Future Faking - Give me the downlow to arm myself!

[misszp]

After posting about my 'new guy' recently (who is now very much an 'ex guy'), I learnt the term 'future faking' from another poster. It is a term I've never heard of and have been reading up on and it is a slap in the face; shit I've been future faked and I didn't even know that was a thing!

I'm really working on myself right now as I have in the past attracted the wrong types (I tend to be a fixer who falls into minor codependent relationships) and I want to increase my bullshit radar for the future...

A very few simple questions;

1, I understand future faking can go hand in hand with narcissism etc, but can generally nice people 'accidentally' future fake due to their own hopes of the relationship?

2, Can a future faker let their actions speak in the beginning before the future faking slips in? My guys actions matched his words mostly in the beginning because I said I only listened to actions... my boundaries and standards were high, but I think I let that slip as I gained feelings and then it started to slowly switch. There were always very subtle signs I put down to 'life' just getting in the way.

3, Do love bombing and future faking go hand in hand, and can love bombing be subtle, such as 'I know after date 1 if I want to pursue someone, so I've already decided to not see anyone else', 'I do feel there's a connection here, I do see this being long term', 'I want you to meet my family/work colleagues, are you free to attend this works event with me' (but it never materialising, even though he met my friends), 'I have no doubt where this is heading but I know you want to take your time so I'll always be here', 'I feel differently about you than I have others', 'I am considering you in my long term career and location plans because you are really important to me'.... without the L word getting dropped?

4, How do you spot a future faker, particularly when in the beginning plans are kept to and they follow through? As an example my ex guy always kept to date plans and never cancelled (although was usually late!), but we spoke about things we wanted to do together I.e concerts, nights away and he always said 'oh I'll try and get us tickets/book hotels', but then he never mentioned anything again and when questioned about it, it was almost like he was caught off guard.

5, most importantly, how do you move on? I'm left deflated over what was real and what wasn't, even though I know he's the issue here, not me. There were some very kind and loving gestures and actions in the beginning and I knew he was too good to be true as I said it myself, but his actions had matched his words, so I let my guard down, and then he did a 180, and I'm still left spinning!

Lastly, how many others out there have been future faked?!

As for moving on took a good while. 3 years or so for me to fully move on. I now know what people mean when they say you have to be happy in yourself before being happy with someone else. So thats what I focused on, even when I felt like shit I was up n out. I actively made an effort not to dwell. & to see friends, and do things I loved to do. New job and a makeover too.

I still remember parts of it from time to time, but not much. You couldn't pay me to go back to that future faking nuisance now..he wasted years of my life. Yet at the time the relatioship crashed I was absolutely distraught as I didnt know how I would or could live without him!. I did tho

misszp

He was a narcissit sociopath, I have read many threads here. I wasn't sure if I would be accepted here or not. So many comments show so many similarities. This abuse is so subtle it goes undetected because it can looked to be something else. I just wanted to share what I learned.

I am still working through many aspects of not only this relationship but my marriage. It seems I attract this particular kind of man.

Thank you
Hugs 🤗

This abuse is so subtle it goes undetected because it can looked to be something else

Exactly. Mine was Mr Handsome & Charming. Liked by everybody, quietly spoken. My DM has a saying "when the devil wants to get to you, he doesn't walk to you showing his horns". She was right. No physical abuse, thats rare with narcissism it seems. Its more about verbal put downs, sulking, finding subtle ways to let you know your looks your views your opinions are wrong. Getting angry at a different opinion to his own then cold shouldering and withdrawing for days as "punishment".

& then there's the future-faking of course. Swiftly followed by "you're not good enough to have a future with" because of x y z. Then when you decide to leave the charm is turned on so you don't leave. Then the exact same pattern is repeated.

Ad infinitum unless you break away. Which I did, and Mr Charming was enraged.... friends were told I was physically and verbally abusive, I was mad, all sorts of shit. The usual crazy ex thing. I know very well that he wanted to do the discrading and because I did it, he was wrathful.

His online harem believed his lies. His real life (he only had 2 & didnt remain particularly close) friends didn't seem to. Many of my (so called) friends believed him and I know thats because he was good looking and charming. I was glad to get rid of him, and those false friends. Good people in my life now, all is calm

You do a lot of analysing and reading after relationships like this. I must have done it for 2 years, then I made a conscious decision to stop. There was no way I was speaking him into my present existence and any potential new relationships, giving it life as it were by constantly going on about it, when he was likely busy love bombing some other woman anyway and having fun. & that was that.

