.

[Hannah Anderson]

Well, because you get on the case and catch them, but the men can't catch them.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah, it's that's true.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Because guys are so. Guys are wired differently. They're like, oh, that didn't happen. All right, cool. Me, I'm a female and I have adhd.

[Ashley Hess]

Like, there's more to it as far

[Hannah Anderson]

as like how easy it's getting to hide things versus hard. Like, obviously I'm terrified of AI and like, things like that. We just had an episode about. The guest was talking about her grandpa who just like disappeared in the 50s. And then through genetic like 23andMe, they were able to kind of find out that he didn't get murdered or whatever. Like he just moved to Florida and started another life. And she found a bunch of half grand, like cousins. Yeah, yeah. So we were just talking so much about how back then it's like you could just disappear and you could just like change your identity. It was very easy.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

And no one had the benefit of the Internet, right. To find you.

[Hannah Anderson]

But now, I mean, if you look, you'll find something. If you're going on dates and not googling before, it's just research. You're not crazy.

[Raina Greenberg]

So do you tell people if somebody isn't Googleable, I might not go.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I would never trust anybody that I can't find on the Google machine.

[Ashley Hess]

I also want to clarify, when you guys say online, like do you just mean social media or you mean like you can't find them? Because I don't, I understand guys that don't want to do social media.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Like, yeah, 100%.

[Ashley Hess]

I also, it's, it's interesting because I feel like the guys that say they don't usually there's. You can sometimes put something together. Like you don't have to be super active. But right when you guys mean online, do you mean like there's no LinkedIn? There's like literally no Internet footprint.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Everyone is getting mail somewhere, whether it's from a collections agency or a telemarket, like whatever, advertisements, whatever. Someone is getting mail somewhere. Your name is going to be attached to some address somewhere, somewhere in the world. And if I can't find that your name is not real, you don't exist.

[Hannah Anderson]

Do you want to talk about tips for searching? Like running.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Don't stop on page one.

[Hannah Anderson]

Okay.

[Raina Greenberg]

Oh, okay.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Yeah. So I feel like when you're trying to find someone, you don't have to do a full blown background check on someone. Right. Because sometimes you're not going to find. It's like expensive. You have to know every county they've ever lived in, every state they've ever.

[Ashley Hess]

It's wild.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

It can get super expensive. But the Google machine, I'm telling you, is a big, big tool for you to use. So if you type in someone's name and you put it in quotes on the Google machine, it'll tell it only look for this combination in this order with a space in between of this person. So you type in the information that you know on the Google machine. Like you can type in Adam White in quotes or whoever. And then you can also put another word that says doctor in quotes. And so it's looking for those specific two words together in a search. And so you can find that. But if you don't find anything on page one, go to page two. It'll take you to page 67294 and you just keep going. You're gonna find something. And if you don't, that person does not exist.

[Ashley Hess]

That's not real.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

And so if it's not finding those together or it'll say, hey, we found Adam White, but we didn't find doctor. So now you know. Okay, there's no one by this name that's a doctor.

[Raina Greenberg]

Well, doctor's really interesting because that person would have had to go to a lot of schooling. So if there are and school records should be available. Correct. Like if you graduated from a university, that would be public knowledge.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

And if it's something that's not public, something like that where other people were grad, like you're not the only one who graduated. Someone in your graduating class has posted something about graduating that's gonna lead to something that has your name in it. So if you say, hey, I graduated from XYZ University, here's my graduating class and here's my. Whatever it's going to lead to you because you're part of it.

[Hannah Anderson]

Do we sound crazy?

[Raina Greenberg]

No, this is great.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

No, fascinating. And so that's a lot of how I find information is just not from what they post, but from what someone else has posted that links to them or even if they don't know the person they're part of.

[Hannah Anderson]

Tagged photos, guys.

[Raina Greenberg]

I mean Facebook. There's usually a Facebook tagged photos. Most my girlfriend's like, I can't tell how tall he is. So I'm like, go to the tag.

[Hannah Anderson]

I was thinking I have a. I have okay tagged photos. Compare next to friends. Speaking of school though, my go to is if they did a sport or something. You can find their, the alumni volleyball team or whatever that has their weight and their height and it's accurate and

[Mackenzie Faultz]

what position they play.

[Raina Greenberg]

I had a guy we're Just talking about this on our show. I had this guy who told me that he got hurt playing hockey for West Point. And I looked it up. I looked up West Point. He didn't play for West Point.

[Hannah Anderson]

Did you ever meet him?

[Raina Greenberg]

No, I met him. I was currently dating him and he had told me a bunch of things about his life. And a friend of his was like, this thing isn't true. Which meant that four other things weren't true. And I just looked it up and it just wasn't the case. And he was so stupid to tell me a university name.

[Ashley Hess]

Like, I could totally google that.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

And that's called dog fishing.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah.

[Hannah Anderson]

What happened when you confronted him?

[Raina Greenberg]

He freaked out. Of course he turned it around on me, but.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

You're crazy.

[Raina Greenberg]

You're crazy. And the reason I found this stuff out was a couple of his friends had told me, and he also was like, fuck them. And those girls are bitches. They're a liar. I mean, the anger was extreme and swift and it like scared me a little bit. And I mean, thankfully nothing bad happened to me, but he. The deflection was so, so intense and so swift.

[Hannah Anderson]

Do you know what Darvo stands for? No Deny attack, Reverse Victim and offender.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

We talk about that a lot on the dating detective.

[Raina Greenberg]

Why would I have, like, chills?

[Hannah Anderson]

That's what happens.

[Ashley Hess]

So this is their strategy. Deny, attack, reverse. Okay.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Yep. And so it's a big thing.

[Raina Greenberg]

So I also. If you went to West Point, I do think at the time you had to serve in the military after. And he told me that he had served in the military also. There was no records of this.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

So if someone's in the military, you're going to to find them. And that's just like you said, with something as simple as a phone number. We advertise also on the dating detectives with the like, we're like data brokers.

[Hannah Anderson]

This is how to find information. And also if you want to get yours off, use Delete me. It helps you get like.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

So there's programs that actually find data brokers where they collect public information. So even if you don't know specifically what county someone lives in, let's say you give me your phone and we're like, hey, you're a nice looking girl. I want to give you my phone number. Whatever. I can plug that phone number into Google and the data brokers collect all this information. So I can take that phone number, put it into Google and it'll connect me to whatever other data brokers have connected. So that's connected to an Address that you've registered with the phone company that's connected to all these. A ticket that you got in 2017 from running a red light or running a stop sign or whatever. All these things are going to be collected by these data brokers. And sometimes they'll charge you, like, a dollar or two to get information. You plug that phone number in, and it's going to give you a list of a zillion. But if you find. It'll show you a data broker that says, hey, I'll charge you a dollar. You find this, then you connect it to a name. Then it'll ask you, hey, you can pay another dollar to get more information.

[Ashley Hess]

Wow.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

It's. It's cheap enough where it's worth the worth. It is cheap. You don't have to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a background check. You just don't.

