Help me feel better - bit of a dating nightmare (played)

[annemariegutted]

Hi all. Let me start by saying this situation might not seem like a huge one, but it's triggered me and as a result I had bad nightmares last night, woke up wringing wet from sweat and feeling very anxious and detached right now. I just want some advice on why someone might possibly behave in such a freaky way because I feel like I just can't trust anyone.

13 months ago my DP left me without me knowing what was going on and he'd moved out when I was away for the weekend (didn't admit then he was having an affair but I found out months later with someone we knew quite well). At the time we were trying for a baby and planning to get married and I was just so shocked I found it hard to cope. I never got that "closure" or a talk to tell me why and it took me a long time to feel relatively ok again.

So fast forward to my current "relationship" as I have been dating someone who I really liked and was growing trust with who I met online. Trust thing was quite up and down and I had a few wobbles but he's always talked it through with me and been fine afterwards. He was patient and understanding that it was hard for me to get close but we just got on like a house on fire.

We took things very slowly, chatted a lot online for a few weeks then met for a drink. We had great chemistry from day one and just felt very familiar. We do talk a lot by email and phone as we live a little distance apart and I work every other weekend.

All going good, a few dates in, not slept together (I wanted to wait) but we'd just had a date Friday night were all we did was cuddle on the sofa kissing and laughing about and it felt very "relationshipy" to me. When he was leaving he kept running back from the car for more kisses. I was away for the weekend with my mates on Saturday and Sunday but he'd said he'd come round tonight (1.5 hour drive) and texted to say he missed me and couldn't stop thinking about me etc.

Then 1am this morning, I got a random text to say he had left Facebook and wanted me to know so I didn't worry, but at the time I got the text I was logged in on my work facebook account and when I checked he was still there...still with 300 friends and I was confused. Logged into my own account and he was gone.

So he blocked me!!!!

I texted him to ask why he'd blocked me and been dishonest about it and he won't reply. I only texted twice, once just after his text at 1am asking WTF he was playing at and one today to say that I wish he'd just been honest and acted a grown up and he has read both messages and responded to neither.

I'm presuming I have been played, or he is dating someone else too, or he was intending to end it with me?

Can anyone just help me get the closure without closure by explaining what a total fucking idiot like this is actually thinking when they do something like this.

I feel violated if that makes sense and really don't want to sink back into that depression I was in before from the ex.

Okay I haven't tonight.

I texted him twice after he blocked me. Once that night and it said "'Im always really surprised when an adult person can't just be honest. I don't know what's really going on with you, but I do think I deserved better."

And he never replied.

Second day I texted again and it said.

"I get a random midnight text saying " So you've not left Fb, you've blocked me, and I honestly can't remember anyone ever blocking me, but it just seems like something you'd do to someone you hate. I don't get why you felt the need to do that. I have no clue really why you did that but it would have been the better thing to do if you'd explained to me what was going on. I'm a nice girl, and I don't have a horribly thick skin. I don't think it costs anything to be honest with people or treat them with respect and I have always done so with you."

No reply to that either. So he intends obviously never to reply.

you seriously have to be a total and utter complete arsehole to actually behave like that don't you really?

No other explanation?

I'm sitting there trying to think of ways things might not be as they seem but in this case it's probably beyond that, right?

Why am I such a total idiot.

you seriously have to be a total and utter complete arsehole to actually behave like that don't you really?

What do you think he is saying about you and your two texts?

First text, just about explicable. Second text, a step too far. For a guy that = stalker weirdness.

This is a guy you "met"online and never even slept with. Your posts above sound a bit over-invested to be honest (I'm not judging -hell I've been there x 100) but I think men pick up on this.

There's a lot of truth in the principle that you want what you can't have - and for both sexes if someone is over keen (even if they think they are hiding it), it usually comes across.

TLDR: you liked him more than he liked you; he didn't behave politely; you got hurt; no one died.

