Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Was I groomed online?

32 replies

Anonymous2003 · 19/01/2025 21:26

When I was 16 I started speaking to a man 20 years my senior online. I never intended to continue chatting with him beyond night one but it continued for 2 years. For 18 months it was all platonic conversation. I was a very lonely teenager and I really enjoyed his company. We talked everyday and felt very close (even though we obviously weren't as we never met). Eventually 18 months in things became sexual and we exchanged photos (not fully unclothed) and I was still 17 at the time. I ended up in a relationship and thus cut off contact with him which he agreed to. He texted me months later to let me know that he was getting married and hoped I was doing well. I sometimes think back to this and wonder was I groomed, even though it was fully consensual? I could have blocked him at any time.

OP posts:
Anonymous2003 · 19/01/2025 22:07

@TryingAgainAgainAgain thank you for taking the time to find those sources for me ♥️

OP posts:
TryingAgainAgainAgain · 19/01/2025 22:06

This website is for men, but it gives a very good and clear definition of grooming:

https://www.survivorsuk.org/resource_articles/grooming/

Your situation fits the police definition:

https://www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/gr/grooming/

https://www.ceop.police.uk/Safety-Centre/How-can-CEOP-help-me-YP/

Possible support: https://www.sarsas.org.uk/support-and-information/i-need-help/

Flowers
Anonymous2003 · 19/01/2025 21:51

@TryingAgainAgainAgain thank you for your comments. Even though I know in my heart it was wrong, it still feels surreal to see it written down like that. I don't feel like I deserve to be classed as a 'victim' as it was online and I was legally over the age of consent. I find there isn't an awful lot of support for people in my specific situation.

OP posts:
TryingAgainAgainAgain · 19/01/2025 21:48

we would often make jokes about him being a 'groomer'.
That's a way of trying to normalise it.

Why would "an overall good guy, with a good job and a child" be speaking regularly and privately to a sixteen-year-old girl, let alone get sexual with her? Only if he wasn't a good guy but was a groomer.

If it was an acceptable relationship why did it have to be kept separate from irl?

Anonymous2003 · 19/01/2025 21:43

@TryingAgainAgainAgain we would often make jokes about him being a 'groomer'. I guess it didn't feel like that since he seemed an overall good guy, had a good job and a child. He never told me he had a child however, I found out from his ex wife's facebook. I never confronted him about it as I felt we were both entitled to our private IRL lives.

OP posts:
TryingAgainAgainAgain · 19/01/2025 21:40

Yes, you were groomed. A sixteen year old would not have the maturity or life experience to necessarily realise what was going on and how inappropriate it was. I'm sorry this happened to you. What an absolute creep he was.

coffeeAndasandwich · 19/01/2025 21:31

you know the answer