With the rise of internet socialization, it has become more and more common to meet strangers in person while trying to move an internet relationship into the real world. There's one problem though. Meeting an internet friend in person can go wrong in a lot of ways. Here are stories from people who met a friend they made online and discovered that they were NOT who they thought they were.
Uh… Hello
“I met a girl in person once, but life got in the way of meeting again for quite a while. We flirted a ton online and via text. The charged content was at a peak and we were talking about all the things we were going to do to each other when we saw each other again.
Finally, our night had arrived. She wanted to meet at this lame bro bar, but whatever…I figured we’d get a hotel room quickly. I dressed nice, drove out there, and could not find her anywhere. I loop out on the back deck a few times when I finally stopped out there to call her.. and it turns out, she was back there the whole time. I had completely looked past her a few times already. She’s dressed in like dirty scrubs (she’s not a nurse, so ??) and is practically connected at the hip to some other dude. The body language says it’s mutual. As she turns around, she still has her hips thrust into his pelvis.
‘Oh, hey! There you are! Good to see you!’
‘Uh… hmm. Hey.’
‘This is my coworker, Josh.’ (He took one hand off her hips to try to shake my hand.)
‘Uh… hmm. Hey.’
‘It was a long day at work today. We’re really tired, so we’re gonna go home.’
‘Uh… hmm. So, what the frick should I do?’
‘Drink, I guess.. It was so good to see you!’
‘Uh… hmm.’
I watched them walk around the corner and then I took a different exit. The next day, she texted and said I looked really good last night.
Had I known that was her back there the whole time grinding up on some other dude, I would have left early, too.”
A Weird Fascination
“We started talking after I made a comment on a lesbian forum about being a single lesbian mom. I still didn’t know if I was bi or a lesbian at the time.
We started messaging a lot. Hundreds of texts a day. This included sending dirty pics and trading nudes a lot, too. But she was always obsessed with my daughter. Like almost demanding pictures of her and updates on her.
Eventually we arranged to meet up. When we finally see each other in person, she looks shocked and asks where my daughter was. Being babysat by mom so we can have a date. I could tell this through her off a bit.
After our date we start hooking up at my place. Even then she was still asking about her.
‘After this can I meet her?’ ‘Would you let me babysit?’ ‘Do you think she’ll start calling me mommy?’ I was like chill she’s 1.5…
This combined with her being obsessed with my daughter’s stuff including stealing a pacifier, a dirty onesie, going through the diaper pail. I decided this lady is crazy.
She ended up stalking me for a while but I was moving back in with my mom anyway so I managed to escape.”
Can I Stay With You?
“I was 13 and had a 20 year old pen pal in Hong Kong, both of us female. We met on tumblr and emailed each other regularly. My parents were CC’ed in all our correspondence, and we basically just talked about our cultures. About a year of us talking went by, and she said that her university allowed her to study abroad in Europe for a semester and she chose my country. Fun! I was excited. However, some time went by and our friendship kinda faded, to the point where I had forgotten she was even coming to my country.
About 2 weeks before she was supposed to come, she emailed me that her student accommodation had to be cleaned out, so she couldn’t access it on the night that she arrived. She needed a place to stay for one night. I asked my mom and she agreed to pick her up from the airport with me, and she could stay with us for one night. I mean, we trusted this girl. I was very open about my friendship with her, we had pictures and everything.
So 2 weeks later, we pick her up from the airport. And we didn’t click. She kinda annoyed me, but it was late and so we just went home. We get home and get her settled. We went up to my room, she gave me some presents and we chat a little bit. She treated my mother like a taxi driver and she shot down everything I said to her. She says ‘thanks for letting me stay here this semester!’
Huh? Excuse me? This semester?
I asked her, like, what do you mean? You can stay here tonight. We can see each other during the weekends if you want to hang out, but you can’t stay here. Plus, she was rude to me until she gave me the presents, after which she directly started talking about staying with me the whole semester.
She goes quiet. We go to sleep. At this point I just wanted her to go away. And I got what I wanted.
The next morning I wake up, and she’s gone. I don’t even know how she got out, because we lock the doors at night, but she just vanished. (We have special locks that you need a key for to open, and the key was somewhere else in the house. Yes, I think this is a fire hazard. No, my mom can’t be convinced it’s unnecessary) Her suitcase was still there. I tried calling her, she didn’t pick up. She eventually texted me, asking if my mother could drop off her suitcase at a train station 40 minutes away at a certain time. My mother brought the suitcase, and that was that. Never seen her or spoken to her again after that.
She most likely put down my address on her visa application as her place of residency during her stay and needed to stay in my house in case immigration was going to check if she was actually there.
She didn’t want to talk to me after I said that I had told her she could stay for one night on that exact date. I told her we could discuss it with my parents in the morning. Her and my English were both great, and we had discussed specific dates.”
