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.

Surrey… allegedly anyway

Could she have gone to the wrong place and assumed that it was you who had not turned up. 🤔

But then why would she block the OP?

She sounds like someone bored and probably mentally unwell. Someone who doesn't have many friends or social life and all the time to sit at home writing emails.
You clicked because she made up a story, you identified with parts of it and then she probably added legs to the story to become more like yours and to amuse herself.
When communication lapsed with you, she probably ramped it up with someone else.
I used watch a programme on MTV about people who did this. Even when it was pointed out to them, they never really understood what they were doing was wrong.
Sometimes after being 'caught' , when the two guys who hosted the show, went back to see if there were any updates, the person pretending to be someone else would have reached out again with all sorts of sorry excuses and lies.
I can only guess its like an addiction. Perhaps a hope of being someone they'd rather be. Many of the people doing it were overweight, lonely people living in pretty rundown areas.

Different location to my one

It doesn't mean they aren't the same person.
They can be from wherever they feel like. My guess is it will usually be a long enough distance so meet ups can't be suggested for a long time.

How strange! I am baffled for you OP.

Mine genuinely wasn’t Surrey as we posted a few things to each other over the years.

Think you did get a bullet there OP! 😳

Only possible reasonable case for this would be if she arranged to meet you in a town/village with the same name as one somewhere else. You did say she had a chaotic life, so maybe she went to the wrong place, saw a dodgy looking bloke, thought he was you and blocked you?

Although both places would have to have the same name hotel, which would be pretty unlikely. Ignore me, am obviously up too late for coherent thought! 😂

I was telling DH about this thread and he said maybe the person had a partner who refused to let her go so she pretended she did to save fave then blocked?

Maybe she realised from something you wrote that she might know you in real life and befriended you to check you were who she thought you were. Then it just got out of hand, as she found out more and chatted more but couldn’t reveal she actually knew you. Photos could still have been fake - a sister or cousin or something.

It does sound like she enjoyed your online friendship whatever her situation. You were just unwittingly part of her chaos perhaps?

Pity you didn't ring the hotel afterwards and ask for a message to be passed on to her. You'd have been in no doubt that she hadn't booked a room.

I don't think this is as uncommon as it sounds.

By absolute accident on night a out with some very very very drunk people (I was teetotal at the time) many years ago I found out that a parent at a school I used to work in was on here with a whole fantasy life when she let slip her user name and I recognised it as she was a very prolific poster.

Different career. Claimed to live in a different part of the country. Different number of kids. Lots of family drama with her in laws when she didn't have any.

Not in a "change a few details for anonymity" way, but a totally different, made up life. I knew it was 100% her when she used something that happened in the school and said it happened to her sister. Another incident supposedly happened to her brother.

She actually met people though (when that happened on here!) and kept up the pretence.

I'm 95% certain she did the same (with a different persona) on Netmums as well.

What was she like irl?
Was she very quiet and her persona on MN was more exciting? I'm assuming people who do this aren't exactly the life and soul of the party?

Ooh maybe this. Nothing else makes sense. Or she's mental.

Many years ago i met a girl who was a friend of friends, we hung out a few times in a group and I knew a bit about her from my friend. Then by pure coincidence I hear DHs friend of friend has a girlfriend with the same name (unusual name) so I asked a few questions and she matched the same description and worked in the same place. It was the same girl. But her entire life story was different, it took DH and I a while to piece together but basically this girl had been her true self with my friend and a fantasy version with the BF. She pretended to be from a different country, literally spoke with an accent and had this very specific back story which understandably he believed. She lived a double life for a few months until it came to light. There are crazy awful and nasty women out there and you met one. Its the only explanation.

What was she like irl?
Was she very quiet and her persona on MN was more exciting? I'm assuming people who do this aren't exactly the life and soul of the party?

No, she was actually quite outgoing. PTA treasurer, good at chasing local businesses for money and roping people into volunteering. Always first on the dance floor at events.

She basically took little bits of things from other people and used them, once I looked at a lot of her posts it jumped out. I just guessed she liked the attention, and maybe was bored in the evenings once the kids had gone to bed.

In many ways her own life was more dramatic than the ones she posted about. I do wonder if that's part of it - somewhat ironically if she'd posted a lot of what was happening in her life people would have through she was trolling!

Sorry to hear that Leslie1945 💐

This is like Sherlock Holmes and The Red-headed League, a man takes on a job copying out the Encyclopedia Brittanica, which ends abruptly for no reason - it was to get him away from the shop above a bank vault!

My own cousin did this to me and my kids, though stopped replying the morning of travel. Planned a week long stay with us (we live a few hours away), itinerary down, kids super excited, I'd even bought new towels and bedding ready for their stay. Planned for weeks, messages regularly upto and including the day before arrival. Then nothing, completely ghosted

I caught up with her a couple of months later at a family thing and she had some crap excuse, not invited her since!

@Crazylittlethingcalledpeople she's travelling 3 hrs to meet a stranger/stay in a hotel. If my sister told me she was doing that, id think she was mad and would dissuade her. Also, you didn't speak on the phone or have any sort of voice note or chat, so she/you could have been anyone. I think she chickened out and didn't know how to say it

Does anyone else think that something might have happened to her? That she truly was on her way but something happened?

Are you back at home OP?

You only have to look on Netflix or listen to some true crime to know that people make up a whole bunch of bullshit online. Sweet Bobby, Scamanda etc. It's likely this person made up a whole back story and life that just simply doesn't exist. It works because the majority of people are honest and believe others to be the same.

That's exactly what my DH said!