Worried about friend

[Dafne]

Last night a good friend of mine confided in me about his girlfriend, he is deeply concerned about her and the way she behaves but the things she is doing is plain 'odd' rather than sinister and I'm concerned for the both of them.

Basically they have 2 kids, aged 5 and 3, he works full time and she's a SAHM. A few years ago after the birth of child2 she joined an internet forum but didnt join it as herself, she joined as a 17 year old girl. My friend thought this was odd but after reading her messages on the site it didnt seem like she was up to anything...she was just posting as someone a little younger than herself (she was only 19 in RL). But then she got talking to a 17 year old lad but never spoke to him as herself, only as this other persona that she had created. At this point my friend told her that that what she was doing was wrong and asked her to stop, she said she would. However it carried on but took a stranger turn when she started creating other characters to talk to this 17 year old, she created an older brother, a best friend and a boyfriend all of which would talk to this 17 year old on msn and by email obviously at different times.

My friend has asked her why she was doing it and she just said she was bored and laughed it off but it seems that she's actually got quite obsessed with these characters and this 'pretend' life considering it has been going on for almost 3 years now, the 17 year old kid is now a 20 year old bloke and hasnt got a clue that the 'friend' he has been speaking to for the past 3 years is actually a made up character. She has even gone as far as to arrange to meet up with him and then cancelling at the last minute etc, just constantly stringing him along with a load of made up stories.

The worst thing about it is she seems to have now started the whole thing with someone else, this time she is pretending to be a bloke but her old character, the one she started with has emerged in this "story" too as the blokes sister.

I dont know her that well but I do know she has been depressed since the birth of her eldest son, could this be causing her to do this? She gets aggressive when my friend mentions it and now he doesnt know what to do, whether to leave her to it or to try and put a stop to it.

Have any of you experienced anything like this before? any advice appretiated.

so she was only 17 when she had the first child? it sounds like bitterness about that has a lot to do with it, and maybe a hint of depression? I'd say that the postings themesleves don't matter and the boyfriend should probably stop mentioning it, but that it may be a symptom of something else

shrugs shoulders...

bump

I wonder if she's feeling very lonely/powerless atm, so these internet games are fulfilling her needs atm. I'm surprised her partner hasn't felt inclined to out her as a fake to the forum tbh. Sounds like she needs to develop more of a social life/her own interests.

Imo this behaviour is not normal but I think that it’s not as uncommon as we would like to think, although I think your friend has taken it to the extreme. If you’re at home with the kids all day, and potentially have no social life, then the internet can be a great escape, and a great way to talk to people you would potentially never get to talk to otherwise. And one of the beauties of the internet, is that you can be whoever you want to be. If you’re looking for an escape from your current life, then what better way to do it than to re-invent yourself as someone else, someone who other people look at differently than they would look at the real you. But the problem arises when you start to form real friendships with the people you’ve been talking to online, then the fantacy has to become more drawn out, you have to make the effort to let the person on the other end of the line believe that you are who you say you are, and the further you get into the fantacy, the harder it is to back away without losing the respect of those you have worked so hard to gain.

It sounds to me as if your friend has become drawn into such a fantacy life, and considering she’s been talking to the same person for three years it sounds as if she is, to all intents and purposes, living a double life, the life she has at home, and the life she has online. I guess the question is why she feels the need to have this internet persona. Could it be that she finds it difficult to make friends in rl and that talking to people on the internet gives her a sense of self worth that she otherwise doesn’t have? If this is the case, then perhaps her partner could talk to her about this, try to encourage her to go out more and try to make some friends in the real world without feeling she has to rely on her virtual life to gain recognission and friendship. Tbh I wouldn’t out her on the forums as being a fraud, as this could shatter what self esteem she possibly has, but I would encourage her partner to sit down and talk to her and try to ascertain why she feels the need to play these games, and try to get her out more rather than her feel the need to go to the computer for her social life.

Hth

She sounds like a nutter, if it was a bloke talking to younger girls and lying about his age it would seem much more sinister.