Snubbed In The Checkout Line
“When I was in high school, I met a guy from a different high school in a local chat room. We hit it off and after a few days we agreed to meet up at the store I worked at once I finished work. I was wearing a name tag that had my name on it.
Well I guess he showed up a little early, with a friend, and came through my check stand. I thought it was him (we’d swapped photos), but I was really shy and didn’t want to be wrong. I waited for him to introduce himself, but he never did, and he and his friend paid for whatever they had and left without conversation.
I was still hopeful that wasn’t the guy, so I waited up for him for an hour after my shift. Of course, he never showed, because that absolutely was the guy. He must have been disappointed when he met me in the checkout line and instead of being a decent person and saying he wasn’t interested, he just ghosted me.
He knew my name and saw my photo. I made several references to the conversations that we’d had online and he blew them off. He joked with his friend and acted like a frat boy in the line, but made no attempts to engage me at all.
He was a good looking guy that had no confidence issues, trust me. Someone pointed out that his friend was with him and probably gave him crap afterward, which caused him to bail. That seems to make the most sense to me. I reached out to him online asking where he was afterward and he never responded to me.
If I could go back in time, I definitely would have said something to him at the check stand. That’s my one regret.
This guy treated me like crap. He was a coward who let me stand outside the store for an hour and refused to be honest with me. Are there things I could have done better, like stand up for myself or call him by name? Sure. But that’s not what I did when I was 16 and I regret it. Bottom line, though, his behavior was not acceptable.”
Let’s Not Be Shallow
“I was playing an online game with this guy for over one year and we got along really well. I was 15 and he was 19. We talked and played for hours every day and we shared a lot of thoughts and secrets. We never exchanged photos, though. I started to like him very much and didn’t care that I didn’t have a photo of him, because young me thought ‘If his looks changed your feelings it would mean you are very superficial.’ We made plans to meet up and he drove to my area in his car. His car was very small (which isn’t a problem), but then he opened the door and this 400 pound dude got out it looked really silly. No kidding, the car was only marginally bigger than he was… I was kinda stunned, but carried on like everything was normal. I didn’t want to act superficial after all. We hugged and he smelled just disgusting. The smell can only be described as a mixture of old sweat, smoke and clothes that didn’t dry right away.
Later that day he kissed me and I almost threw up. It was only my second kiss and I never had the pleasure to kiss a smoker before. It was a horrible experience. I still got into a relationship with him, because I thought at least he has this amazing personality. Oh boy, how wrong I was… He turned out to be an abusive piece of crap.”
Not What I Expected
“When I was 19, I jumped on a flight to meet a friend I had known for about 4-5 months. We both went through family bereavements and were a shoulder to cry on for each other, via the phone or internet, and we just decided to meet for a few days in a country between us.
Until then, everything had been perfect. She was the coolest girl, really smart, the kind of person you want to be around all the time.
When we met, things started great but a day later she confessed, ‘You’re not what I expected.’ Erm, what? 19 years old and not very confident, this knocked me sideways. ‘I don’t know, just.. you seem different.’
I never hid who I was before we met, was completely open and it put a real sour taste on the rest of my time with her. Instead of chatting non stop and watching MTV shows on TV in the hotel at night, we went quiet and straight to sleep, ate in silence. I put as much effort as I could into it but I still never got to the bottom of how I was different. We went our separate ways, text for a few days then never spoke again.”
The Narcissist
“I (22-year-old woman) had a friend (26-year-old man) online for 11 years before we met. I’m Canadian, he’s American. We met on a RP site when we were quite literally still kids and were a massive part of one another’s lives, especially during our teenage years. We spoke every day through text, on the phone, had each other on social media, we even knew and sometimes spoke to each other’s family and friends in real life. He called me his light and his sister — and I called him my brother. We were family.
It would take a whole novel to explain our 11 year friendship and what we have been through together, but I’ll just try to make it short by saying he had a very crappy and unstable life and a lot of mental health problems. He was a narcissist. I spent many years being his emotional crutch and punching bag, helping him find jobs, being there for his breakdowns. I never broke off the friendship because after all those years, I kind of felt responsible for him.
Anyways, last year we finally decided to meet. We were both grown adults and saved money to go on a 10 day trip to a dream destination of mine in the States. I knew this likely would not go well, I KNEW he was a narcissist, but I just had to meet him. I had to meet my brother, the guy that was there for over a decade. I needed to see him face to face.
He was overall inconsiderate. We only ate at places where he wanted to eat, when he wanted to eat. Only did things he wanted to do and not me, despite the trip being my idea. I missed out on a lot because he just wanted to sit around and do nothing.