[Raina Greenberg]

But I want to rewind with something that you guys said and I like. So that got people to. Our audience is like, okay, this is a tell. So when somebody starts to flip out on you immediately because you figured out a lie, you're like, you are lying.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Okay, so I've been a PI for 20 years now. Okay, so you kind of. There's a vibe that you start to get. So what I've learned in my experience is that the greater the lie, the greater the defense. And so if it's a bit like, if your first date, you find out someone's married, you're like, what the hell? Like, why would you even bring me here? Like, why would you even try? Like this? You have the right to get mad, Whatever. And then. And they might be like, oh, crap. You know, but if you're years into a relationship and then you find they're married, like, they're gonna be even angrier because now they' they're losing the plot. So they're gonna get mad and they're gonna deflect.

[Hannah Anderson]

We've heard some crazy excuses. One guy was having an affair. I don't even. It's so bad. He was having an affair with his wife's mom.

[Raina Greenberg]

Oh, my God.

[Hannah Anderson]

And she found out and she confronted him. And his immediate. Like, his first thing was like, well, I. I just don't like how you load the dishwasher.

[Ashley Hess]

And what?

[Hannah Anderson]

Like, that was his first psycho.

[Raina Greenberg]

Who do you think taught her how to load that dishwasher?

[Mackenzie Faultz]

That's right.

[Raina Greenberg]

Exactly.

[Ashley Hess]

How does my mom do it?

[Raina Greenberg]

That's what we said.

[Hannah Anderson]

Isn't that crazy?

[Ashley Hess]

It's wild.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

But not everybody responds the same. And so Just like you watch a lot of True crime, and you see, oh, well, they called 911, but he wasn't breathing heavy enough to really show concern. And it's like, how can you really tell? So if you think, like, someone's gonna respond the way you would, that might not be true. And so we have to honor that, that not everybody's gonna respond. Some people respond with laughter. Some people respond with, like, fear and deflection. But I feel like that's where we say, trust your fem to.

[Hannah Anderson]

I do think deflection comes up a lot.

[Ashley Hess]

Deflection.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

It's manipulation. You're manipulating. You're making yourself the victim. It's Darvo. You're making yourself the victim so that you're not the victim.

[Ashley Hess]

Totally.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

And so that's. That's totally Darvo. Right.

[Hannah Anderson]

If you walk out feeling guilty after bringing valid concern to your partner, that's something to clock. Because it's like, wait, did I do something wrong? Like that?

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah. Okay, Mackenzie, what are you doing day to day? Mostly, like, what are people coming to you the most with? This is just me interviewing.

[Raina Greenberg]

You're like, how do you do it?

[Ashley Hess]

Find my new career. Actually, walk me through it.

[Raina Greenberg]

How do you make your coffee?

[Ashley Hess]

Are you hiring?

[Mackenzie Faultz]

So actually, I do a lot of insurance fraud. So, you know, people get into, like, a car accident. They're like, oh, I've hurt my neck so badly. And then they're like, I can't play racquetball anymore.

[Ashley Hess]

Wait, I'm obsessed. Okay, so you go spy on them and make sure they're at the gym.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Yeah.

[Raina Greenberg]

And I'm just gonna quit this podcast.

[Hannah Anderson]

Just do get your license before you start doing it, though.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Of course. Because, you know, how. Have you seen Warmer?

[Raina Greenberg]

No, she won't.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Do you have specialists here in California? They're in Florida. And it's like, been in a car accident. Call 1-800-SCREW-BODY, or whatever it's called. And then you call.

[Raina Greenberg]

It's a.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

It's an attorney. And they're like, you got an accident. Okay.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah. You want to put on a neck

[Mackenzie Faultz]

brace, make sure you're doing all the right things, talk to the doctor, and they're coaching you to make sure that you're appearing injured. So you're being coached by these attorneys, because now they're going to sue, get a whole bunch of money. So people are seeing dollar signs. They want money.

[Ashley Hess]

Okay.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

And so now you gotta. You gotta realize that this is affecting us as people who are required to have, like, let's say, car insurance.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah, of course.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Or like, employers who have workers comp insurance. And now they're defrauding these people. Right. So they're saying, I can't move my neck. And then you catch them playing racquetball, and you're sitting in your car at the racketball court, just videotaping the whole.

[Ashley Hess]

Do you roll up on people, like, playing sports?

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Yeah.

[Ashley Hess]

Yes.

[Hannah Anderson]

She followed someone through, like, a Bush Gardens.

[Ashley Hess]

This is my dream. Yeah.

[Hannah Anderson]

She had to go to Bush Gardens for work.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Well, this woman had planes.

[Ashley Hess]

I'm quitting today.

[Hannah Anderson]

I know.

[Raina Greenberg]

I'm way too lazy to do this.

[Hannah Anderson]

You can do both.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I have followed people into Disney, into Busch Gardens, and they say, I can't spend time with my child anymore. And they go. And you're, like, getting them. I'm videotaping them on a roller coaster,

[Ashley Hess]

their necks going like this.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Exactly. Y' all know how rough roller coasters are in the back. And then the day before, the day after, they'll show up with their neck raise and be like, I just can't move. And then they'll get in their car and, like, take it off.

[Ashley Hess]

Or getting in the car and taking it off. If I caught that. Oh, my God.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Like, wet so many times. And you never find the best information from the actual target. You find the best information from who the target is connected to. Just like looking online and trying to find someone.

[Raina Greenberg]

Wait, that's such a good point, though. If you're like, you're dating somebody, it's like, we'll see who's in their life. And ask those people, where's their mom?

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Where's their dad?

[Ashley Hess]

Where's their mom?

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Where's their family? And if they say, I have zero family whatsoever, then who are they friends with? Who do they work with? Who are their associates? That's why when you pull a background report or just a regular comprehensive report of this person, it'll show known associates. Who do they live next to, who's associated with them in the. In their hoa, at their current bingo home.

[Hannah Anderson]

Who lives at their home that they failed to mention?

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Yeah, who?

[Hannah Anderson]

That address. No, it's true.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Who else is getting tied to that address?

[Raina Greenberg]

That's so, like. Okay, let me ask you guys. What do you think are some, like, red flags or even, like, pink flags that you think people miss in dating? So, like, somebody has said this to you, and you have not taken just the necessary steps to look into this?

[Hannah Anderson]

I've definitely got some that I was thinking about.

[Ashley Hess]

No family and no friends. Yeah, no.

[Hannah Anderson]

No family, no friends. Definitely red flag. And, yeah, community in general. If they're trying to isolate you from your community, yeah, huge sign of abuse. Just like, that's my only advice for protecting yourself. My only true advice that I feel like, is foolproof is like, if you have people around you that you can go to and help you, that's gonna be your saving grace. When you get into tough stuff, because you're not, like, the smartest, people get betrayed totally and cheated on. Like, it's not about you being an

[Mackenzie Faultz]

idiot, but when people have the potential for love, it's exciting. And when you see someone, you're like, oh, I really like this guy, and he's so hot. And I just. You get into this mindset of, like, what the potential is, and you're kind of, like, blinded by this love fog, and then they're love bombing and they're telling you all the right things, and it's unmet needs, right? So you're single for a while or whatever, and it's like, oh, he touches me so nice. Or he looks. And so we let ourselves, I think, be blind to some things that may not be true. Cause we see all the good things and we're like, oh, maybe I can let that go.

