To ask if you've ever met up with an old friend/acquaintance and they've TOTALLY changed?

[tworoundsofwaterplease]

I used to work with this person when I was at college. We both worked in a restaurant-for about 2-3 years.

We got on well, he was some 12 years my senior...he was quite loud and flamboyant in some ways but also very popular. We were Fb friends after that but haven't seen one another.

Fast forward some ten years and I have moved back to the town I worked with him in and around this time he sent me a msg on fb. Apparently in all the time we'd been fb friends he hadn't realised who I were and now he was so glad to know and can we meet up for a few drinks. I was fine with this idea as I don't know many people around here now.

We exchanged a few messages and he told me he now ran a cocktail bar in a village nearby, and was single but seeing a woman who was a regular there. We arranged for me to go into this cocktail bar for a few drinks and he told me to please never mention to her about his paratrooper background was I ever to meet her as he wanted her to like him for him, and not for being an elite soldier. This was weird thing number one as I'd never known he was 'an elite soldier' when we worked together. Anyway I didn't meet her as he changed the plan to go and meet in the city instead and 'have a few drinks by the river'.

Weird thing number 2 was he was meant to meet me at a landmark in the city but rang once already late to tell me he was going to be late as his boss had kept him behind. Boss, when he runs the place? He told me to go and get myself a drink at a nearby bar and wait for him (I didn't know this area of the city) so I found the bar and went. Weird thing number 3he turned up at the bar, some 30 mins late, with a cool box, and went into the bar to put contents of the cool box in the fridge and get some water to put in it.

I finished my glass of wine and he went back into the pub to get me another-from a bottle he'd stashed in the fridge-I found this odd but assumed he must know the owners of the bar, and it was nice of him to buy me a bottle of wine.

Weird thing number 4, we walked down to the river. I'd assumed 'a few drinks by the river' meant to go and sit in one of the pubs or bars near it but his idea was to drink from the bottles of wine he'd brought with him, he'd brought one for him one for me.

Weird thing number 5 was what alarmed me more. On the walk down to the river he kept trying to hold my hand, and while we sat by the river (on a step) he kept putting his hand on my leg.

He also talked extensively about his military career and told me that if I am ever interrogated, don't worry because he's given me false names so I don't really know anything.

While we sat on this step drinking wine, I got worried about what to do if I needed the loo-he mentioned this and then went into one of the nearby bars, returned and said that they were fine with us using the loo. I had had enough of drinking wine on a step by this point so asked him if we could go into one of the bars. He said yes, but if the one where we're permitted to use the loo, he has to pretend to be from Texas as he'd told them he was when asking to use the loo. I was bemused but helped him create a story about being from Texas. I am now thinking 'I need to get away from this weird situation' and feeling quite uncomfortable, and after paying for the drinks in this bar (I'd realised he must be skint to be carting bottles of wine about instead of going into establishments) I ordered a taxi.

He seems very excited about our friendship too and keeps ringing and messaging me inviting me to things. I ignored a call last night and then he rang me from a different number today to invite me to a dinner party on Friday, I don't want to go. I am scared I'll end up in someone's freezer.

Maybe. He didn't appear to under the influence of anything, and didn't appear drunk at any point-his demeanor didn't change throughout the evening. But I'd not necessarily know the signs. To be fair,it wasn't a 'bad' evening apart from that, I've had worse-just strange. I did feel better once in a bar rather than hanging about outside.

I did say that I kind of dismissed that one, in a previous post,it could've been explainable. But when combined with everything else, it's an alarm bell.

Definitely not interested in heavy drinking and drugs scene. I am happy to have a few social drinks but nothing else so he can keep that for himself if that's what is is!

I thought I had this, but turned out I was wrong...

So I had a former workmate who is a neighbour of my brother's and a few years after he left the job I was at a party at my brother's place and there he was. Now he'd always been a rather eccentric character, though he presented as very ordinary grey-suit-and-tie kind of bloke, but at the party he had started affecting a waxed moustache and was wearing and very loud multicoloured bohemian jacket and I wondered if he'd just cut loose after leaving the organisation. Didn't seem entirely out of character after all.

I had a slightly stilted conversation with him and it all seemed a bit odd... until I found out about half an hour later he was my former colleague's brother! Other than the clothes and facial hair, he looked and sounded exactly like him.

Oh OP you sound so much like me in my early 20s! I had a completely unwanted boyfriend (I call him The Cling Film Man) who wouldn’t take a hint, and just kept turning up, and I was so utterly incapable of hurting his feelings I went along with it for several months.

My df was extremely controlling, and my dm has some narcissistic tendencies. I didn’t know about or recognise those things back then, but it left me very vulnerable to this sort of situation. I was a classic doormat because I’d been trained from an early age to walk on eggshells, not feel any self worth, and never, ever poke the bear.

I’m still not fully capable of telling someone to “fuck off”, or putting myself ahead of someone’s feelings, but I have learned a bit more about safety. I misread the comment about ending up by the river as ending up in the river. But this situation has the potential to end badly.

“that doesn’t work for me” is a wonderful phrase to practice, over and over. It never gets old, and has enough words for those of us who can’t just say no. It doesn’t require further explanation. It’s hard to argue with.

@tworoundsofwaterplease AL is an interesting character - we do know him as work in music - British but most of his success in USA- he writes fab lyrics- many will know Year of the cat which was a big hit for him - I’ve seen him lots of times though and he’s never said that when he plays this song -

It's always 'I was a top secret soldier, but don't tell anyone' isn't it?

Presumably because if you tell someone else they'll say 'Nah, he got fired from his job at a call centre 4 years ago and has lived with his mum ever since'

I can't imagine anyone who was a top secret soldier would actually say this to anyone, I presume they have a boring cover story about what they were doing so no one asks too much.

I hadn't come across this before (that I remember) but apparently it is a really common thing to do/say for men who've lost their way somehow. And yes, hence him telling me not to mention it to this woman! I wish I knew who she were, I'd bet we'd have an interesting conversation! I wonder if there's a list of paratroopers in the public domain somewhere...

Ah that's fab. I am just a bit young for that era but I will be sure to listen to some more, I genuinely like songs of that nature.

Yes, the explanation on that site while interesting doesn't seem to fully fit.