Deleted member 101
I just wanna be loved, but don’t think I’m worthy
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- Joined
- Nov 7, 2017
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- 4,228
Throwaway because the person described knows my Reddit username.
In my third year of college, I met a guy online through a game and became friends with him. He lived many states away from me in the US and I knew he was older than me. We chatted daily and played together.
This fast friendship continued into my senior year. We had been playing a different game together and voice chatting more often. I think I was actually charmed by his voice. It was deep and rich, and he had a great laugh. I didn't expect him to be incredibly good looking, but he was kind and funny, and his breadth of experience as an older guy (I didn't know then how much older) was very appealing. He was easy to talk to, and I confided in him. I had been seriously struggling with undiagnosed clinical depression and anxiety. I think he thought of me as a side hobby of sorts. Just a problematic girl he met online who he wanted to help.
I confessed to him, and was rejected. He seemed more incredulous that I would want a relationship with him.
I was always open to him about my life. He knew how old I was, what I sounded like, even what school I went to. On the contrary, I knew very little about his appearance or height, or even his race. After I showed him my picture, he was surprised because apparently he expected me to look like Sadako from The Ring. The compliments felt good to receive, even though it hurt that he thought I was so scary/unattractive. I'm a 175 cm (5'9") Asian girl, and at that time, I was 115 lbs. The next day, his tune changed, and he seemed to be considering the relationship. And then later that week, he said that I should be happy, because he had reconsidered my feelings for him and was willing to give the relationship a go.
My feelings at this point were already mixed. That day, when I confessed to him, I had asked to see his picture after I showed him mine. But he was evasive and ended up showing me a picture of him from many years back, when he was in college. When I asked for a more recent picture, he showed me one that was incredibly blurry and I couldn't make out any of his features. Then he reluctantly told me that he was 39 years old. I had known he was older, but never in my wildest dreams had I expected him to be so much older than me. There was a 17 year age gap between us. Relationships with such age gaps often do work out, but I was still super concerned and immediately knew that my strict Asian parents would NEVER approve of him.
All of this was obviously raising flags and I was now regretting confessing to him, but when he said that he liked me back and wanted to progress with the relationship, I hesitated to go back on my word. I had never dated before and was a complete virgin, and honestly, I craved a relationship. I wanted to feel desirable, to feel loved and attractive. We started dating. For us, that meant phone calls lasting 4-6 hours and many texts in between. He encouraged me to seek therapy for the panic attacks and suicidal thoughts I kept having (senior year became very stressful, with all the looming thoughts of the uncertain future ahead). For that, I will always be thankful to him. No one else in my life had ever told me to go into therapy. My parents told me I would get over it and that this was a phase that everyone went through. He was the first person to tell me that it wasn't normal to think about how I would end my own life on a daily, if not hourly, basis.
And then, after a few weeks of daily conversation, he showed me his body and face.
To be honest, I was completely repulsed. I feel bad saying that about anyone but I would have never wanted an intimate relationship with him if I had seen his appearance beforehand. Everything about him was simply not my type. He was very overweight (although he was working hard to lose it) and much shorter than me. 17 years older than me and balding. I started realizing this would never work. I had fallen in love with his personality, but I could not feel even an ounce of attraction to his body.
This is important, of course, because he also taught me about phone sex and sexting. I became very good at moaning, because I knew it turned him on. However, I could never bring myself to actually imagine his body on top of mine. It scared me a little. But for him, it was all too easy. He would tell me about erotic fantasies he had about me. He seemed to always be thinking about sex, and masturbated to porn frequently. I was happy to think that he found me so attractive, but at the same time, I was pretty scared.
I told him once that I was hesitating, that I liked him, but was not attracted to him. BUT I was willing to still give it a try, that maybe I would get over it. He must have sensed these feelings growing in me after he showed me his picture, because he totally assumed that I was dumping him and had apparently planned to lash out at me. His vengefulness and anger was frightening. I don't remember everything he said then, but one thing stuck: He thought I at least owed him sex.
I think I was too much in shock and too overwhelmed by my mixed feelings to realize how concerning those words were. He was never a bad person. I think now that he was seriously lonely and thought of me like a rice cake dropped into his lap from the sky. At almost 40, his dating opportunities were becoming rather slim. He told me that I was his "last chance" to find love and marry, have kids, and live the rest of our lives together.
And so... my chance to end the relationship decisively slipped away from me, and we continued dating. He made plans for the future, and I continued worrying and doubting. He booked a flight and planned to come see me, and I continued to dread actually meeting him. I know I should have told him clearly that it would not work between us, but I didn't. I felt bad that he had helped me so much, and that we had spent so many hours talking. I didn't want to have been a waste of his time and care. And most of all, I could not bring myself to destroy his "last chance."
When my anxiety about the relationship came to a head, I told him I needed a break. To this day, I regret having not laid things out clearly. But I felt bad about everything, and just wanted to escape from the mess. I knew I was essentially stringing him along this whole time and lying to him, but I honestly never meant to hurt him. I was 22 years old, completely naive, and had no idea how to express my own wishes, how to listen to my body's signals, and how to heed the red flags I had seen along the way.
I offered to recoup the cost of the flight. He rejected that offer at first, but the next day he sent me a very formal text saying he had reconsidered and wanted me to pay $250. At that time, that was a lot of money for me, but I agreed and sent him the check immediately.
I believe I was an asshole in this relationship. I could have avoided all this pain for both of us by listening to my true thoughts and realizing that no amount of worrying is going to suddenly make me feel attracted to a body that isn't my type. He knew, from the very beginning, that I was vulnerable and incredibly naive. I had a lot of fault in this, but he also manipulated my feelings and withheld his appearance and personal details (namely his age) from me until it was too late for me to easily back out. He KNEW that I would find him unattractive, and so he kept me in the dark for a long time.
I wrote all of this to finally process my lingering feelings. It's been 2 years since then and I'm in a loving, non-long-distance relationship with someone else. I'm even getting married soon, but I still have pained thoughts about my first boyfriend sometimes and I realized that I never really got over it. I'm scared to invite criticism, but I know I need to hear it.
(Edited typo about my height!)