[Raina Greenberg]

And also, you're like, I mean, is this a red flag? Is this a pink flag? I have to let people kind of be who they are. Like, I. There's probably red flags about me. That doesn't mean I'm a bad person.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

You know, for someone like me, this is probably because I've been a PI for so long, and I just don't trust anybody. But for me, it's like, I just don't trust you. Like, if you say, oh, I go to church every Sunday, I'm like, no, you don't. Come on, stop. And I want to see it. Like, I want to go through the. I want to see.

[Ashley Hess]

Have you voucher in the church.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Can anybody vouch for you? Who's your community? Has anybody tagged you in a podcast?

[Hannah Anderson]

You show up in the choir, right?

[Mackenzie Faultz]

And so that's no community.

[Raina Greenberg]

Feels like a huge one to me. Like, there's nobody to hold you accountable or vouch for this information.

[Hannah Anderson]

And can I say also, it's not. We're not talking about, like, people who are just like, I have no friends. Like, a lot of times it's somebody that's like, oh, I just moved to the city. I don't know anyone in this city.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Well, where did you come from?

[Raina Greenberg]

Oh, I didn't have any.

[Ashley Hess]

Do you guys watch Love is blind.

[Raina Greenberg]

Yeah.

[Ashley Hess]

So this story with Alex, who. Now it's a little bit dated, but he's just. The dots are not connecting. I mean, he's a pathological liar.

[Hannah Anderson]

Or words like, I don't live in one.

[Ashley Hess]

Soccer guy. Yeah, Yeah. I want to think, like, all women are intelligent enough to be like. Like, these dots are not connecting. Like, the timelines aren't matching up. And then you pull the thread a little bit, and then it all. None of it matches up.

[Raina Greenberg]

She kept saying, these timelines don't match up. And the guy that I told you guys about, the West Point guy, he had told me he lived in all these places, and I kept saying, these timelines sound really weird to me. They don't align with where you say you live.

[Hannah Anderson]

That's another good.

[Raina Greenberg]

So. So that's another one. Right? Like, timelines just seem like they don't.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

So that's called pattern connection. Also, it's very big with people with adhd, but also mostly with women where you can. Like, you'll hear something and it won't mean anything to you. You'll be like, oh, that's nothing in the moment, and I'm someone who. I'll forget everything until I hear something contradictory later. And then I'll be like, wait a minute. That ain't right. That don't matter. One of these things is not. And then. So then you're like, wait a minute. That doesn't go. And then now you've connected two dots. Two things is a pattern. Right. So then you're waiting for the third one. What's the other one that doesn't align? And the third one is either gonna connect with one or the other. And then you're going to start to see a pattern of, like, which one of these makes more. Which one is leading more towards one or the other. And women do that. And that's why women are more prone to be overthinking, because we connect patterns more where dudes are like, hey, man, like, with a. It's fine.

[Hannah Anderson]

Women do that. And then they talk themselves out of it.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I just can't even.

[Hannah Anderson]

We're crazy. Yeah, we're overthinking in a bad way.

[Raina Greenberg]

Well, I mean, we got. We asked our audience. We will get into them. But, like, so many for stories, it seemed a little crazy. Ghosting stories, catfishing stories. And so many of them said, like, this seemed weird, but I ignored it. This. And, like, a lot of them were like, we never stayed at his place. We stayed at hotels.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Oh, that's a good One, too. Okay, so I see what you're saying now. So, yes, you're not allowed in their community. Or they. They always want to go with your friends, but never want to invite you with theirs.

[Hannah Anderson]

Or something always comes up, even if they make plans for it. Like, there's always a flaky last minute.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Or my ex is crazy. Anytime they say my ex is crazy, it's, no, she's not. Like, there's a way to.

[Hannah Anderson]

You can have a crazy ex and talk about it and introduce it in a way that's not a red flag. Does that make sense?

[Raina Greenberg]

Sense, yeah. She is crazy. Is. I mean, that's always. We always. That's a red flag to me once. And he says, yeah, it's a more loaded thing to me. Give me a. Give me background. Explain to me.

[Hannah Anderson]

Right.

[Raina Greenberg]

Help me understand what happened.

[Hannah Anderson]

Communicate it. That's, like, respectful without being right.

[Ashley Hess]

And, I mean, we all have one kind of crazy ex. No, it's true.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

And that's why when I get a case, like a cheating case, where they say she's just crazy, I want to know more because I feel like most people, in my experience, especially with men, when they talk about her being crazy, they're ashamed of it. That's not something they want to share because they're like, she was crazy. And that embarrasses men because they're wired a little bit differently. They have a greater sense of pride. And so when he says she's crazy, she's crazy. It's like, if she really was crazy, most men, and obviously not for everybody, but most men would be more ashamed to talk about that and kind of

[Ashley Hess]

keep that to, oh, interesting.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Whereas if they say she's crazy, she's crazy, she's crazy. Now they're trying to give you a narrative that they want you to believe. That's such a. A good point. That really is. They want to make themselves be the better guy, be not the bad guy.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah, we. We had one person on this podcast that said every ex of his was a narcissist. And we're like, no, they weren't. Let's dive into that. And it was like, not a great guy, but, like, I love what you're saying of. It's like, deeper than that. Like, we kind of brush that off like, oh, my ex was crazy. But it's like, why are you sharing this? Like, a more stable, honest guy wouldn't say that.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Most men are ashamed if their ex is crazy because then they feel like they got duped. Men are usually wired to Feel more superior. Because that's just, it's just nature. That's what they're, you know, wired to feel. And so when they say my ex is crazy and they're willing to admit

[Ashley Hess]

that, it's like, it's the delivery. Like, it could be, it could be like, listen, I did date this crazy woman and she stole from me. She did this, she did that. But the delivery is not this. Like, can you believe? Like, I think you're so right.

[Raina Greenberg]

There's like a Texas undertone and there's no ownership. There's like, I didn't do anything here. She's just nuts because they want to

[Mackenzie Faultz]

look better for you. But if you talk to anybody who says, we, you know, oh, why aren't you with your ex anymore? I feel like maybe she had a, like they'll, they'll tone it down a little bit so that they don't look as stupid for not seeing the signs. And then most people will be more ashamed of that. And then they'll say, but I also kind of did. The people that are willing to admit what they did wrong, that's a sign of intelligence, emotional intelligence or otherwise. And it shows that they're, you know, they're willing to take accountability and that's a good thing. But people that are lying, they'll be like, no, it wasn't my fault.

[Raina Greenberg]

Well, I feel like that about cheating. I feel like I don't subscribe to once a cheater, always a cheater. Somebody says that to you, it's, you know, how do they speak about it, how do they explain the situation, their role in it, their different types of cheating, how they would change? Like, I, cheating's not great. Did, but did you have, was it one time you were drunk, you were in college, or was this a long time affair with their best friend?

