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Original poster

Absolutely bemused by this and also feeling a bit stupid

491 replies

Crazylittlethingcalledpeople · 02/08/2025 21:35

This makes me sound like a total idiot but never mind.

I encountered a woman on mumsnet about four years ago who was experiencing a similar situation to me. She DM’d me and we communicated back and forth for a while before swapping numbers and moving to WhatsApp.

Ive seen her posts on mumsnet since - so who knows, she might see this!

Anyway, we have messaged back and forth on and off for the last four years. Sometimes not in touch for a couple of months, other times every day. She’s painted a fairly chaotic situation in her personal life and mine hasn’t been plain sailing.

We’ve never actually spoken on the phone in this time which I guess is weird but I hate the phone 🤣

Anyway, she then suggested finally meeting up for a meal and a drink - she lives about 3 hours from me - but she said she would drive nearish to me and stop over. I sent her a link for a hotel and booked somewhere for dinner and then we planned to have a few drinks.

So yesterday she messages to say what time she’s leaving. She keeps me updated with where she is and the time she should arrive. I head over at roughly the time she is expected… she messages to say she’s just parking her car and I walked over to the restaurant to wait for her.

And… that was it. I waited for twenty minutes and then tried to call her - went to answerphone. Then nothing on WhatsApp was delivering and it was clear she must have blocked me. I waited forty minutes in total in case (unlikely) her phone had lost charge, delayed checking in etc but absolutely nothing. I’m also blocked on her fb.

It must be one of the most bizarre things to ever happen to me.
She’s never asked me for money or anything weird… I mean clearly she never set off or had the intention of meeting me… but literally five minutes before blocking me she said ‘I’ve arrived.’

My brain is really like 🤯 because I can’t see why she’d bother all that time and then suggest meeting and then - ghost me?

So if she is reading this - it’s fine, I went and met some friends but it’s just weird! And I can’t make head nor tail of it! I guess I’m also a little freaked out because I would have said she was a friend and I can’t understand what she got from this? For all of it I’d like to know she’s ok.

OP posts:
NeverAlways · 04/08/2025 12:11

I think you can compare it to online dating in that you chat for ages and then when you finally arrange to meet they ghost you or cancel or you meet them and find they are completely different from what you expected.

I know someone who said he met someone online, arranged to meet them and when he got there in a taxi he chickened out, got the taxi to turn around and never told the woman he was cancelling. He literally stood her up. I expect it's really common except in your case it’s two women who are friends. Weird though.

GreyCarpet · 04/08/2025 12:54

NeverAlways · 04/08/2025 12:11

I think you can compare it to online dating in that you chat for ages and then when you finally arrange to meet they ghost you or cancel or you meet them and find they are completely different from what you expected.

I know someone who said he met someone online, arranged to meet them and when he got there in a taxi he chickened out, got the taxi to turn around and never told the woman he was cancelling. He literally stood her up. I expect it's really common except in your case it’s two women who are friends. Weird though.

They weren't friends, though. That's the point.

They were no different from the people you describe chatting for ages online on a dating app.

They were strangers who had shared information with each other, that may or may not have been true on either side, for 4 years. A false intimacy had developed between someone who who entered it in good faith and someone who was nothing like the person they described.

Or this whole thread could have been started by a socially inept fantasist and might not be based on anyone's reality.

That's the point. No one knows.

AuntyDepressant · 04/08/2025 13:34

GreyCarpet · 04/08/2025 12:54

They weren't friends, though. That's the point.

They were no different from the people you describe chatting for ages online on a dating app.

They were strangers who had shared information with each other, that may or may not have been true on either side, for 4 years. A false intimacy had developed between someone who who entered it in good faith and someone who was nothing like the person they described.

Or this whole thread could have been started by a socially inept fantasist and might not be based on anyone's reality.

That's the point. No one knows.

Show quote history

Nobody chats to you for 4 years about every detail of their personal lives on an online dating app. A relationship had been formed here, it just didn’t mean to the other woman what it meant to OP.

GreyCarpet · 04/08/2025 14:45

AuntyDepressant · 04/08/2025 13:34

Nobody chats to you for 4 years about every detail of their personal lives on an online dating app. A relationship had been formed here, it just didn’t mean to the other woman what it meant to OP.

Show quote history

Again, that's the point. The OP has no proof it was "every day of their personal lives."

She literally had no proof that anything this supposed friend said about herself was true.

Even down to her name.

It wasn't a friendship, though, because it wasn't a relationship based in reality. They had no mutual friends and they'd never met. There's no proof she'd even left the house that day. She even had a blank fb profile. This person, whoever they were, had only attempted to cover the absolute bare minimum.

Mountainviewatsunset · 04/08/2025 15:51

I can see why this is unnerving OP, but I don’t think there’s any malicious intent towards you.

my suspicion is that she’s a fantasist. She is someone who has built up a persona with you as a certain type of person and she knew the game would be up if you met irl.

I suspect irl she’s a shy, reserved, socially awkward person who created an ‘exciting’ persona online that she couldn’t keep up in person.

I don’t think there was a master plan.

Petitchat · 04/08/2025 16:53

Mountainviewatsunset · 04/08/2025 15:51

I can see why this is unnerving OP, but I don’t think there’s any malicious intent towards you.

my suspicion is that she’s a fantasist. She is someone who has built up a persona with you as a certain type of person and she knew the game would be up if you met irl.

I suspect irl she’s a shy, reserved, socially awkward person who created an ‘exciting’ persona online that she couldn’t keep up in person.

I don’t think there was a master plan.

But why take it right up to the very point of meeting? That's what I don't understand and probably OP too...

