It's always a leap of faith to meet someone online in real life. Sometimes personalities can be completely different in the flesh, but when everything goes right and a new friend is made, there is little regret. Unfortunately not every meet up goes smoothly and former friends drift away feeling awkward or alienated. For the folks in these stories, ya can't judge a book by the cover, or maybe a person by their profile. Content has been edited for clarity.
Uh… Hmmm
“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 dirty convos were 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 what the heck?) 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 crotch.
Girl: ‘Oh, hey! There you are! Good to see you!’
Me: ‘Uh… hmm. Hey.’
Girl: ‘This is my coworker, Josh.’ (He took one hand off her hips to try to shake my hand.)
Me: ‘Uh… hmm. Hey.’
Girl: ‘It was a long day at work today. We’re really tired, so we’re gonna go home.’
Me: ‘Uh… hmm. So, what the heck should I do?’
Girl: ‘Drink, I guess.. It was so good to see you!’
Me: ‘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 Grandpa Simpsoned, too.”
This Lady Was More Than Strange
“I have weird story about a lesbian I met online and eventually in real life. For reference, I’m a bi girl.
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 talking dirty 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 threw 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 2-years-old…
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.”
Never Seen Or Spoken To Her Again
“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 two 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 two 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 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.’
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.
Now that I think about it, I have a theory about why this went down like it did. 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.”
“You’re My Pokemon Now.”
“So I was in a Discord chat of a bunch of random people, I met a guy who was only two years older than me and lived in my state. We started talking for a while and we got super close. We both wanted to meet up, and it turned out we were both going to go to the same cosplay convention.
We were excited, but then he says, ‘My brother is gonna come too, I told him about you and he thinks you seem cool.’
I was okay with it at the time.
Now, I didn’t regret meeting up with my friend, we are actually still super close to this day, I regretted meeting his BROTHER.
We both drove to the hotel and met up there. We found our room and I plugged my Nintendo Switch into the TV so we can play Mariokart, now here is where the creepiness begins. I choose Rosalina, and his brother says, ‘Of course YOU would pick the prettiest character.’ I just kind of awkwardly chuckled and continued playing. He continued to say weird, flirty things the rest of the night.
The next day we went to the con, and I was dressed as a Mimikyu from Pokemon, my friend was Pikachu, and his brother was a Team Skull Grunt. We had a lot of fun, but the brother kept getting real close and putting his hands on my shoulders and weird stuff like that.
Then he throws a Pokeball at me, I played along and it was pretty funny, but he says afterwards, ‘You’re my Pokemon, so you do me favors from now on,’ and slapped me hard on the butt. I noped out of there and tracked down my friend, who was at one of the sellers booths. I told him everything and he just confronted his brother, who proceeded to walk around the con by himself. I still meet up with my friend, but he comes to my house so I don’t have to see his brother.”
Weekend With A Narcissist
“I (22 year old female) had a friend (26 year old male) online for eleven 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 eleven year friendship and what we have been through together, but I’ll just try to make it short by saying he had a very lousy 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.
On this trip, 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.
-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.
-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.
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.”
Well, This Is Awkward
“I actually worked with this lady at the time. She was good looking and very flirtatious. Most importantly: we both played world of Warcraft (at its prime).
She ended up inviting me to join her server and being a randy 20 something; I, of course, joined up.
We played for a time and had a good pvp group going – her regulars. Of course she was still flirty with me in game and I was back… all in group chat. Either way, we had some great times together slaying players in pvp.
Summer comes and it’s a company BBQ, I find out she is bringing one of our PVP partners to the event. Cool!
It was her husband. A cop. I’ve been virtually sending naughty messages to her in game in front of him for three months.
I was mid 20s and she was mid 30s so it wasn’t weird between us, but her husband was mid 40s, so he probably thought I was hilarious. I ended up quitting my job to unrelated events and I awkwardly kept in touch with the HUSBAND because he went to the same racetrack I did. I mean dang. I couldn’t escape my embarrassment.”
She Was Obsessed With Him Watching
“The 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. (By the way, I’m a guy. She wasn’t)
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. Four out of every five pics she posted to FB was her tata in her kid’s mouth. She got angry when you looked away when in public. Like, she WANTED you to stare at her while she fed her son.
Just got to the point that I was super uncomfortable with it and moved on.”
UP YOURS CREEP!
“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.
‘UP YOUR’S CREEP!’
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 drinks.
They haul it 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 2 am, 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 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! UP YOUR’S CREEP’
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, four 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.
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, ‘UP YOUR’S CREEP!'”