He automatically assumed I’d shell out $300 for him to buy a laptop he wanted, without asking me. Just brought me to the store to look around while we waited for our movie to start at the theatre and sprung it on me. I refused.
He abandoned me on a mountain during a hike because he decided he wanted weed. When he came back I was obviously mad and wanted to go back to our hotel but he told me to wait for him in the car while he did the hike on his own. I took an Uber home and he returned as well 4 hours later.
And so much more. What hurt the most is when I confronted him about it, he told me ‘You’re not my girlfriend, I don’t need your approval or need to change for you to like me.’
I cut the friendship off and blocked him when we returned home. I also plan on retaking my dream trip one day and doing it properly this time.”
American Holiday
“It was my friend ‘Kate’ who befriended this girl, ‘Jessica,’ who allowed us to come and stay with her when we travelled to the US. They’d actually been talking online for a long time before we made the trip over there, to the point where they were calling each other best friends. The only reason I was even invited along was because my friend’s parents wouldn’t let her travel alone. I’d kind of resigned myself as the third wheel.
Jessica was rude to me instantly and kept my friend away from me. I’d go upstairs and she’d find a reason for them to go downstairs. She had Kate share her bedroom and she’d lock the door for hours and so I’d just go off and do my own thing. I figured they just wanted to spend time together – specifically away from me as Jessica clearly resented me being there. We met her two (odd) friends and they both ignored me. When it was time for Kate and I to move on to another state, Jessica insisted on coming with us.
The lady we stayed with in another state, ‘Robin,’ took no crap and called Jessica out on her strange behaviour. Jessica proceeded to lock herself in a room and demanded Kate stay in there with her. They were in there all day and eventually Kate came out and said to me that there’s something wrong with Jessica and she’s actually scared. We (Kate and I) had plans to stay with another online friend, ‘Matt,’ in another state and Jessica demanded we cancel because she doesn’t like or trust Matt. We said no, this is our holiday and we’ve paid for flights, and Jessica said then she will come with us but we can’t meet up with Matt. We said no, she cried, we left. Kate blocked her on everything.
Kate’s mother called us not long after saying Jessica contacted her crying, saying Kate is in danger and we abandoned Jessica, and she’s so concerned for my friend’s safety (edit to add: as a I recall, she claimed to be concerned about Matt and basically wanted Kate’s mum to tell us to stay with Jessica). It was actually incredibly scary. Kate found out later from another girl, ‘Jane’ (they all knew each other from a forum) that Jessica had been telling everyone they were in love and had even slept together. I don’t know how much of that is true but I’ve known Kate for 20 years now and she’s never identified as anything but straight. She denied it 100%. Jessica was just obsessed with her, and months later Kate heard Jessica was telling everyone she was saving money to come to our country to find Kate. She never did, thankfully.
My relationship with my friend suffered after this trip as I figured the hiding in the room was just another way of excluding me. Looking back, it probably felt like a dang hostage situation. Other than the time spent with this girl, we had a great holiday and made some good friends (I still talk to Matt, he’s great).”
Giving Into The Obsession
“A guy I met who I knew online for a long time suddenly got freakishly obsessive and possessive.
We’d met online through a fandom, after a few years the fandom pretty much fell apart but a handful of us stayed friends because we actually had a fair amount in common. ‘D’ was very normal, the rest of the group seemed to love him, about 4 years after just being online mates, we met in person; it went fine. We interacted a lot on Facebook and Instagram. I hit a really busy period in my life but managed to squeeze in a Christmas get-together at my place for my little group of friends including D. After that my online activity decreased drastically due to being busy and when I managed to get on FB, I noticed that most of the group were no longer friends with D. Weird, but whatever. I checked my messenger and saw message after message after message asking why I wasn’t responding, what was I doing, could we arrange a meet up etc, I explained I was super busy and it was also coming up to the anniversary of my mom’s death, so just give me some time and we’ll see about meeting up another time. He said, ‘Oh yeah, I forgot about the anniversary, you can have that day but I expect a response after.’ Forget that, I blocked him, so he sent email after email after email asking me ‘what is your freaking problem, what the heck do you think you’re doing’ etc so I blocked his email too.
After 3 very peaceful weeks, there was a knock on my door, it was D and he had a six page letter detailing why we had to be friends. I shut the door, used an anonymous email thing to tell him if he contacted me again/showed up at my door, I would call the police. I then went on FB and told everyone (including our two remaining mutual friends) about it all and could the mutuals not share anything about me/my life and actively discourage him from attempting to make contact.
The friends who had long since unfriended him started messaging me that they stopped talking to him because of how creepy he was being in PM’s about me, always asking if they knew what I was doing, had I talked to them, was I seeing anyone, was I actually busy because he was convinced I wasn’t, etc. In return, I told them how he’d been trying to convince me to stop being friends with them because according to him, they were all sorts of horrible things and that they were incredibly jealous and hated how close he and I were, I assumed he was just butthurt because they stopped talking to him so he was just making up a bunch of crap about these people who had always been perfectly nice to me.