Petitchat · 04/08/2025 16:57

It is very unsettling.
OP, how are you feeling today?
Hope you can put it behind you and move on..... Daffodil

Mountainviewatsunset · 04/08/2025 17:01

Petitchat · 04/08/2025 16:53

But why take it right up to the very point of meeting? That's what I don't understand and probably OP too...

Show quote history

It’s weird right?

But when is a good time? Maybe she thought she’d keep going and something would happen that would get her out of it ( OP had to cancel, got delayed etc)

the actual point where she had to meet face to face was the bit that meant the end of the friendship. So the online persona didn’t match reality…Might also have been a bloke. Who knows?

I think if there had been a plan to entice OP somewhere to follow her home for example. They would have pretended to get there, and when OP arrived, be called off to a family emergency

BassinBas · 05/08/2025 00:27

OP I had a similar thing years ago, on a different chat site. Set herself as having common ground with me, messaging, big convoluted arrangement to meet then a last minute cock and bull story, really just outlandish excuse, cancelling, after which the DMs ended.

Other friends from the site (actual friends who I'd met, back in the days when you did have meets for chat site users) told me they had suspicions about this user, and "she" (I have my doubts) vanished entirely a couple of years later. "She" had been on chatting constantly for years and years, with a very detailed back story.

I've never got to the bottom of it. Likely you never will either. I hope you're okay. Obviously we all know that people can be anything they please on the internet but it's very unsettling when you run up against it.

Rizzla · 05/08/2025 09:42

I remember seeing a mumsnet thread not long ago confessing weird things you did when you were younger. Someone said as a teenager they had an online personality on a chat room with a full back story of children, husband, and made “friends” on the site before they had to just disappear one day. It could be a very similar scenario! But I agree that fabricating the meet up was just bizzare.

TheWickerHare · 05/08/2025 12:09

You should watch 'Sweet Bobby' on Netflix. It's incredible how far some people can go to create a false persona, false friends, false everything, for no gain at all. Not saying it happened here but definitely possible.

Thanksman · 05/08/2025 12:14

TheWickerHare · 05/08/2025 12:09

You should watch 'Sweet Bobby' on Netflix. It's incredible how far some people can go to create a false persona, false friends, false everything, for no gain at all. Not saying it happened here but definitely possible.

Strangely, no one else has mentioned that through the whole thread 🤣

Highlighta · 05/08/2025 15:23

Thanksman · 05/08/2025 12:14

Strangely, no one else has mentioned that through the whole thread 🤣

Show quote history

😂

Because I can't do the reaction, I just have to make a whole post..

Thanksman · 05/08/2025 15:25

Highlighta · 05/08/2025 15:23

😂

Because I can't do the reaction, I just have to make a whole post..

Show quote history

😁 I suspect that’s why the laughing emoji was removed, to make the post count look better than it actually is so mumsnet can get better grading.

edit, sorry! That was absolutely nothing to do with your reply!

Kinneddar · 06/08/2025 02:45

Thanksman · 05/08/2025 15:25

😁 I suspect that’s why the laughing emoji was removed, to make the post count look better than it actually is so mumsnet can get better grading.

edit, sorry! That was absolutely nothing to do with your reply!

Edited
Show quote history

I believe it was removed because people were using it to laugh at posts they didnt agree with. It was being used in a negative way

Phelicity · 06/08/2025 10:07

OP, you say that you didn’t send photos, but that she does know what you look like.

How could she have known what you look like?

ARichtGoodDram · 06/08/2025 10:14

I suspect that’s why the laughing emoji was removed, to make the post count look better than it actually is so mumsnet can get better grading.

It was removed because people were being vile with it. Someone who posted about being suicidal got laughed at, and it was also used in a thread about someone's dead child.

Petitchat · 06/08/2025 16:40

ARichtGoodDram · 06/08/2025 10:14

I suspect that’s why the laughing emoji was removed, to make the post count look better than it actually is so mumsnet can get better grading.

It was removed because people were being vile with it. Someone who posted about being suicidal got laughed at, and it was also used in a thread about someone's dead child.

Omg!
Mumsnet does manage to shock me at times. Well, Mumsnet users anyway.....

Petitchat · 06/08/2025 16:42

Phelicity · 06/08/2025 10:07

OP, you say that you didn’t send photos, but that she does know what you look like.

How could she have known what you look like?

Well spotted.

OP??

Thanksman · 06/08/2025 16:49

Petitchat · 06/08/2025 16:42

Well spotted.

OP??

Show quote history

She says this in her first post: She does know what I look like and vice versa as we’ve whatsapped photos etc over the years. Edit, sorry, that was in the second post.

A later posts says: I’ve never sent any photos I’d be worried about of me or my kids so that’s ok

wonkyfruit · 06/08/2025 16:54

Phelicity · 06/08/2025 10:07

OP, you say that you didn’t send photos, but that she does know what you look like.

How could she have known what you look like?

what? OP said she did send photos?

Thanksman · 06/08/2025 16:55

wonkyfruit · 06/08/2025 16:54

what? OP said she did send photos?

Show quote history

See post above yours.

Talltreesbythelake · 06/08/2025 17:03

Reading for comprehension. Any photos that she would be worried about means innocent photos not no photos.

SpandauValet · 06/08/2025 17:37

Well, OP has scarpered and left us all wondering..

Was it a reverse?

AuntyDepressant · 06/08/2025 20:39

SpandauValet · 06/08/2025 17:37

Well, OP has scarpered and left us all wondering..

Was it a reverse?

I was hoping there might have been developments 😵‍💫