After A Few Jokes He Learned The Truth
“Met a fellow 7th grader on Xbox, and we were pretty great friends. Even after I quit playing Xbox, we still kept in touch. He only lived two towns over, but it was right on the edge of where my parents would drive me.
So high school graduation, I finally made it out to see him for the first time. We were having fun, until I asked him, ‘Hey, is Hannah coming?’
Hannah was a high school girlfriend he had that we’d talk about a lot because I’d third wheel a lot of Xbox Live parties with them and we had a bit of inside jokes.
He and his friends winced and chuckled (kind of the awkward reaction I was aiming for) then I piece together from old memories that the other dude in his friend group used to date her too and how they’d gloat about being Eskimo brothers so he’d probably remember who I was from Xbox as well.
After a few more jokes, my friend leans in on me and goes, ‘Hey I know you’re not from around the area or nothing, but she died in a car accident a few months ago.’
I immediately shut up and left. They told me they were fine with it all and we should hang out again, but when you’re making explicit jokes about someone whose obituary stated they played piano for the church and consecutive years on honor roll, you don’t really want to go back round those there parts.”
She Would Fart During Every Romantic Scene
“The amount of desperation that girl had. Holy cow.
First issue was she used a picture of herself when she was younger and thinner. She used to be around 120 pounds, I believe she told me. She was easily over 300 pounds and couldn’t walk for long. Eventually she took out a cane. I didn’t know how to react to a 21-year-old using a cane. Someone that was injured? Sure. Someone that spent 90% of their time watching YouTube and reading manga. Not fine.
We walked, sat, walked, sat, walked sat, talked for a bit. She warned me she has anger issues and might snap at me at any random time. She would constantly look at her phone and sigh loudly. We met up basically on a date to see a movie. When watching the movie she would constantly burp and fart during every romantic scene. She would cheer herself on every time too. In the theater.
After the date was over. I didn’t want to see her again, but apparently I left a good impression. She would call me, constantly every night. Usually crying about how much she hates where she lives, how much she hates why she can’t leave, etc etc.
She wanted a relationship to rescue her from there. Life would be better if she had a boyfriend and just did her own thing. The only jobs she had were at fast food places. Those didn’t last long. Each one two to three months at most. She constantly smelled like fish. She dropped out of college because in her words, ‘I couldn’t stand the stuck up people there. They really made it unbearable.’
Also she does not like studying.
After awhile she stopped contacting me. I believe that she had taken the hint and backed off. In reality she went to another guy who is basically the literal definition of 4chan’s soyboy, though much worse. He can barely keep down a job, he can barely maintain himself, he drinks himself silly, and she is just happy to be away from her family.
She started contacting me again begging me to save her from him and I’m like, ‘Uh I have a girlfriend now. Bye.’
She left a 16 page Facebook rant. Haven’t heard from her since.”
Guess He Didn’t Get His Own Joke
“After college, I went on a month long road trip up the east coast of the US. Started in Florida, went up to Connecticut, and then headed west to Wisconsin. I’d posted on Youtube saying I was making this trip and looking for people to stay with along the way.
One stop, I thankfully only had planned on staying there for a few hours, was in North Carolina. It was some farm house out in the middle of nowhere. I knocked on the door and like 5 kids answered. All ages 10-13. No parents in sight.
I thought it’d be fine, and that I’d only be there for a few hours and I wanted to take a break from driving anyhow, so I stuck around. I asked if they had anything to eat while I was there, and they lead me into the kitchen. They’d all been pretty awkward and quiet through all this, but it seemed normal enough. They’re just awkward kids, right?
They pull out some bread and peanut butter. I ask if they have any silverware and that’s when I realize that the five of them are semi circle around me, fully blocking me in. I’m standing in the corner of this kitchen against their counter top and the five of them are just quiet and watching me.
One kid who hadn’t said anything in the half hour that it’s been since I’ve arrived stepped forward with his hand shaking violently. I’d just asked for silverware, so he pulls his hand from behind his back with this MASSIVE knife. He’s shaking and just says in this small scary voice, ‘Here’s… a… knife!’ and I just put my hands up and backed even further into the corner
I said, ‘Whoa whoa whoa, what the heck? What’s going on?’ I was getting fully ready to punch a child.
He immediately set the knife down on the counter and backed away. Said he was trying to make a reference to one of my old youtube videos where I used a huge knife to make a sandwich.
Scared the heck out of me.
After that, I stuck around and played some Smash Bros Melee with ’em for a while, then ducked out.”