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I completely agree. If it was something as bad as that, it's like people that are willing to admit that and say, hey, I did this really bad thing and I'm not happy about it, but I just want to share with you that this is my experience. And then it's up to you to decide whether you want to pursue that or not. But at the end of the day, I feel like that honesty, it just kind of, it creates a safer place in my opinion, to say, okay, this person makes mistakes, which we all do, and then we can look back and reflect on our own self that we've made mistakes and decide whether or not that's something you want to pursue.

[Raina Greenberg]

That's so true. Somebody's Willing to tell you is actually probably open to having the con. Oh, you don't agree? Okay, what, what's your thought?

[Hannah Anderson]

I don't disagree. This is not groundbreaking. But I do think it's very important to build ourselves up in our confidence, in our intuition, and really understand ourselves. Because I've also seen where someone shares that they cheated in the past or did something bad in the past. They want you because they want to see what you'll tolerate. So if they're like, oh, you know that I cheated, and you're like, okay, I understand.

[Ashley Hess]

It's a great call. You could be gauging the rants.

[Hannah Anderson]

I love that you're being honest with me. And then they do.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

But then if they have a history. But then I'm not saying that's gonna happen.

[Ashley Hess]

I love your take.

[Raina Greenberg]

And this is just something to think about.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

And if you think about that, if they'll do that one time, then they're gonna try it again. And the more they might, the more they start to tell you more things, then it's like, okay. And then when they, when the behavior starts aligning with something, then it's. Then you can start to piece those together.

[Hannah Anderson]

I think it's just where your intuition has to come into play. Like you, you'll thin at the end of the day.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah.

[Hannah Anderson]

We call them tuition.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah, I could talk about this forever. It's really, it's interesting. It's like when a guy, for example, shares this with you, what's going on in the back of his head?

[Hannah Anderson]

Yeah. What's the narrative?

[Ashley Hess]

Like, is she gonna. Is she okay with it? You knew I cheated. You knew I had it in me.

[Hannah Anderson]

You know, like the guys that are like, you don't want to get involved with me.

[Ashley Hess]

That's the biggest red flag.

[Hannah Anderson]

Bad guy.

[Raina Greenberg]

It's like.

[Hannah Anderson]

And then they do it and they tell you, no.

[Ashley Hess]

If a guy says that I don't deserve you or I'm like a bad guy, they're telling you to. To run. They're telling you. And you can only blame yourself where

[Mackenzie Faultz]

they're seeing if you'll tolerate it. And if you will, they're like, well, I told you the truth.

[Hannah Anderson]

You know, and then you feel guilty.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

But a lot of the times on the dating detectives, anyways, we talk a lot with people that have been in these long term relationships and ultimately get scammed after a period of time. And then they look back on those first dates and then they reflect on the cuz Hindsight's always 20 20, right. Then they look at oh my gosh. He said this to me and I thought it was weird, but I didn't.

[Raina Greenberg]

But so you're saying you. You hear it once, you don't clock it, you hear it a second time, then you start to clock it and

[Mackenzie Faultz]

then it's like once you get to know this person and then you start to see the kind of things that are. That are manipulative and that whatever he told you in the beginning is always in the back of your head, but you don't realize it until you piece. But then by this time you already love this person.

[Hannah Anderson]

Right.

[Ashley Hess]

I don't know. I am on high alert all the time.

[Hannah Anderson]

Yeah.

[Ashley Hess]

I just don't anything that seems sus. Like I just same because I just it. But I get it. I get when people really want love. And this is how catfished it all started. You know, people want to ignore all these things because they want to believe.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Yeah.

[Ashley Hess]

And there's like a sadness to that. And there's also a line. There's also a line where it's like you, you know, a few things not letting it bother you, but that when it goes on and on and on.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

But yeah.

[Ashley Hess]

I mean.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Yeah.

[Raina Greenberg]

Do you have people say to you. So like this reminds me of Dirty John, which is like my favorite podcast.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

We had Terra Newell on our podcast.

[Raina Greenberg]

Oh my God. So she's the daughter killed him, right?

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah. In self defense.

[Raina Greenberg]

But everybody in Connie Brayton. Is that Connie Britton? Yeah, we've seen her a lot on air.

[Ashley Hess]

We see her all the time.

[Raina Greenberg]

She's always on our Delta place.

[Ashley Hess]

I've seen her five times. No, she was a salty girl. She was at the Obama thing. We've seen her so many times.

[Raina Greenberg]

She's our number one slide. We see. And yeah, her and Adam Sandler.

[Ashley Hess]

I like her, but like I see

[Raina Greenberg]

him all the time.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Okay. Did this to me at the.

[Raina Greenberg]

That's so cool. Cool. So that is a true story. If you guys listen to the story. It's a podcast. It's great. But everybody in this woman's life, including her children, her mother hated this man after a while. And do you see people just ignoring the fact that everybody around them is like screaming at them like, this is a bad situation.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

We talk about that a lot on the Dating Detectives. We talk about how every. And people look back on it and they say, oh my gosh, they tried to tell me. But then we talk about like when the more you tell someone it's a bad guy run, it's a bad guy run, it's a bad guy run, the more they are like, no. And so it's like, people push back on it. They push back because it's in. It's, like, in nature. Like, you want to do the opposite.

[Hannah Anderson]

It also gives that partner ammunition to say they don't want what's best for you. They don't want you to be happy.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Right.

[Ashley Hess]

It's us against the world kind of thing.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Yeah.

[Hannah Anderson]

Like, so, I mean, and that's not

[Mackenzie Faultz]

to say they're trying to destroy us. They just.

[Ashley Hess]

Yes.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Yeah. They don't.

[Hannah Anderson]

It's a hard thing because we've all been there where we hate. Hate who someone's dating.

[Raina Greenberg]

We've all been there with a friend where we hate the partner and, like, the friendship ends.

[Hannah Anderson]

Yeah. And I try. My, like, tactic is, like, one conversation about it. Like, you can say, like, are you good? I'm just noticing these things.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Yes.

[Hannah Anderson]

It might not go well. They might be like, what are you talking about? Oh, my God, I love him. He's perfect. Stop. And then I think you do have to let them come to you, but you have to keep showing them that you're there. I literally just say the advice is, like, send them memes all the time. Like, just keep them in, letting them know thoughts and prayers.

[Raina Greenberg]

Like, just, like, let them know that they're not isolated because people like that seek to isolate.

[Hannah Anderson]

Or send them, like, a podcast that you listen to, like, or something like, passive aggressive. Just, like, make it very clear that you are the person.

[Ashley Hess]

Send them this episode.

[Hannah Anderson]

Send them this episode. We had.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Yeah, there was one episode that we had on the Dating Detectives that was. It was a woman that was being manipulated, and her friends were trying to tell her, and she. There was one friend who never said anything. They were just like, hey, I'm here for you. It seems like you could be going through a lot. I'm not really sure. You don't have to talk about it, but I'm here. And then ultimately, after a couple years, that was the friend that she went to whenever she knew she had to get out also.

[Hannah Anderson]

Okay. This was good, too.

[Ashley Hess]

I forgot you need that friend.

[Hannah Anderson]

She also did a thing that I have learned through this show. Like, when you're finding out that somebody's cheated on you or betrayed you, you kind of feel completely out of control because your life is like a lie,

[Mackenzie Faultz]

and you feel ashamed that that's happened.