If I am honest, what I think he is probably saying after my two texts is "damn, I played this wrong, I was hoping we'd be out tonight and I'd be shagging her" and he's probably a bit mortified he got caught because we were very close to the point of sex and he knew it was probably happening this week.

I don't think he'd be thinking it was stalkerish or over invested because we've exchanged thousand of texts and the texts above are not abnormal for the degree of relationship between us. He's sent me long ones too at times he's gotten jealous or we've had "words" because people dating do that. I didn't just meet him yesterday...we've spooned, and talked about the future and met each others friends.

I don't think I am the weird one here in this equation, and it was him who chased me, not the other way around and I definitely was not aware I liked him more than he liked me until the moment I got blocked. Hence being shocked.

I don't see why it matters if I met him online or in a bar or in the street. I was dating him and he blocked me on Facebook and lied about it, which is a horrible, childish and nasty thing to do.

I was dating him for four months - whether I'd slept with him or not that's a inconsiderable amount of time and I think it was past the point where I probably deserved some honesty. Sometimes without sex you can be really intimate. We did a lot of talking and holding hands and kissing and to me that felt a lot closer than if he'd banged me up against a wall the day we met.

I was very keen on him, yes, but I thought he was too. He worked very hard at nurturing a relationship with me and what he did was a headfuck, so I thought I had the right to call him out on it and I suppose what he thinks of my reaction is not really that important.

Why should it be important what his reaction to my texts are? He obviously thinks absolutely nothing of me to have done what he did anyway. Can hardly make it worse.

If I am honest, what I think he is probably saying after my two texts is "damn, I played this wrong, I was hoping we'd be out tonight and I'd be shagging her" and he's probably a bit mortified he got caught because we were very close to the point of sex and he knew it was probably happening this week.

"mortified" Really?!? Do you seriously think that?

I don't think he'd be thinking it was stalkerish or over invested because we've exchanged thousand of texts and the texts above are not abnormal for the degree of relationship between us

Your missing the point. I'm not saying it was stalkerish but that its what a man would interpret it is - write it off as the "crazy girl I had a lucky escape from".

Your reply above sounds like you are a bit naïve and don't really have much experience with men.

Why should it be important what his reaction to my texts are?

Because when you are dumped, it is better for you and your wider reputation to exit with dignity and not chase or quiz or pester for an explanation. Be cool even if inside you are bleeding with pain. Complain to your mum or your mates; not to him or his mates.

Hmm..

I wasn't dumped. I was blocked. As far as he was concerned we were still going out on a date, he'd sent me a message to tell me not to worry that his FB had disappeared. He was trying to lie to me, not dump me, and if I'd not called him out on it I'd be on the date right now.

Should I have pretended I'd not noticed I'd been blocked and gone on the date?

I disagree with that viewpoint. I can't see how asking someone why they have behaved he way they have, and explaining how you feel about it is losing your dignity. I think letting someone you believe to be in a relationship with know the impact of their behaviour is important. He knows he's behaved like a shit and he knows what you think about that. He's burned his bridges, hence his silence.

The next step is to work hard at reprogramming your brain into thinking he's a arse, and most importantly, really try not to take it personally. It really isn't about you.

Yes, that's what I thought, that I had every right to ask whey he behaved that way and to explain how it impacted me. I think it's right that I need to reprogramme my brain into understanding he is an arse and not the wonderful man I thought.

There are so many players on the dating sites it is unreal!

I feel for you op.

I would suggest you join interest groups and also sites like meetup.com will give you social options whereby you can mix without the pressure or expectation of dating. We are supposed to have men as friends to keep us on a level and this is an excellent way to achieve this. You will find both female and male attend these gatherings. I can't do these right now owing to a lack of free childcare and a lack of spare funds. If it is viable for you I would go down that route as there appears to be more respect on both sides.

Good luck.

nobody is saying he hasn't acted like a dick.

I asked what his response with because you wanted to text him tonight
He didn't reply then, he won't reply now.
Whatever his intentions were by blocking you they weren't good were they? Is that the behaviour you want from your future partner?

