Absolutely bemused by this and also feeling a bit stupid

[Crazylittlethingcalledpeople]

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.

I’m not surprised. If you don’t know someone IRL then you don’t know them. People put waaaaay too much trust in people on the internet for some reason and invest years into constructs which, surprise surprise aren’t actually real. Sorry if that sounds harsh but we’re all adults here, I’d understand if this had happened to a kid who hadn’t ever received much guidance or internet safety lessons.

Be that as it may, it’s still a shock to have it happen to you.

👀

But it's not a funny story.
It's a bit scary and unnerving to be fair...

What an awful thing to say about someone.
I’ve met people IRL that I originally ‘spoke’ to on MN. I would be really hurt if I thought they were speaking about me in this way. Sure most of my selfies are unflattering but it’s the contempt with which you speak of this person. Most people probably think their own DH is handsome, we don’t all have the same taste.

I would assume she got there and got really anxious - maybe something came up with her partner or kids that she couldn’t face explaining so in an embarrassed, flustered moment, she panicked and blocked you.

Almost anything can be a funny story if you're a good enough story teller.

If people can tell funny stories related to the Holocaust, surely someone could be funny about a bizarre non-encounter.

@Crazylittlethingcalledpeople I'd just put her out of your mind as you can't second guess it. Difficult to do when strange things happen I know, it's like your mind is ticking over a puzzle.

You'll forget about it soon enough.

I've had an internet friend 20 years I've never met. I have others I've met often. But nothing like this story.

But that doesn’t make much sense because we can still use 😂.

But aren't the emojis only visible to the person whose post it is? Whereas if you reply with 😂, everyone can see. Which in the context of laughing at a dead child, the nasty trolls won't get called out and deleted etc

But that doesn’t make much sense because we can still use 😂.

Yeah, but you can only use that publicly.

Even most of the really vile ones won't laugh at someone's dead child with their name attached, only hidden.

Harsh but true. And I would never say such a thing about a true friend. The point is that she isn’t, she was an online acquaintance who created a very different, much more vivid persona than the rather unattractive reality.

I really don’t get the “public” thing. This is an anonymous forum. If people are willing to laugh react, they don’t care if it’s in a post or not.

@Crazylittlethingcalledpeoplehave you heard anything from her? How are you feeling?

As strange and creepy as it all is, I think the simplest explanation is probably what happened - she probably just panicked at the thought of an online friendship becoming a real friendship and she backed out.

the fact that she went though with the charade of driving and arriving is….odd. But people are odd.

I had a friend a few years ago. She was also somewhat chaotic. We lived in the same street and saw each other often, then I moved about 45 minutes away.

She was keen to keep in touch and would instigate a lot of meet ups. She lived quite rurally whereas as I had moved to the city so she always wanted to visit me, which was fine.

Except her chaotic lifestyle meant that we would make plans and she would then quite often cancel last minute.

When she did this for the third time in a row I sent a simple reply of “ok” as I couldn’t be bothered with her drama anymore.

Not long after that I noticed she had deleted me from social media. Not sure if I’ve been blocked but the deletion was message enough.

And all because SHE stood ME up 🤷‍♀️

I did nothing wrong, so I’m guessing she was embarrassed? I don’t really know, and never will.

There's nowt so queer as folk......
🤔