I met my husband when I was pretending to be a gay, Japanese catfish online

JADE Costa, 37, a carer and graphic designer, lives in Hertfordshire with her husband Luke, 40, a streamer, and three children.

Here, she reveals how she ended up marrying her husband after catfishing him online.

Sitting alone in my bedroom, I logged on to my computer to register as a user on GaiaOnline, a fantasy world chatroom.

But rather than sign up as myself, I created a whole new persona.

After moving in with my mum following a bad break-up, I was lonely and thought I might be able to find like-minded people to share my interest in gaming.

But at 18, I worried about online predators, so decided it would be safer if I posed as a gay Japanese man called ‘Toshie’. I never imagined Toshie would lead me to my soulmate.

At first, it was great. I found myself surrounded by people like me, with interests from fashion to gaming, and I made some amazing friends. I found myself drawn to a man named Luke, who was a Samurai character.

No matter what time I logged on, I’d always find myself looking for him – he was very shy, but I liked that he would open up to me.

We had deep conversations about everything we loved, such as anime and gaming, and I always felt excited when I found him online.

As our friendship deepened, so did another I had with a guy called Hajjah*.

As a gay man himself, Hajjah treated me almost as a wingman – he’d send me pictures of outfits he was wearing on dates and I would give him fashion tips.

It was a lot of fun, until one day he asked me to go into a private chatroom with him, where he told me he was falling for me.

My heart sank. I didn’t want to lie, so I decided honesty would be the best policy.

In a group chat with all of our friends, I admitted to everyone that I was actually a woman.

I explained the reasons I had created a new identity, but some people were understandably annoyed, telling me they couldn’t be friends any more – they had got to know me as Toshie and felt betrayed.

Unfortunately, Hajjah felt the same. We tried for a while to stay friends, but he still had feelings for me, despite finding out that I was a woman, so we decided to go our separate ways.

I was devastated – I never meant to hurt anyone, I had just been looking for friendship.

But what happened next changed my life.

Luke asked to talk to me in a private chatroom. He didn’t seem at all bitter – we still didn’t know any personal details about each other at this point, but he just liked the person I was and wanted to know more.

We chatted and couldn’t believe we both lived in the UK, as the chatroom was full of people from all over the world.

We were even more stunned when we discovered that, not only did we both live in Hertfordshire, but our homes were less than four miles away from each other.

Suddenly, it became obvious that there could be a spark between us.

In a whirlwind conversation, we arranged to meet up the next day.

Back then, in 2005, there was no Tinder, and no real dating apps. So I was going in blind – I had no idea who might be waiting for me.

Standing outside a Blockbuster video store, my heart hammered in my chest as I saw a tall, dark, handsome man walking towards me.

We quickly started talking about all the places we’d hung out just around the corner from one another as kids, without a clue that each other even existed.

Every time I looked at Luke, I couldn’t believe he was actually there in person and that we had an instant connection on every level. By the end of our first date, he had his arm around me and he asked to see me again the next day.

On our second date, I went to his place. We watched movies and ended up kissing. Within the first week of meeting each other in real life, Luke was bouncing around singing: ‘You’re going to be my wife!’

We moved in together that month. My parents were obviously anxious at first – online dating wasn’t a thing back then – but they got on really well with him.

Almost two decades later, we still live in Hertfordshire, just a stone’s throw from that old Blockbuster store where our lives changed forever.

We have three beautiful children together, Willow, 14, Phoenix, 12, and Rowan, six. Last August, we got married In front of 120 of our friends and family. Luke always says the universe brought us together, and I couldn’t agree more.

Yes, I did catfish my husband, but it was truly meant to be.”