My daughter wants to meet her internet boyfriend

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Hello, I am new here and hoping I can get some feedback. I am a single mum with a 17 year old daughter. She has an internet 'boyfriend' she has never met in real life and has been face-timing for about six months. She wants to travel to Yorkshire - we live in Wimbledon - to stay with him and his family for a few days for his 18th birthday. I know he isn't a fifty year old pretending to be a teenager as I have seen him when they chat and have said hello, and I have already thought about the need to face-time chat with his mum, get all the contact details etc. I know I have been very over-protective which we have discussed and I am working on but honestly I just feel sick and terrified about this. Am I being over-protective or is this what every mum would feel? I have borderline personality disorder and an anxiety disorder which makes it really difficult for me to judge situations and people appropriately and I would very much appreciate any advice I can get. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

I've just asked my quite sensible eighteen year old what she would want to happen if she had been invited to this party and she said.

Either go with my friend and we stay in a premier inn and meet him in the daytime and go to the party at nighttime or go with her mammy and do the same plan.

Except I would just be in the city, not meet him or going to the party.

Yes, I want her to get life experiences, but not to put herself in a situation that is just too risky. It might sound infantile to not be sure myself about this but as I said, the conditions I have do leave me absolutely floundering a lot of the time.

I am going to get my daughter to read that advice from your daughter and please say thanks to her from me, great to get some feedback from a teenager and I think that will help mine although I am still dreading the converation I am going to have today.

He should come down and meet her in person for a day trip at least once before they commit to any overnights. I'm quite surprised he hasn't done so already, in 6 months.

Putting aside the dangers involved in arranging a weekend at a stranger's house, I'm an adult and have taken a chance on a weekend staying with with 2 men: 1)very new but had dated and knew a bit previously and 2) who i hadn't met but we got on over the phone for a few weeks.

Both were spontaneous with low emotional investment plus I had the money to get a hotel if stuck somewhere for a night and the life experience to say ' I'd prefer to leave now, all the best' and go.

Both times nothing risky happened, no 2 was who he said he was etc. However, the romantic spark didn't endure and tbh the whole thing was a bit awkward both times. No 1 was actually quite rude to me at one point and I slept in the spare room.

No harm done but she's a teenager who has invested 6 months of her time and emotions so could be very disappointed and also less well equipped than someone my age to manage the situation if she was not comfortable and didn't want to continue the visit. As a 30- something taking a chance, it was water off a duck's arse but I would have been very uncomfortable and disappointed as a 17 year old with high hopes for love.

I'm sure they will say things like 'even if we only hit it off as friends in person, we can still have a great time' but she will be the one either stuck in his home or having to let him and his family know she wants to leave.

In short, I think a weekend is far too much pressure and risk for a first date.

I am a laid back mum but no way would I think this is ok.Surely if he was interested he could make the effort to come to where you live to reassure you. Diving straight into an overnight stay with total strangers is nuts.

Main point being, they don't actually know how they will get in until they meet so shouldn't commit to a weekend together until.they have already done so, even if she gets a hotel, you're there etc. Just have a day trip first

Thanks for your reply and I hadn't even started to think about what the disappointment aspect of this could be potentially, so that's a good take on this.

It's going to be incredibly useful for me to be able to sit down with her and say, see, it's not just that I struggle with reading situations etc., pretty much everybody who has offered an opinion on here agrees this is too much. I know it must sound as if I am just a real twit but the conditions I have plus the fact I have been so isolated for so long has put a dent in my faith in my ability to reach sensible decisions. Thanks for taking the time to reply to my post and I am really grateful.

Thanks, that is reassuring to get feedback that reflects what I did in my gut feel was right. It's just been a long battle between being smotheringly over-protective and trying to warn her about the ways of the world.

And in this case you are absolutely right to think of worst case scenario especially as it's internet related.

He needs to make the effort to come down to London first for a day so they can hang out with no pressure. I’ve done internet dating which isn’t dissimilar and I always say it doesn’t matter how much you’ve talked before, the first “date” doesn’t really count as in reality it’s a first meeting. Until you meet you don’t know how someone is to be around, how polite they are to others, how fun they are out and about, weird habits, whether they smell nice! All sorts of stuff.

I can’t think of many things more stressful even as an adult than a) travelling hundreds of miles to meet someone who already considers you his girlfriend but you haven’t met him b) knowing you’re staying overnight and possibly for several days c) meeting his family d) it’s his birthday so you have to not spoil things and be “nice” to him e) you’re expecting to have sex with each other for the first time f) meeting his friends etc as well.

it’s a huge amount to put on a 17 year old and I’d never do this to myself! Don’t let your daughter go into this without at least one meet up beforehand. If it goes brilliantly (try to meet him too) then an overnight (one night) stay away with his family is probably ok. A “few days” sounds bananas and should be worked up to.

I had a boyfriend in another city as a teen and even though I knew him at school etc and we really wanted to spend time together, the first time I actually “went to stay with him” still felt like a massive deal and quite scary. So I’d suggest in this case your daughter will be v excited about this prospect but if it comes to her on a train to a new place, bag packed, away from her mum and going to meet and have sex with a man she’s not met - she’ll probably be scared!

You're aren't being over the top so stop saying and thinking that. You are a parent and your job is to keep her safe to the best of your ability so if she's moaning - you simply remind her of that fact. You're doing your job.