I know you just want to know why so you can move on. He's behaved spectacularly badly. But you will probably never know and if you keep texting him you will just make yourself look needy. I'm saying this with kindness because I know how horrible it is.

Not texting will send a stronger message.

Anne - I'm sorry this happened to you but to be honest he doesn't sound like much of a catch! Why are you dating people who you don't think are attractive?

I do OD and I have put in a new set of strict criteria having had some relationships with people who probably actually have psychopathic tendencies. Since I applied the new criteria, the men I've attracted SEEM nicer (I say seem ). If they say one thing I don't like initially I block them as well. One twat kept on messaging me and I didn't even realise he had. The final one said 'what the hell, do you think you're too good for me' I replied well I didn't but now I do, thanks for enlightening me!

You need a lot of emotional resilience for OD.

Move on OP, he sounds like a prick.

bursarymum
I once had one asking if I had ever dominated before.
When I shock horror didn't reply he sent reams and reams about how he'd changed, really wanted a relationship etc

Then I was a stuck up bitch for not replying.

God I hate Pof.

I know the advice in these situations is to ignore/not come across as needy and in your position I would have been hurt but would not have texted.

However why shouldn't you call him on it? He needs to know that his behaviour is out of order and you have feelings. Maybe you have pricked his conscience slightly.

You need to leave it now though. And don't analyse it too much because you will tie yourself up in knots trying to work it out and you will probably never know.

Yes thanks all, I promise, I will leave it and not contact him again.

Lucky escape from a weirdo. He was hoping to have his cake and eat it - don't think he was going to drop you, just have you and another woman. No point trying to get any reasoned explanation from him because he will not tell you the truth. Sad thing is there are plenty of self centred drains out there like him. A good guy will always hold out and wait, even for a kiss.

I can't help wondering if he is married or in another existing relationship or even maybe had a relationship break and had to get rid of all evidence of you.

Been made to or decided to destroy his sim and come off FB or block you.

Has Fairy searched for him direct on FB not using the POF link. If there is someone else - he may have disabled his POF link so the "OW" does not find out.

Whether I am right or wrong he has treated you appallingly. You would be gutted if a new friend of 4 months treated you like this. 4 months is a fair amount of time to invest in someone only to be treated like this.

I know a shockingly amount of married men on FB. A close friend found out her hubby was seeing someone else and it spiralled and weeks later she found he had a POF account. We sat up one night trawling POF looking for him and in that time we found several profiles for married blokes we know that I had actually considered nice decent married men. How they have the nerve to post their picture is beyond me!!

Take some time to lick your wounds but forget contacting this idiot again. He is not worth any more of your time. There is no viable decent excuse for how he has treated you and where as I totally get it must bug the hell out of you not knowing why etc - the bottom line is - he has shown his true colours and turned out to be a bit of a twat not worth bothering with. Take some time to lick your wounds and be kind to yourself. Its not you - it was him and his probems and his issues. All of which you are better without.

Married men on POF not FB sorry!

Well Fairy saw his FB page and like me (I saw for four months the more detailed version) there's no evidence of a wife or GF and his ex wife is on his friends list and married to someone else. I reckon with us being apart so much he probably just started up seeing two people and had to cover his arse a bit.

Was appalling though as he obvs intended to keep seeing me anyway. Twat.

Good luck if you continue od. You need it.

The timing of it being right before having sex may be telling. Maybe his Johnson doesn't work. Maybe he is involved with someone else and to him he wasn't cheating because he wasn't having sex and he didn't want to cross that line. Maybe he had a herpes outbreak and he will resurface in a bit when it clears up. Whatever it is, he is hiding something.

When defining how long "the relationship" lasted don't include that initial texting stage. It really is meaningless.

Oh no that was all in working order and we'd have had sex on Thursday if he'd had his way. He was busting out of his jeans and his hands were up my skirt and all that. He was pretty respectful when I said I wanted to wait just a little longer but it was clear he was absolutely desperate for it.