[Hannah Anderson]

Yeah. And if your friend is like, you need to leave him. Like, that's not in your control. This friend, specifically, he was switching her birth control with drugs. It was a whole thing. Oh, my God. And this friend happened to be a pharmacist, but rather than being like, you're getting drugged, blah, blah, she was like, let's do a test on the birth control. Like, she, like, kind of gently guided her through. Like, are you comfortable doing that? Like, let her have the control through that process, if that makes sense. And I just feel like that's so much nicer for somebody who's lost all control.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Kind of like how law enforcement comes to you and they say, hey, we just want to question you. We don't think anything is wrong. We just want make sure. We just got to eliminate everybody. You know, how we got to do it. And then they find, like, they find the ultimate clue.

[Ashley Hess]

A clue, a clue.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

And so then they get all excited, but really it was just to eliminate you. And so it's kind of like that. Like, hey, let's just. And just. You're not accusing, just making sure it wasn't.

[Raina Greenberg]

That totally.

[Ashley Hess]

That's the right tone.

[Hannah Anderson]

But it's hard because you want to slap them across the face sometimes.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

What do you feel is the best way to support someone in a. In an abusive relationship? You know it's abusive.

[Raina Greenberg]

Well, abusive is different to me than my. My friend is just dating somebody. Somebody I don't like, who's not good enough for them that they complain about all the time.

[Ashley Hess]

Oh, yeah.

[Raina Greenberg]

If somebody that we know is unsafe to us.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Yeah.

[Raina Greenberg]

Different situation. But, like, I have certainly dealt with quite a few girlfriends that have just dated guys that treated them like shit.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah.

[Raina Greenberg]

And I constantly had to hear about it all.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Yeah.

[Raina Greenberg]

Lying and manipulating them. And then there's only so many times that I can, like, comfort you and ask you why you're with him and be like, I can't believe it. Until I'm like, I can believe it. I've listened to this story 15 times. Like, you need to sack up or stop telling me about this.

[Ashley Hess]

We had a friend like that, and. And she kind of stopped telling us about him. And it was better that way, you know, like. Or just less, because it's like, you are sucking all my time and energy to talk about this terrible guy when you know better and you're gonna stay. But then it's weird because it's like, do you push your friend away because they know they can't talk to you about their relationship? I think it's tricky. You have to find your boundary.

[Hannah Anderson]

Hey, memes are a nice way to keep a friend without having to hang out with them a lot. And Remind them that you love them. Yeah, I'm genuine about that.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

It's the person that you sense silly things.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

It's the person that you hear a lot from that's not giving you a lot for the relationship you're in. I feel like most of the time when you're in a situ. In a relationship with someone that's just not great and everybody around you is kind of telling you're already ashamed of it. You already know. But also, how do you leave? And I was just talking to Molly about this. I was saying as someone who like, didn't have a lot of self love, especially almost 200 pounds ago, like, I didn't have a lot of self love and I would settle for anything. I would stay in a relationship just because I was like, well, I'm never gonna find anyone else. And so when you don't love yourself

[Ashley Hess]

the way that you should because you

[Mackenzie Faultz]

don't know your worth, then it's like, well, I'm not gonna leave this guy. I'm still ashamed of it, but I'm not gonna leave.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah, sure.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

So you still want your friends there. That. And so it's really hard.

[Raina Greenberg]

I know what you're saying. I mean, because I've dealt with this so much with so many of my girlfriends, I've just, I've gotten better at it and I've just said like, I love you and I. I hate watching you be treated like this. I hate hearing about it. That doesn't mean that you can't tell me. But like, my advice is not gonna change at this point. So you have heard everything I'm gonna say about this. I truly cannot believe that this is happening. I love you. I feel for you. But like, like, I think you need to talk to a therapist or something. My. I've said all that.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

And then it's up to you to either be there and support them and let them be a grown up and continue it. And then when people are ready, they'll know. When people are ready, when they've had enough, they'll know.

[Hannah Anderson]

Yeah.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

To get there themselves, they have to get there themselves. And they. It has to be their idea.

[Ashley Hess]

100. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about some of the things on the Internet. Like these. Are we dating the same guy groups? I mean, what are your. We want to hear your take on them. And like, just in general, like has the social media and all the tools we have made things. I don't know, is it. Are people deceiving people? More or less, like people now way too picky. And have we overcorrected or we looking for too many signs? Like, we just couldn't talk about the state of the world with this stuff.

[Raina Greenberg]

It seems like there's so many ways to figure this stuff out today, which is great, you know, I mean, there's

[Ashley Hess]

just so many ways. There's also more ways to.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

To cat, dog, fish people.

[Hannah Anderson]

I love the. Are we dating the same. Okay, so let's talk about mean. Obviously, everything. Like, nothing is perfect. There are people who can go in and drag someone, but it's like, in the name of the greater good. Like, they've done so much good. We've definitely had tons of people talk about finding out about someone.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah.

[Hannah Anderson]

Like, I'm in the LA one. It is, like, pretty saturated. Like, I think it would be hard to find. Like, I don't know how to find. There's new ones all the time. I think it's like your friend sees it or you, like, type in a

[Raina Greenberg]

name kind of thing.

[Ashley Hess]

Okay.

[Hannah Anderson]

Or just, like, I don't know, God's on your side and you happen to look on the right day. I don't know. But people have definitely found, like, a lot sketchy stuff on there, and I'm glad that there's a little resource for it.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah, we. We always say you need to be discerning. And it's just some people just have bad dates and some people don't vibe and then they feel rejected and they want to get in there and everything with opinions, you know, ruin someone's life. But, yeah, I think it's important for just, like, this guy is a family or this guy's dating all of us right now. Well, exactly.

[Hannah Anderson]

It's such a good way to connect with all of the other women.

[Ashley Hess]

100%. We've bonded for life.

[Hannah Anderson]

My favorite episodes are when, like, two girls come on and they're like, yeah, we were both dating the same man.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

We're best friends.

[Hannah Anderson]

Best friends. Because they always have good taste.

[Ashley Hess]

Weirdly, we have the same taste. Yeah.

[Hannah Anderson]

Honestly, it's like, enemy of my enemy is my friend kind of thing.

[Ashley Hess]

And do you guys think it's easier or harder in, like, 2026 to be a dishonest, deceitful person? I mean, I guess it sounds like it's harder because there's more ways to find people, but is. Is it, like, more ways to.

[Raina Greenberg]

Or ways to lie? Credit card fraud?

[Hannah Anderson]

Yeah, it depends. I think, like, having a full affair for years of your life is harder because, I don't know, we're Just like more online. But the tools are like, I'm thinking about AI, where we've had some people who use AI to like find information about like a court case or something that they're verifying. And it's like Google didn't find it versus the person who uses it to create a face life.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I feel like along the lines of this question, it is twofold and I've done an investigation on both sides. So one is like, okay, first of all, never trust a screenshot. Those can be edited, altered. ChatGPT. If he says, no, I wasn't, here's a screenshot.