The good thing here is she's being upfront with you. She isn't lying or sneaking about so that's a positive. She could quite easily have told you she's off to spend the weekend with Jane down the road from school. So you've got some good foundations to build on

My top advice would be to go with her. You say that's not possible. So the next best thing is a chat with his mum and encouraging them to meet half way or for him to travel here for the first meeting.

I wouldn't be very happy with my 17 year old going all the way there to stay for a weekend when they've not met before.

So the compromise is he comes here initially and you speak with his mum for extra reassurance

I have a 17 year old dd and I wouldn’t let her do this, ( nor would she want to as she would be worried about something going wrong). Too many risks. Staying in someone else’s house so far away makes you more vulnerable, if he is actually not very nice but she can’t get home then she is stuck there. None of you have met him, you don’t really know him at all. Why can’t he do a London day trip on the train and meet her for a normal date ?
17 is very young and naive. This cohort of 17 year olds even more so as they had so much time not going anywhere.

When DS did this, I insisted we all meet in a cafe - parents included. Once we'd established it was all abobve board they went off for a cute date together. They were a lot younger - about 13, so I was very worried it was some creepy middle aged man masquerading as a gorgeous teen.

I'm actually surprised his family aren't putting their foot down.

Coincidentally, I've got a nearly 18yo ds currently in Yorkshire who has been chatting for a few weeks online to a girl he's obviously smitten with. Just texted him, after reading this, to ask if he'd want to invite her to his party & he replied that he'd rather invite her to his funeral tbh.... I had to reassure him that it wasn't a serious suggestion!

All that pressure - family everywhere, all the attention on the two of them - ghastly.

As ds says, he wants to meet a lass one to one, for a day out. Then there's no family scrutiny, no sleepover arrangements creating awkwardness around sex, no difficulty if they take one look at each other & one/both of them immediately thinks 'nope...'.

He also pointed out that if he'd been talking to a girl for 6 months with a view to dating her, he'd have got his arse on a train to at least meet halfway roughly 5 months ago.

I'm sorry, but I'd be vetoing this (assuming you're paying - if not, not much you can do) & offering to chip in towards a ticket for him to come & visit for a day before/after the birthday.

Your son sounds great @CorvusPurpureus 😊

@SharonBeecroft You keep saying that you doubt yourself due to your MH conditions etc, but don’t forget teens often have v poor decision making too. And your daughter is too young for you to really know yet but she may not have great grasp of risk herself. You sound v sensible actually in your instincts and in asking other parents for advice x

I agree he needs to do a day trip to London.

I went to uni in my 30s and one of the students was planning to meet her 'online boyfriend', he'd actually asked her to move in with him.

I said 'no way are you going alone, no way you are going to his house' and went with her and stayed in a B and B in London (he was a similar distance to you from the centre), within mins of them meeting it was obvious they were very different people.

You can't tell what someone is like unless you actually meet them. And I have been known to meet someone on a plane travelling from Australia to London and go to Paris with them for a weekend a week later. This wasn't a romantic trip and we both had fun.

Thank you that is a very kind thing to say. I started crying this morning and haven't really stopped. Having MH conditions makes me doubt every flipping thing, especially my instincts as a parent, and thank goodness I typed in the worries I was having into google and got directed onto this site. It has been a life-saver.

day trip, with you, to meet him, or you both stay overnight in a hotel nearby and daytime meeting only.

Thanks it is incredibly reassuring to get the same feedback from so many people. It's diffiuclt to convey how much BPD affects my parenting so I will just say it's tough, and this has really helped me to be reassured I was right to feel the way I did about this, and it wasn't just me getting hysterical again.

Yes, the more I hear it repeated back to me about how completely unsafe this is, the more I trust what I felt. It's partly my fears about how MH affects my judgement, partly single mum stressing, but ultimately it's been good to hear people saying hell no, and you're right to be thinking this is too darn risky. I really am so grateful and going in to the conversation later will be a lot easier now than it would have been.

Invite him to stay at yours first. Separate rooms.

I think when you’re addressing this with your daughter she might be influenced by hearing that older women wouldn’t want to do this for legitimate relationship reasons, rather than it “just” being because of her age.

No, you're absolutely on the right lines with your judgement here. You're not saying 'I forbid you from meeting this person', but you're recognising that the original invitation is not the best or safest option at this stage. Give yourself some credit for having sound instincts.

I understand that value that your daughter will feel with the relationship she has formed with her boyfriend. It is possible to develop a relationship without having met in person.

In many ways this is no less safe than meeting a boy at a party; in fact, in many ways it's better.

It's great that she is being so open about it. As a teenager I met with two different boyfriends I had formed a relationship with over the internet. I didn't tell anyone I was going to and I feel very lucky that I didn't get myself into a very tricky situation. In both cases I am very pleased that I had only arranged to meet up for the day. I would have been out of my depth if I'd committed to a weekend (but I was a little younger than your DD).

With my experience in mind, I would definitely facilitate a meet-up, but for her to go and stay with his family for the weekend as a first meeting is too intense. It's a lot to go a spend time like that with a family you don't know. Much better to have him come to stay with you first or for them to meet for a day out with you hovering at a nearby cafe or something as a backup.