Despite being woeful afterwards I had a fling, which I never thought I would. The old me would've been in sackcloth and ashes 'no man for next 5 years' mode. Did me the world of good

He was a miserable fucker underneath it all, the outer him was a sham. I've no pity tho. Narcs do not like women and will constantly seek out women to damage. Miserable existence. Wonder what they do when they're old and the looks and charm have gone. Some "lucky" woman who's stuck with them will have the pleasure of a misery laden old age stuck with him

As said - luck escape OP.. Try not to dwell on him too long. We get through these things and there are good people out there. You find them when bad gets out of your way

theabysswithin - you still end up feeling short changed? absolutely! I initially broke it off when he started playing this distant and cold card, and then he chased, I relented, he went back to being cold. I felt like there was this power struggle going on and even once I said 'no more' I'm still left perplexed by the behaviour! The struggle for power came from him.... it was like he wanted to have emotional control of the situation or to come across as the bigger person. I look back now and think 'did he though or were you reading too much into it?', but I remember at the time crying to friends and they said it was just plain weird.

misstressdeecee thank you for the insightful knowledge and sharing your experiences, I am so sorry you went through that, but amazing that you've come out fighting the other side! You describe your ex as a miserable fucker underneath it all.... funnily enough there were a couple of times I felt that this guy let his mask slip and I saw an opposite side to him... my friend even commented once 'oh he seemed very agitated the other day'... I hadn't noticed but made a mental note. Or the time we were talking about our past relationships (he never spoke that badly about that and he would always shoulder his proportion of responsibility or fault) and I asked a question and he snapped 'I've already told you about that, you know this'.

I am struggling to differentiate as there are parts of him which dont lend itself to typical asshole behaviour such as the accepting fault, when he wasn't wrong etc. But then was it all lip service? I guess I won't ever know!

winterskye I am the same - I tend to attract the opposite to myself. My personality type and experiences lend themselves to being vulnerable to this type of person... I am also working on it! At least be recognising it, we are also working on ourselves in the process :)

Everything was still very early days though, so would this guy really have turned into a narc/ass as everyone is saying?! I put the future faking down to him not really knowing his own path and feelings, but then I've never stayed with someone like this long enough to experience further.

Oh goodness I've experienced this future faking and fell for it hook line and sinker! It lasted for such a short time but the intensity of the "relationship" had a very lasting impact. A few years ago I met a man and within two weeks I was running around telling everybody I'd met the one, this is it blah blah blah. My friends were so shocked because I'm naturally quite cautious, very independent, strong willed and focussed, so this was very very out of character for me.

He did all the things previous posters have mentioned - completely love bombed me, made big plans for months ahead etc. He even started planning our destination wedding for the following year.

I did try my best to slow him down, but he told me to "let down my barriers and go with the flow". So I did!

It all came crashing down with two things he did. He introduced me to his mom after about 7 weeks of us being together. She was a timid, gentle and softly spoken little old lady. He spoke to her in such a vile manner I was really shocked, but I felt the need to speak up and say on at least two occasions, do not speak to your mother like that.

His mother asked me what I thought about kids and having my own. I was explaining that I couldn't have kids because of having a hysterectomy (which he knew about). He interrupted our conversation and said, oh yes I think we'll defy the odds and have a miracle baby! I was genuinely lost for words and really hurt. His mother tried to explain that a miracle baby wouldn't ever happen. He told her to shut up and be quiet and stop being negative because anything is possible.

We had a huge row that evening about how he spoke to his mother and the miracle baby concept. Which he was still adamant would happen so he refused to see how cruel and insensitive he was being.

Two days later he dumped me via text and he blocked me on all social media.

At the time I was completely devastated, heartbroken and humiliated. I had completely lost myself to this man in a very short space of time and believed in the dream (lies) he sold to me. I truly couldn't understand how he could be so cruel.

How do I protect myself from future fakers? I keep myself grounded in reality and take my time. If I meet a man who is trying to rush the relationship I say, if this is meant to last then what's the hurry?

Nurse Buttercup - he sounds insane. What a bastard.

I'm concerned for a friend of mine at the moment. She met a guy about a month ago and he's already planning Christmas and love-bombing her. I've warned her and she's asked him to dial it back but still... I don't want to see her get hurt.

What's a bonkers bastard NurseButtercup😲

Blooming heck buttercup! He does sound insane! I'm sorry to hear you've experienced it to such an extent. I really relate to what you said about being sensible but this guy telling you to 'let you guard down'.... I had much the same. As his actions had so far followed his words, I did.... and then he flipped! It really does hurt because it's so intense and some of it has been real... I think it just leaves you in such a spin for a while. I just try to concentrate on the fact it is a lesson learnt, and better to find out earlier than later their true colours!

ozzy unfortunately when you're in the whirlwind of the early days you don't always heed the advice given by friends (I know, I've been there!). All you can do is what you have done, let her know your concerns, be there if (when) it goes tits up, and continue to be a solid friend :)

By the way.... I've found asking them to dial it back doesn't do much.... it gives them another barrier/challenge to break down as part of the future faking! However, having said that, if he is actually a decent guy, he will be respectful of her wishes, will take it slow, and his actions will match his words.