[Raina Greenberg]

And there's too many ways, years ago when people would say, like, it's Photoshop. No, it wasn't. Nobody know how to use photoshop. Canva. A 3 year old could use Canva.

[Ashley Hess]

And also you can change the date on like, you know how pictures have dates. You can change those.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

You can literally. And then you can delete messages and make it change the whole narrative of the. So that's one thing, right? And so it's like, well, anybody can lie to you with a picture. They can say, oh, look, I was here. I can go to ChatGPT right now and say, put me in front of the Eiffel Tower and I'll be like, I was embarrassed. Do you know what I mean? So there's that. But there's also people that want to appear to be a victim. And so they will say, look what this person did to me. Look at this picture. Or look at the. And so they are using the AI to make them themselves look like the victim as opposed to making themselves seem, you know, like they're, they're the bad guy or whatever. They can use it to make someone look bad. So that's why the. Are you. Are we dating the same guy? And the Internet is great, but also people could use it, they could abuse it in a way that's trying to portray someone poorly because they are mad at them or they're trying to get, you know, revenge.

[Hannah Anderson]

We're the single ones here, right?

[Ashley Hess]

Yes.

[Hannah Anderson]

Yes. That makes it fun, right?

[Ashley Hess]

Can't trust anything. AI.

[Raina Greenberg]

And I think I'm a good sleuth. I always look people up.

[Hannah Anderson]

I like to think so.

[Raina Greenberg]

I really, it's pretty important to me to like have somebody in common with somebody I go out with. Like, I really, it's really important to me that I know something. And I'm not saying dating apps are great. It's an avenue to meeting more people. But yeah, I like to have one connection that, and I'm shameless about it.

[Hannah Anderson]

I'll reach out. Even if it's.

[Raina Greenberg]

No, I always reach out.

[Hannah Anderson]

Yeah, I do.

[Raina Greenberg]

I met this guy on Field, which is like a sex app. Oh, I know Field. I saw that.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I.

[Raina Greenberg]

Our friend Taylor had a mutual friend with him, and I reached out to her and she gave me some info about him.

[Ashley Hess]

And we want to get into some actual real life scenarios. But I do think, like, overall, I just think this main thing is these people circle, like the people they surround themselves with. I think not everybody has to have a ton of friends. Some people are more alone.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

It's too small of a world. Like you're.

[Ashley Hess]

But it seems like that's the thing to pay the most attention to.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Absolutely.

[Ashley Hess]

And then if all of this dude's friends are terrible, like, he is terrible.

[Raina Greenberg]

Probably, you know, you keep it straight.

[Ashley Hess]

Exactly.

[Hannah Anderson]

And if they're texting their friends all the time, but you haven't met them in person. Yeah. That does not count as them having a community. Like, we've had a guy that was. He was texting his best friend all the time. He was his best friend.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

He was texting.

[Raina Greenberg]

Are you guys obsessed with Sweet Bobby? Do you guys not know?

[Ashley Hess]

What was that? I remember the name, guys.

[Raina Greenberg]

It just. It was a catfish podcast about this Indian community in the uk and he had guys.

[Ashley Hess]

Her.

[Raina Greenberg]

I don't want to tell you, years old who the. The catfish had created a huge network of people around them, like 15 people, Facebook profiles and phone numbers and everything to text this girl to keep this catfish going on. It was all the same person.

[Ashley Hess]

It was.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I think we've had an episode like that.

[Ashley Hess]

You guys should watch that one. It's an easy, quick watch.

[Raina Greenberg]

Oh, it's a watch now you can watch. I think Netflix made like an hour long documentary.

[Ashley Hess]

So let's talk about some real life unsolved mysteries. And again, this. Some of this is just like for fun and see if our audience relates to it. Because, you guys, I mean, we can't solve these on the spot, but we have one that happened to a friend of ours. And this, like, lives rent free in my head. It's from a man.

[Raina Greenberg]

It's from a man, actually. And something that happened to him. So a friend of mine, he met this girl on. On an app in New York and she was in town for a few days, but they've been talking for a few days. They had made tentative plans to meet up that evening and they were messaging each other and. And he had said, I think I have this dinner it'll be around 10, that might be a little late for you to meet. And she was like, let me know when you're done with the dinner. So he texts her, I'm done with the dinner. Are you still down to meet? And she's like, yeah, why don't we meet at my hotel? It's near his apartment. She's like, I'm staying upstairs. There's a great bar in the lobby. And he's like, okay, great, I can be there in 20 minutes. And she was like, great. And she said, let me know if you grab a table at the. If you grab seats at the bar or a table in the bar area. There's a couple places to sit. Just let me know when you get. He texts her, I'm here. This will be important later. He sees actually other friends of ours in the lobby by the elevators. When he walks in, he goes into the bar. He texts her, I'm downstairs. She's like, okay, I'm finishing getting ready. He was like, let me order you a drink. What can I get for you? She says, a gin martini. And he orders her a drink and she says, I'm on my way. I'm about to get into the elevator. Never comes down.

[Ashley Hess]

What?

[Raina Greenberg]

Never comes downstairs, never responds to him.

[Hannah Anderson]

What just goes.

[Raina Greenberg]

Never says anything. So he goes out to see, like, what happened. Because I'm like, I'm.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

She's falling down.

[Raina Greenberg]

So I will say, say he. I've seen his dating apps. He looks. The photos look exactly like.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

You hear this?

[Ashley Hess]

And you're like, she took one look and ran. Like, that's not. And that's nothing against him in general. You would hear this story and think that. But he looks just like his photos.

[Raina Greenberg]

He's also really tall. He's a good looking guy, full head

[Ashley Hess]

of hair, looks better in person.

[Raina Greenberg]

Yeah, better. Like that's a guy. You look at a bar and you're like, I'm gonna hook up with him for sure. Yeah. So he like, goes out into the lobby where the elevators are and says to our girlfriends, did you see a girl come downstairs? And they said, no one has come out of the elevator since we got here. So no one came downstairs. And so he tries to message her on the app and she has unmatched him.

[Hannah Anderson]

Oh my God. I mean, what's the point? If she unmatched him, she's not dead. Like there was.

[Raina Greenberg]

She didn't die on the way down the elevator shaft.

[Ashley Hess]

And we would have heard about this woman dying in the elevator in Whitesburg.

[Raina Greenberg]

I don't I mean, he was like, maybe she was in a relationship.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah.

[Raina Greenberg]

And got nervous. And I was like. As she got into the elevator to go downstairs in the building.

[Hannah Anderson]

I actually don't think that's absurd. Like I could see someone being like, I'm gonna do this. It's totally fine. And then in the last minute being like fully chickening out, not knowing how to communicate. I'll just unmatch ghosts run away. Like, right.

[Ashley Hess]

Like had a panic attack. Essentially.

[Hannah Anderson]

Somebody that fully panics and is like, I just can't go through with it.

[Ashley Hess]

Grow up though.

[Hannah Anderson]

Oh no.

[Raina Greenberg]

This actually have the affair.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

This is totally.

[Hannah Anderson]

You committed like an adult follow through.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

This is totally someone who was not who they said they were from the beginning. They were playing in their head the scenario and they were living in the scenario until the very last minute when they could no longer. That was someone who was totally not.

