Thank you Anita, Ben, and John.

The post that was intended to provide an opposing view certainly made me pause and consider the situation further.

The question whether he already knew a bit about me: no, he knows very little about my adult life, nor in the time I have kept in touch with him online has he ever tried to get to know me better, other than asking in our last message exchange if I have been with many other guys. We have not seen each other in-person since we were kids, so the constant one-sided conversation from him struck me as unusual and self-centred. No balanced, give and take communication was occurring.

When he asked to meet with me, I was not rude about turning his request down. I did ask him nicely to be patient with me, and agreed that I would love to meet him at a future point. I was buying time, and did not want to rush into any real world contact, as it was literally put on me that he would be in town several days after we talked about liking each other, and after he told me he would like to get physical with me! I was still digesting that significant confession and it was definitely a lot to process!

Despite turning his request down to meet, I would like to think there is no room for confusion in his mind that I am interested, seeing as I told him directly I fancied and valued him, and wanted to meet in-person someday.  As much as I badly may have wanted to sleep with him too, I wasn’t going to put myself in a position where we had sex so soon before even really knowing much about each other. I would have only gotten more attached to him, and been devastated when he left town and distanced himself from me like he seems to be doing now. At least I suppose I spared myself even deeper emotional grief by having the sense to temper the pace of his sexual interest in me.

I did/do enjoy attention from him, but I guess my expectations are at odds with his, as some posters have rightfully pointed out. I care about him and want him to be a better man who wants just one girl: me! I can’t compete with a gazillion other girls on his radar. And  I understand guys who thrive on ego boosts from many women paying them attention will seldom give that type of activity up.

I wanted to be the one he gives all these other girls up for, but can see I am kidding myself with that irrational expectation (love is not rational). I most definitely don’t want to be the backburner girl, which is the only sign he is giving me now. 🙁

As for the ‘sketchy’ definition, for a number of reasons I see this behaviour in him, and not just to do with his questionable adding of women who are strangers to his social media accounts. For one, he never addresses certain questions I put to him. For example, he got fired from a job last year, which he claimed wasn’t his fault. I questioned what exactly happened, but he never explained himself. I also asked if he seriously meant what he said about fancying me. Again, I was met with no answer from him, which seemed weird.  When someone you are interested in doesn’t respond to what I thought were legitimate questions, it surely indicates something is being hidden? He adds very young girls and dubious characters to his social media accounts and has multiple accounts, which resemble a sleazy harem! It is insulting to me as his real-world school friend who has only ever had good intentions with him, to be sandwiched in amongst  these sorts of people! And last but by no means least, I find him sketchy because he ‘likes’ and pays attention to other females, after telling me he fancies me and has had almost like a crush on me (whatever “almost like a crush” means?). That is upside-down logic to my mind and extremely arrogant to think I will stand by lovestruck, waiting until he is finished showering attention on other women!

If he is too busy ogling other females, when will he have the time and energy to get to know me better? He clearly makes time for other females, but has no time to talk to me and has let things stall. I don’t want only a virtual connection based on shallow ‘likes’. This is quite central to my problem with him. As a man he is not stepping up and pursuing me, and is easily distracted by the online temptation scores of other women provide. I would have thought if he truly cared for me and meant what he said, he would leave no doubt in my mind that he is keen on me?

Thank you to all of you who have helped  encourage me to see the cold, hard truth of the situation. It has helped me immensely  reading other views and verbalising my own thoughts on the matter. Good luck to you John if you end up back in the dating arena! 🙂 I understand that for decent men it is a scary new world out there with the possibility of misinterpretation and sexual harassment at the fore.

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by Dee. Reason: Formatting problem