One incredibly weird occurrence just before this all happened was me telling a mutual on FB that I was heading to the aquarium in London with my daughter (mutual friend was also in London that day with their daughter) and maybe we could grab a coffee/let the kids play in the park for a bit. I checked my messages later that evening and D was incredibly upset because he’d waited at Farringdon station exit for 2 hours so he could come to the aquarium too and I didn’t show up (we did not get off at that station, but one that was two stops after and closer to where we were going).
I haven’t heard a peep in over a year, he has apparently deleted his FB and Instagram and thankfully just disappeared.”
Crazy Lady
“This lady was crazy.
We met through an app that was advertised as a ‘meet friends’ app and not a dating app. Well turns out, it was a dating app.
However, she put in her bio that she was married with 2 kids. I put that I was in a long term relationship and looking for friends. (I’m a guy. She wasn’t looking for friends.)
So when we arranged a meet up, her husband and 2 kids were there as well as my girlfriend. Everything was going great. Hung out a few times and added each other on Facebook.
Turns out, she was super into the whole nursing in public thing. Like, I get it. You go girl. But she was super obsessed with it. 4 out of every 5 pics she posted to Facebook was her tata in her kids mouth. She got angry when you looked away when in public. Like, she WANTED you to stare at her while she nursed.
Just got to the point that I was super uncomfortable with it and moved on.”
A Little Too Attached
“This story took place over a decade ago when I was a senior in high school–some of the details are a little fuzzy.
I met a girl who blogged on the same site I did. Let’s call her Sarah. We were the same age, but she lived in a nearby town and went to a different high school. We had been talking online for a month or two and then decided to watch a movie at her place. The date was awkward, but not awful. We kissed, nothing more. However, I could tell that she was more into it than I was. I didn’t want a relationship, and she definitely did. We had already talked about this.
So when she broached the topic of a relationship a few days later, I told her that I had fun on our date, and I liked her, but still felt the same: I didn’t want to get into a relationship before I left for college. She appeared to understand and took it okay (online). I knew she was disappointed, and I really felt bad for her because I knew how that felt, but she said she agreed with me and wanted to do the same thing (we were the same age). I still think I made the right call.
That’s when things got weird.
One night a few weeks later, I was sitting outside a coffee shop in a crowded shopping center when an SUV pulls into the parking lot going about 45mph. Just absolutely flying. It was really dangerous.
The SUV drives past me sitting outside the coffee shop, window rolled down, and I see Sarah in the backseat holding a plastic red solo cup. I hadn’t told her I would be there, but it was one of my regular hang-out spots, so she likely knew to look for me there.
‘EFF YOUR PRICK!’
She screams at me as they pass, and she throws the cup out the window. It hits the sidewalk in front of me, and I can smell that it’s full of Smirnoff.
They haul tail around the parking lot and come back for another pass. I’m gathering my things to go inside at this point, but she continues to hurl insults at me from the window as her friends drive her around.
I don’t remember exactly what happened after that, but I basically stayed inside until the SUV left, and then I left drove back home to my parents’ house for the night.
Then at about 2am, my Dad comes into my room. I was asleep (school night).
‘There’s someone out on the front lawn. They’re screaming your name.’
It turns out Sarah had figured out where I lived (maybe they followed me home?), and her wasted, awful friends had driven her over to my parents’ house at midnight on a school night and just left her there. She was laying on her back out on the lawn, screaming at the top of her lungs:
‘I HATE YOU! EFF YOUR PRICK!’ (Such a strange insult that no one has ever said to me since).
My Dad got her some water and helped her to her feet. He contacted her folks and drove her to an all-night diner where they picked her up.
I don’t remember the details of our follow-up conversations. I remember that she apologized, and felt embarrassed. But it was also clear she had an unhealthy attachment to me. To be honest, I wasn’t very nice to her after that. I told her politely but firmly that I didn’t want her in my life.
Cut to freshman year of college, 4 hours away from my hometown. Who do I see on campus but Sarah?
She’d never mentioned she was interested in this college, and she knew I was going there. Fortunately (for both of us), that is where the story ends. I never did learn if she ‘followed’ me there, or if it was just a coincidence. I didn’t see her much at college. We had different friend groups and she did her own thing mostly. She might have messaged me once or twice, but I didn’t reply, and eventually, she quit contacting me.
The funniest thing is, I had totally forgotten about this incident until a voice, somewhere in the deep dark recesses of my memory, called out to me in a harsh whisper, ‘EFF YOUR PRICK!'”