Can I join?
I feel so bloody ridiculous! And annoyed with myself! Long story incoming…
So around 6 years ago I joined one of those music fan pages on Facebook. Really friendly group of people, very respectful and it was only really talk about the band in question or artists you may also like if you enjoy said band.
Fast forward a few months and some bright spark had the idea that we could make a chat with our Instagram handles and follow each other on there.
I thought well I don’t see the harm and added mine. A few people follow, all people I’d chatted to on there before… and then this guy who I recognised from the group but had never previously chatted too. Ok, I’ll follow him too because it’s going to look rude if I don’t after putting my name down for it.
A few months pass and he messages me. His profile doesn’t give much away. No actual pictures of him on the main page, one or two group shots on the tagged bit where I was unsure of which one he actually was and a profile picture with his back to the camera. Also quite clearly he lives on the other side of the world!
I was completely uninterested! Made polite chit chat and ignored the first message that didn’t require a response. Few months pass… it happens again! Then again… and again! Usually with a few months break in between. I get into a habit. Ignore 70% of them, stick an emoji on 15% and reply to the other 15% but with no questions and I eventually end up not replying after one or two messages. I should have blocked but he was never creepy or sleazy so I felt like it would be harsh.
Fast forward 6 years, still in the same pattern and me genuinely baffled thinking he’d have stopped by now! I wake up to a video message. He’s never done that before! I didn’t open it… the last thing I wanted was to unintentionally open a wanking video! Days pass and he starts sending reels and memes, I feel I have to look… and it’s him… driving home from work… talking about how bad the weather is… not even remotely what I was expecting! The weirdest part was that it was so familiar! Like he was talking to a friend. If it wasn’t for the fact he’d sent things afterwards obviously prompting me to look I’d have thought he’d accidentally sent it to the wrong person.
Anyway, to cut a long story short we start messaging. Sometimes video messages, sometimes voice messages… then it turned into video calls which turned into sexting etc. I started to really like talking to him and while he never exactly went cold I felt like he took a small step back when he realised I was into it too. I tried to ghost him a few times (I know it’s not the adult way of dealing with things). I felt like he could be very hot/cold and that kind of contact makes me extremely anxious, which in turn makes me want to run for the hills. We’d have a few days of frequent messaging then I’d not hear from him or he’d send me a crap placeholder type meme. I called him out on it a few times and he’d promise to be better but it would end up the same.
Which leads us to now… please no judgement! At the beginning of the week he video called. Which lead to video chat sex? Virtual sex? I really don’t know what you’d call it! Fine, I was into it and it was fun. What followed directly afterwards was three days of cold behaviour. Pretty much no messages. Maybe a pointless meme but that was it. This hurt. I guess I’d had him down as better than that which is stupid really because it’s not like I know him.
I did end up messaging this morning asking why the silent treatment and he did start messaging again but something pissed me off. He said something like ‘always reach out’ and I just replied something like, yes but I don’t want to be the one always reaching out. I was colder than usual to him and now I just don’t want to speak to him again. It dawned on me that he’s 12 years older and the silence after the other night has made me feel a bit icky. You can’t be clueless enough to think that’s a nice way to behave! He’s always seemed so nice and genuinely upset when I’ve called him out on behaviour I didn’t like.
Eurghhhhh!