[Hannah Anderson]

I guess good for her that she.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

It was a man. Guaranteed. It was another.

[Raina Greenberg]

No way.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I'm telling you.

[Raina Greenberg]

I think it was a guy.

[Hannah Anderson]

You do?

[Mackenzie Faultz]

That's my gut. My gut is saying that is a like. So what was just. That's a 17 year old boy playing stupid on the Internet to me.

[Raina Greenberg]

That's not a woman who told a man. Here's a. Where I'm staying at this hotel.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

This is a man who is Bar area. Yeah.

[Ashley Hess]

Wait, did he ever look her up more?

[Raina Greenberg]

So field is interesting. So this is not knocking Field because I love field and I've had really great experiences on it.

[Hannah Anderson]

But.

[Ashley Hess]

Well, good.

[Raina Greenberg]

I love it.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Okay.

[Raina Greenberg]

Okay.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I want to be single so I can get on field.

[Hannah Anderson]

You don't have to be.

[Raina Greenberg]

So it's. It's an app to find people that have like similar sexual kinks. But people use fake names on it a lot. So like I have a fake name on it and it's just a first fake name. But unless unlike Hinge and some other apps, you're not connected to social media so people will listen. Or like I went out with a guy who like I reverse image search one of his photos. He was a realtor. I found his like real estate photos. I found.

[Ashley Hess]

He was like.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

That's another thing. That's a big thing is reverse image search that a lot of people don't know about still.

[Raina Greenberg]

Yes. And I found like his profile for work. He gave me his name right away. I felt safe going out with him. But people use fake names on these apps. So that app is kind of primed to catfish people and you just have to be safe, you know? Meet them in a public place.

[Ashley Hess]

Place. Yeah. And it's like, we. It's understandable why they make it a little more discreet because it's this, like, sexual. All that stuff. Like, it's. And we, again, we support the app. But that makes sense.

[Hannah Anderson]

The most mature, horny people.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah, but it makes so much sense that he couldn't really find more about her. He didn't mean her on LinkedIn. So I think you're told it wasn't. Who was it? It wasn't that woman.

[Hannah Anderson]

Respectfully, does he have money? Is he. No, I'm just kidding. Is he public?

[Raina Greenberg]

Yes.

[Hannah Anderson]

Like, could they have been trying to, like, rob him? Like, it could have been, like, not that.

[Ashley Hess]

And then they chickened out.

[Hannah Anderson]

Maybe they realize it wasn't that kind money. We're like, I'm just going to bed. I'm going to.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

This was someone who was having fun playing in a scenario that they knew

[Ashley Hess]

was someone was, like, around.

[Hannah Anderson]

Are they going to think that maybe they'd come down and be like, surprise.

[Raina Greenberg]

So we do have another email that I wanted to get your take on, and it sort of is about this and why people do stuff like this.

[Hannah Anderson]

Yeah.

[Raina Greenberg]

Not fully ghost, but this is a little long, but I. It is worth it if you want to read it. Which one is it? Yeah, it's the first one. And I just. I find it so fascinating. I looked up, like, why people do this stuff.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I love when people email in match

[Ashley Hess]

with this guy in Bumble. He was so hot, yada, yada, tall, a little older, whatever. We started talking. He was seemingly so into me very quickly. We had a really great messaging chemistry. It felt very exciting. He wanted to go on a date. I immediately went to stalk his Instagram to make sure he was real. And not only did I find him, but I also saw one of my friends followed him. I reached out to her to see if she knew him, and she confirmed he was real because she went on a date with him a couple years prior. She said she thought he was a weirdo, was flaky, but I took it with a slight grain of salt because this friend had a lot going on at the time. So I agreed to the date. We were going to get coffee and we had a date. And a time. The date comes around and I. I hadn't heard from him yet, but we talked so much about it that I felt secure the date was happening. I get fully ready, I'm about to head out and text him saying I was leaving in 15. He texts me back profusely. Apologizing, saying his car broke down hours ago and then he's been waiting for a tow truck and then he's still waiting and won't be able to make our date. Obviously, I'm pissed. Not because he had to cancel because of his car, but because he only said something when I said I was about to leave Anyway, because he was hot. He was able to convince me and all. He was able to convince me to continue to talk to him, agree to reschedule. Mind you, he begged me. This happened for two more dates. I would get fully ready and then he would cancel right before. And it would always be something believable enough that. That you feel a little crazy. Obviously, after the second time, this was my fault for Green. But then I got kind of curious how long he'd keep up with it. This would be me. This would be my kink. The third date of this happening, I got bored and annoyed at myself for wasting my time. So I told him I didn't believe his bullshit and stopped talking to me. Months go by. He pops back up on Bumble. I'm a little drunk. I swipe right and when I pick up my phone, I have multiple texts from him. He then goes on to say how he's sad to hear I don't want to talk because seeing me pop up made him hopeful. He asked if I could hop on a call so he could explain more about what was going on with his life when we talked. I tell him no, but he can send me a voice and memo. He sends me several voice memos, all lasting multiple minutes long. He goes on to tell me that his mom, his dad, and his brother have all died in the years past from cancer. He said that when we were first talking, he had found a lump on his body and got scared he might also have cancer, so he wasn't mentally all there. He also said that not only he was dealing with the broken down car situation, but that his friend also tried to kill himself during this time. So I'm getting this solo. I'm getting this unbelievable amount of trauma dumping, and all I can think about is this man. Either the weirdest liar alive. 5 because what does he gain from this? Or he's the unluckiest guy in the whole world. Either way, I was not sticking around for it. I told him I unfortunately don't believe him, but if I'm wrong, I'm deeply sorry for his misfortune in life.

[Hannah Anderson]

Sorry.

[Ashley Hess]

And that I hope he finds peace. He handled that message fine and never spoke to me again. Some time goes by, I'm still single, and I'm looking through the. Are we dating the same guy? San Diego Facebook group. He pops up there. There are hundreds of comments. I lock the in countless stories about him doing the same thing to dozens of women around San Diego, making plans with them and then canceling literally minutes before, always having elaborate apologies with tragic details. He met almost none of these women. Out of the women he did meet, they said he was weird as fuck and wouldn't physically touch them. They said he'd go from in love with you via text to a huge awkward weirdo in person. What a journey.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

The fact that he has the power that someone is disappointed that he didn't show up. This is someone who's getting off on them.

[Ashley Hess]

I was just going to say he's getting off.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I was like, off on the people that are going, oh, you're showing up. Oh, man. Like, and he likes the drama. He's getting off on the drama game. It's a game for him.

[Hannah Anderson]

He likes to me, like.

[Raina Greenberg]

So there's a couple things about this because I really did some research. Like, why would somebody do this? So he's addicted to the fantasy of dating, not the actual dating. He likes the matching, the chemistry, the intimacy. He overshares. That's important. He's like, building some kind of, like, false intimacy with you.

[Hannah Anderson]

It also is a big sign of deception, early trauma dumping, love bombing, kind of to, like, make you feel like, oh, well, yeah, baby.