One poster said that you shouldn't plan any further in the future than you have already been dating.... so in the instance of your friend, plans more than a month or so ahead.... I think that's a good indication of realistic or unrealistic expectations / promises!

@ozzyosbourne
Please show your friend this thread, hopefully some of what he's doing will resonate with her.

ibbleobbleblackbubble yup he definitely is, it was 3 years ago this month that I met him. Earlier this year he was trying to get back in touch with me so that "he could put right his wrongs" I told him to fuck right off.

misszp

He did and said lots of other little things that I ignored and explained away because I was in this little "love fog". His mask slipped when I saw how he spoke to his mom, she was visibly scared of him, her own son. There are soooo many horrible men out there that we naively allow into our lives.

In my group of friends it appears that I have the worst luck when it comes to dating, but actually that's not the case. I'm the one that's most open and honest about the shit that goes on and I tell everybody (mainly because I'm so shocked by the behaviour of some men).

Thank goodness for forums like this where we can share our experiences.

Oh yes The Love fog
that pink sparkly haze that casts a spell over you
Makes an ordinary bloke look like an Adonis

ibbleobbleblackbubble - usually I am immune to the love fog.... what is it about a future faker that makes you so susceptible?!

I think skilled manipulators often have a talent for finding the mark that they have the perfect Fit with.
They can sniff out the person who will be the most susceptible to their techniques

Ha ha speak of the devil and he'll appear - I've just got an email from weird concert guy ( he finished his PhD and went back to his home country asking to "resume contact because he had so many good memories of me" - I didn't contact him after he left at all as I didn't want the overdramatic shit to continue

especially not from someone I was lukewarm about in the first place )

It's just classic "I want another chance to cause drama" that these types thrive off. I think he was hoping after his weird mind game thing that I'd be crying and begging him to come back(!)

I won't reply of course, and you can bet your bottom dollar that he'll be telling everyone I was this person who was so in love with him I couldn't stay in touch as I wanted him so much I mean he told me that he had ALL these women who were "friends who were in love with him "

but somehow weren't actually friends enough to respond to his contact or show any desire to meet one to one with him

That's another thing with these types, it's not just on the relationship talk, but on everything that they seem to be fantasists?

I mean I'd happily call myself an introvert (happy with a small social life) but if I labelled someone a friend, I'd mean I generally talked to them on a regular basis, had good communication patterns, arranged to meet up (and enjoyed it) regularly etc.

These types frequently seem to be very isolated/unbalanced socially? There's a disconnect between themselves and the stories they tell?

despite bragging about their "friends" they don't ever actually seem to be doing the whole "low key Friday night out or weekend crashing with mates" that others manage? Or all these "close people" they allegedly have don't ever want to meet up with them?

Place marking to read properly later. I've been future faked as well, and like you I didn't realise it was a thing either. It was over a year ago and I don't care at all now but it's just another thing to be on the look out for. I feel that it is necessary to be so hyper vigilant about everything when you date somebody.

Wow, sad thread. So many have been on the receiving end of this.

One of the lessons I thought I'd learned from my FF LBer last year was to be in control of the 'pace' of a relationship.

Good formula from TheNaze there. If you've been together three weeks you can reasonably plan only 3 weeks ahead.

One thing I did learn from these two is to only trust what you see happening at a small scale in the interaction you're actually in?

So if someone is talking about x,y and z but can't actually just emotionally, socially, and practically engage and contribute to anything that isn't "talk" then you have a problem.

It's like these types enjoy isolating their dates and coming up with grandiose/self-pitying manipulation techniques (they LOVE talk and words ) but it's harder to keep the pretence when they have to do something physical?

The weird student type, I asked him to help me carry something (we were on our way to my flat to have a lunch paid for, prepared by me) and he sort of physically swung it in Z resentful manner so it was banging against the banister as we were climbing the stairs?

Sounds petty, but this was accompanied by lots of speeches about how "important my companionship was to him"? He was living in a fantasy- a fantasy him and a fantasy me - and fantasy me would be running up the stairs laden like a packhorse so I could be on my knees waiting to give him sex as soon as he got in the door. Anything to do with real life hard work wasn't "in the fantasy"

(of course this might not work practically, but if you asked a future faker to help with something that was quite physically dull and required time and had no overt status or reward attached to it, I reckon all of them would come up with excuses or do it badly)

Yes, when I think back to the FF Love bomber number 1, he went off me as a result of me getting to know him. I hadn't changed. He had over time revealed his stress, anger towards his exes, changeable mood swings........ and so when he couldn't be his fantasy version of himself, he needed a new fresher mirror.

