Mother takes pleasure in ‘catfishing’

Dear Carolyn: My mother has gotten very good at getting information and causing trouble with people through social media. She has found which husband would cheat. She has found which teenage son or daughter uses drugs or has homosexual tendencies, by opening accounts and passing as a teenager, vixen, housewife, successful business owner, and even a teenage girl who started rumors about a boy’s sexuality. She went as far as passing herself off as a male baseball fan to become good friends (on social media) with my brother’s best friend so she could find out if they were just friends or in a sexual relationship. She has asked some of her friends to call my husband to flirt with him to see if he is faithful.

We had an argument about her getting involved in people’s lives. And she said, “Please, don’t start trying to be more moral or kind than everyone else.” Then she said, “You wouldn’t want someone to start a rumor about your son using drugs or having serious psychological problems.” My son is in college and uses social media.

I’ve tried to warn some friends and family of this, but everyone dismisses it or says it’s their fault for letting someone influence them on social media. I’m concerned she has already befriended my son’s friends online. Should I take it lightly? — Spy or Just Evil

Answer: Your mother is a shockingly terrible person.

I’m sure there are ways for me to hedge this opinion or present it to you gently, but by your account, your mother stands naked and unapologetic in her evil, so the only thing that feels appropriate is to call it out in kind.

As her child, your position here is complicated at best. Depending on when she got this way and how it affected you, therapy might be useful — or essential.

But there is no place for taking anything lightly. Your primary choice is whether, with certainty in hand (I assume) of your mother’s evil, you have anything to do with her ever again.

Isolation is the just desert of anyone who takes pleasure in causing pain.

If her exploits represent a recent and uncharacteristic turn for the nasty, then you can pursue this as a conversation about her deteriorating mental health and ways you can get her the help she needs.

But if her position all along has been that everyone is hateful, vicious trash and therefore anyone attempting to be moral or kind is a poseur worthy of her scorn, then you — all of you — are long overdue to attach consequences to her little hobby of wrecking lives for sport. Sound the klaxon to warn everyone about her, then get off her sinking ship. Let her rumors drift into a void.