[Raina Greenberg]

It's manufacturing a false closeness with somebody. Right. He cancels minutes before on purpose, not hours before or days before. The timing maximizes emotional impact. It kind of keeps him in control of the situation. He likely panics when it's about to become real because it's fear of evaluation and intimacy. That's why he rarely shows up. And when he does, these girls say he never touches them. He doesn't engage with them. So, like, this is like, I guess, a pattern. So, like, some women do meet up with him, but it's. It's weird. He can't be confident personally in and is this ChatGPT?

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah. Well, let's ask the PI.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

No, this is so much better.

[Hannah Anderson]

This is so.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I'm learning so much more.

[Hannah Anderson]

No, I. It makes sense. I mean, I see all of that where there is that just element of control that they get and it feels harmless to some extent, where it's like you can rationalize in your brain you're not actually cheating on someone, hurting someone.

[Raina Greenberg]

It's costing someone money.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah, this feels like. Like Dangerous. Like, this guy will be fully in. In prison or on the news for something worse. Like, don't you feel like this is, like, teasing something deeper and like, well, certainly not this. It will not be surprising if this guy does something terrible. Like, this is a weird fucking way to be.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

This is someone who is seeking something that they've never gotten. They don't get off on, like, actually being intimate with someone. They get off on the idea and the num. If. If he's doing this to multiple people, then that means that this is someone who. Who he gets off on that every single time, every single person that he can get to trust him and that they get disappointed when he doesn't show up. It's like, it's a. It's a power for him. Like, he feels like I. They miss me or whatever.

[Ashley Hess]

I think he's gonna do something worse.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I think this is.

[Ashley Hess]

I think this is, like, just the start of, like, a dark journey.

[Hannah Anderson]

That's what the insult thing came to me where it's like, why is he, like, wanting to. Well, it's not about women. Like, it's not like, my family.

[Ashley Hess]

My whole family's dead, is sick.

[Hannah Anderson]

Oh, that comes up all the time. Everyone has cancer and it's hardened. That's the one thing where I'm like,

[Ashley Hess]

of course I don't know.

[Hannah Anderson]

If someone told me they had cancer, I would not question it. Unfortunately, after the date, also, 15 minutes

[Raina Greenberg]

before the date is very crazy. I remember this guy would make plans with me all the time, every day for, like, weeks this would happen. And he'd be like, can I see you? I want to see you. And then it would just be the next morning. I fell asleep last night. Sorry. I mean, it was constant. And he did this to another friend of mine that I know also where, like, he was like, I will be down with my family dinner tonight at 6pm and I'll come meet you. And then he was like, I will be done in 30 minutes. Never messed her next day. Sorry. I fell asleep. I mean, just constant.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Another reason that people do that is because they're always looking for someone better, which is why, like, the dating apps are so crazy now is because everyone's got someone else in their pocket, literally. So these people are, like, always looking for the next best thing. So they might be like, oh, I really like you, whatever. But then they get a response from someone else that they're like, like, oh, she's really hot, and she hasn't responded. Cancel. I'm going with this. Yeah, but they can always keep you in the back. And so that's why when people cancel, I feel like it's because they think there's something better, but they want to keep something on. They want to keep something on the books, but then they find something better. And that's what makes dating now so much worse is because it's so much. It's so easy just to have someone else in your back pocket ready to go make plans.

[Raina Greenberg]

Like that makes you an. They're like, I'm going to walk up the door in 15 minutes. We had hard plans. That's really creepy.

[Hannah Anderson]

I know.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Horrible.

[Hannah Anderson]

Don't go out with them again.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

This is mental instability.

[Hannah Anderson]

One other potential. Just to add a little more positivity. We just had an episode where the woman. It was two women. It was awful. They worked together. She was the boss. She was 17 years older. There's power dynamic. It was horrible. And then also she was not out. So that made it easy to be like we can't tell anyone. She was going to introduce her to her kids and kept like making the plans like okay, they're ready. They're so excited to meet you. But obviously I didn't want to introduce you because it's like a sensitive thing to introduce my kids to you. And just kept kind of like canceling at the last minute. Her kid would get sick. Her kid had a breakdown.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

The rabbit died, but the dad had cancer.

[Hannah Anderson]

Like that was what was going on. That's why they kept canceling. Like your husband came out.

[Ashley Hess]

I thought you said this was a feel good one.

[Hannah Anderson]

No, I was kidding.

[Ashley Hess]

I'm sorry. Oh, sorry.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

We do have to wrap up with

[Ashley Hess]

you guys who I thought we were to going to wrap up on. No, thank you guys so much for all of this.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Thank you for having us.

[Raina Greenberg]

No, no, it's fine.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

This is. I love sharing. I love sharing about this with. With other people too because it's. It's interesting to get your take also because we love you guys so much.

[Ashley Hess]

We love you guys. This was so much fun.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Our audience love the Dating Detectives and

[Raina Greenberg]

Girls Got to Eat is a great collab cuz our.

[Ashley Hess]

The Dating Detectives got to eat.

[Raina Greenberg]

Well one day me and you, we're

[Ashley Hess]

going to be just on a case together. I would like to.

[Hannah Anderson]

When I. I like dating. I would like. We'll invest legally for you to invest.

[Ashley Hess]

Yeah, when I get my certification.

[Hannah Anderson]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ashley Hess]

Okay. We'll tell everybody where they can find you guys both and listen to the podcast and everything. Just plug all your stuff.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Our podcast is called the Dating Detectives. It's Dating Detectives podcast on all socials.

[Ashley Hess]

Okay, perfect.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

And I am Freedom underscore Barbie on social media.

[Hannah Anderson]

Hannah Ander Graham. Because I'm Hannah Anderson. I don't know. I thought it was funny. I think it's funny.

[Ashley Hess]

No, it is funny. I told her.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I said, now it's Hannah Ander Pod

[Hannah Anderson]

and yeah, exactly, exactly. But also, if you have a story, we're open to emails if anyone wants to tell their story. Investigate the Dating Detectives podcast dot com. Nailed it, love.

[Ashley Hess]

It took me two years. We are.

[Hannah Anderson]

We keep it anonymous. We have a legal team, so you are safe to spill.

[Ashley Hess]

Perfect.

[Hannah Anderson]

If you want anyone.

[Ashley Hess]

Okay.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

And I would like to encourage anybody that's in your audience. If you want to become a private investigator, reach out to your states association of licensed Investigators to find a reputable person. And you can also go to the Google machine and type in how to be a private investigator in and then put the name of your state. Every state governs your own PIs.

[Ashley Hess]

Google women can do it.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I'm telling you, I've been doing this 20 years.

[Ashley Hess]

And you have your nails done. And I have my nails done.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

I always have.

[Ashley Hess]

Okay, guys, well, you know where to find us. Girls gotta eat.com tickets to our show on May 7th there at girls gotta eat.com girls gotta eat podcast on Instagram and TikTok. I am Ash Hess on Instagram and TikTok. Raina is Raina Greenberg and Raina greenberg.com for her tour tickets. Subscribe on YouTube Share this Episode with a friend and we we will see you Thursday.

[Raina Greenberg]

Have a good week, guys.

[Mackenzie Faultz]

Bye.