I feel really uncomfortable and I can’t really shake it. I also feel really stupid even writing this because the solution is obvious.
When lockdown started last year I decided to try and make some virtual friends via bumble. I was worried about boredom and loneliness as most of my friends live back in the city I went to uni.
I started talking to this man who I got on really well with and we seemed to have a lot in common and so all was good. Until it wasn’t anyway! Things started to feel off. I started to feel weirdly manipulated and if I ever tried to voice why I felt off it was turned on me so I was the one with the problem every time. We ended up virtually arguing a lot so blocked each other. Then he’d unblock me and I’d be curious and do the same only for the same cycle to repeat itself.
Fast forward to around six months ago we started talking again but it was weird. He was always aware that I’m married and I’d recently found out I was pregnant so therefore I told him this. He was pretty cold about it and said that he ‘didn’t want to talk about it as we’d end up arguing’.
Then things got really weird. He was telling me about his tinder encounters which I didn’t mind in itself until he started sending me pictures of these random women who wanted to date him and asking me to rate them out of ten. I was horrified and replied something along the lines of I’d be amazed if he found anyone if he was doing stuff like this. He then proceeded to message all of these women asking if they wanted to sleep with him, screenshotted the replies and sent the conversations to me. It felt incredibly wrong. One of them in particular seemed really shy and I hated that she’d been asked this really personal question and it hadn’t been given privacy. I deleted his number after this but he continued to message so I blocked him. I could see though that he’d done neither of these things to me.
Three weeks ago I got a message asking to talk and enough time had passed that I decided to see what he wanted to say. He was really sorry. Agreed that he shouldn’t have sent those pictures and messages and that he had hated not talking and wanted to talk. I agreed and things were ok but recently I’ve started to get that manipulated feeling again and then today I got a picture... of a random woman who’d liked a comment of his on Facebook. This means that she wants him apparently.
I’ve blocked him again and this time he’s staying blocked but for some unknown reason this whole saga has disturbed me. I just feel... well Ick about it.
Before anyone says anything my husband was very aware of me trying to make friends in this way. I have autism so it’s not always easy for me to make connections so with lockdown it felt like the perfect time to dip my toe in without the pressure of a face to face meeting.