The second FF-er, he was different, he was basically a good person. He just misread our vibe. I believe we could have been friends but because we met on line he pushed it in a direction my gut instinct told me it was never meant to go in. I shouldn't have settled for such a chemistry-less liaison.

@pagangoddessbrigid Yes, when I think back to the FF Love bomber number 1, he went off me as a result of me getting to know him. I hadn't changed. THIS exactly summarises how I felt about my situation but didn't know how to answer it! I think as I dared question a few things and pull him up on stuff, the mask slipped, the pretence was beginning to fail and so he had no choice but to pull the cold and distant card (and then chase when I told him where to shove it). I'm just angry at myself that for a week or two I got sucked into the drama (and boy was it overly dramatic for what it needed to actually be)!

I do sometimes wonder if my guy was also a little like your second too.... a good guy but misreading things, not in the right place to settle down mentally or financially etc. As I said before though good guy or not, he still put on a mask and FF!!

Yeh misszp, biggest lesson I think is to be aware that nobody is rushing you. If I were getting in to something now I'd want to slow it down and I suppose I didn't have the confidence to do that with my love-bomber-future-faker 1. I just went on a long walk and guy 2 lives along the route so I was relieved I didn't see him. I think he just wasn't as self-aware as I am. He had verbal diarrhoea and told me way too much which I mistook for awareness I think. He was recently our of a dead marriage (his fault and he admitted that so he certainly wasn't a deluded jackass) but he mistook our similarities for something romantic and I knew eeeeeeeek the first time I met him that 'this isn't romantic'' , there was zero ying to the yang. I knew that, and like a fool I allowed myself to go at his pace. ie, fast to begin with then bam, U-turn. I should have just avoided the whole fiasco. He bailed first, but really, the night we met I thought what he verbalised when he ended it. Literally MY INNER VOICE, that was the reason he told me he was ending it and I just nodded. So why did I bother! Well, I thought to myself, ok, let's experiment with this ! I thought, ok, so, I've I"ve dated unsuitables, jackasses and avoidants and love bombers and future fakers and now I will try to date a nice suitable decent age-appropriate man. And he was all of that. I told myself that the lack of chemistry was the lack of uncertainty (he seemed so keen until 24 hours before he said the words I was trying not to think!) At first I didn't know what I learnt, which confused me. Now I know, never settle because as soon as you settle you get even less than you settled for

The Naze's formula is a good one. I"ll have that in my head now if anybody tries to fast forward things.

I have never heard of future faking before - but almost could have written the op

Can we produce a mumsnet relationship handbook and give future faking and lovebombing a chapter each?! Maybe it would prevent other women falling into the same trap?

It seems like a lot of these men have been working from the same handbook. Everything Dejatrue said applies to the man who future faked me. I was going through a vulnerable patch and he spotted it a mile off. Luckily I woke up to it very quickly and had a gut feeling the whole time that it wasn't right but I've wasted a lot of headspace on him post dumping him because I'm the type of person who likes to understand why people do what they do but this guy was beyond comprehension.

Sorry just throwing it back to what dejatrue said now I've had a chance to read properly!

Yes I agree when you say there appears to be imbalance elsewhere too.... I'm an extrovert, and have a large social circle with a smaller group of very close friends within that. I understand close knit, small networks too, however my ex only ever mentioned 1 or 2 friends (and their gfs), and I don't think whilst I dated him he ever saw them.. if he did it was maybe twice at most over 3/4 months and he rarely spoke of interactions between them (dammit I've deleted all texts now so I can't even confirm the sudden realisation I've just possibly had which woulr confirm another flag)! His social life revolved around work colleagues, work events, or family time (which is fine!), but where were the network of friend/s? There was also the big plans he use to speak about that I never saw much action for. I know everyone daydreams and had aspirations and sometimes it is just pillowtalk, but he was always 'I'm going to do this by this date and this by then'...

Also - I hope you've remained nc with your ff!! Clearly your lack of interest was not of importance if he decided you were worthy of him chasing you

ibbleobbleblackbubble absolutely agree, I think even the well meaning future fakers probably know who they can and can't pull this shit on (they'd get called out on it and move on again to the next anyway)...

boris feel free to share :) I'm sure there'd be some great advice/support if needed!

superskyrocketing fab idea... maybe MN posters need to write a book . I am the same as you, I like yo analyse so I can be aware and learn. At least you figured him out early on, that's a really positive thing, before it got too deep or nasty!

excuse any missed posts, on my mobile and not always easy to read!!