My story...
I had just turned 18 and he was 28 (don’t wanna offend anyone but I think this is a bit of a warning sign...)
Not TECHNICALLY online dating, but most of the dating happened online
(We met briefly on a night out whilst drunk and swapped numbers, exchanged texts/calls for about 6 months).
Even though we’d only met once it got real intense real quickly and I was young enough to fall for it.
Constant texting and long phone calls.
Calling each other after nights out etc.
I suppose the weirdness stared when he would call me and say random things like ‘you’d better not be seeing any guys/speaking to any guys’ etc - yet he was constantly on nights out, pictures on Facebook with loads of girls etc. He got a bit controlling if I’m honest. He lived about an hour from me and he suggested he would take a day off work to come and spend it with me, after our 6 month virtual courtship, and then he would stay at mine. He told me that once we met we would definitely be in a relationship and that I could go to uni in Manchester where he lived and we could move in together in a city centre flat. Perfectly reasonable obvs. I loved the idea.
I lived with my mum at the time and naively asked her if this 28 year old I’d met once could stay over - guess what she said!
Anyway, we set the date. I was SO nervous. There was so much riding on this. It had to go well. I was absolutely sure I loved this person. But I’d only met him once - and we were on a night out - what if he’d remembered me wrong? What if he found me unattractive?
I did what I did best at that age - I pre-drank for the date to settle my nerves (despite it being a daytime meeting). I ended up downing a bottle of wine. What could possibly go wrong.
Everything.
I was a little late and giddily ran up to him at the train station. He was much stranger than I’d remembered, tall and gangly and rather odd looking. He immediately looked me up and down and told me I looked fatter than he remembered. We went around a few bars. It was miserable. He kept texting other people and making jokes at my expense. I got drunker and drunker until, in a very posh city centre cocktail bar, I fell asleep in the toilet
I was gone for 40 minutes before him calling me eventually woke me up (I’d also been sick!!!).
Somehow we continued with the ‘date’ for an hour or so before he made his excuses and we said goodbye at the train station. I was pretty sure I’d never see him again - I was happy because he was a knob - but gutted because I still felt like I was almost breaking up with someone. 6 months of talking to someone constantly and it would be over.
He got on his train and I got a text from him. My heart leapt. All it said was ‘you’ve got split ends.’