He's hiding something I know, but today slowly beginning to feel a little better. I know as soon as someone else comes along I will forget it completely.

Just remember two things which might be a key factor. About three weeks ago someone tagged him on Facebook in a post that was really loser-ish. Some poem from his work. Later that day he changed his Facebook privacy settings so any photos or posts tagged of him could only be seen by him, meaning only things he posted himself or people actually wrote on his wall were visible. All of his photos disappeared and his profile became really strict.

At the time I thought he'd done that because of the very loser-ish and dorky poem someone tagged him in, but now I am thinking maybe he was with people / in places or doing things he did not want me to know about, and maybe he did not change them universally, but only changed them for ME. As in, this might have been going on for longer than I knew.

Second thing that came to my mind was that on Friday night when I was away I went out to dinner with an ex boyfriend, one he was very jealous of and was tagged in a post about that. He has been insanely jealous in the past, so maybe it pissed him off. He definitely seemed "off" on Saturday.

Also, slowly getting my head together this morning and realising long term I'd not want to spend time with someone who was such a pathetic idiot. 40 year old man pretending to leave Facebook. Not sexy and not someone I should be spending time with. Regardless of his reason there was a better way to handle it.

I did agree with the poster above that doing that to someone is horrible. Even if it's just a friend you've been chatting to, it really cuts like a knife to know you have been blocked. It's a universal "fuck you", isn't it? Plays on all your insecurities and makes you feel so worthless. I do remember an ex work colleague blocking me a couple of years ago and I really never liked her but it still hurt a lot.

I'll just try and deal with the hurt part and my friends have already planned a big night out for me on Saturday and I'll go for some killer heels and a big smile and try and remember I'm better off without someone who can't be honest.

I have a date Sunday with someone who's been asking me for ages. Funnily I met him at the same time as dick-head and chose dick-head because he seemed more genuine. Over the last few months the other guy has remained a friend and after talking to him I do see I misjudged him. I don't really fancy him, but with me that tends to grow slowly and I thought it might give me little boost. He knows what happened as we talk every day anyway so I'm not playing him. He just thought a drink would cheer me up.

Hello all. Just wanted to add an update here (I am feeling so much better, thank you).

I got a call from a friend and a message from another yesterday asking if I was back together with my ex boyfriend. Apparently the photos / posts of us having dinner looked "romantic" as if we were a couple. My friend said she saw it and absolutely felt that way and was not surprised my current squeeze was upset with me.

I looked over the post, and it was a photo he had taken of the restaurant overlooking the seashore, but it happened to also be a hotel....so might have looked like I was in a hotel with him rather than a restaurant. There was also a photo of us hugging and people had commented what a great pic it was.

With all that in context, and considering the man I was dating had asked to come on the trip (I had said "no") that maybe I did make a situation that caused him to get very angry and me, and maybe mixed with alcohol and the fact I'd been in sparse contact he might have thought he was being taken for a mug or something.

Not excusing the way he handled it but I do feel this might be the case.

Imagine the following post on mn:

"have been seeing a lovely bloke for the past four months or so. Things have been going really well, or so I thought, have introduced him to my friends etc and we have got really close. then last night I saw he was tagged in a picture with his ex. They were clearly on a romantic night out. I am so gutted because I really thought we were getting on so well."

I can guarantee that the responses would be "he's a player, get rid." and sounds to me as if that's exactly what happened.

Tbh op fb can be deceptive and not give a whole picture, but someone on a romantic night out with their ex would set any normal person's suspicions off. If this was reversed you would have been told to block his number, block him on fb and never speak to him again, and sounds here as if this is exactly what he's done. I feel sorry for him, esp as he has been painted as the bad guy here when actually he hasn't done anything wrong.

I can see this argument in a way, but in that case why did he lie and tell her he was leaving FB? That part makes no sense.