u/ChellRosewood

I (N30) matched with someone (M42) on Duet last week. We’d been talking frequently since and I felt like we were hitting it off. We seemed to have a lot in common, he’s fairly good looking, has goofy dad vibes (which I’m very into). After finding that he liked a lot of the same media/things as me and seemed very interested in me, I mentioned planning on meeting up soon. Everything was fine until I opened the chat earlier this afternoon and suddenly, the whole chat went totally blank. When I tabbed out of it thinking it was a reception issue needing a refresh, *poof*. Gone. He even disappeared from my likes and my viewers tabs. Like he never existed. I don’t know if it was a glitch or if I misclicked or what happened but it’s all gone and I can’t get it back. I already sent some help tickets to the app’s support service. I didn’t get a chance to give him my number so he could text me and I could explain. I was going to once we made a date but I lost contact before I could even suggest a time to meet up. I’m quite embarrassed to admit I was so devastated I called out of work and went to my parents’ house for the day (I’m working on not self isolating as much when I’m upset and my mom was home today ok). I’m still kind of sad about it as I’m typing this (sorry in advance if it’s excessively long).

After asking some friends for help (obviously to no avail since we have very limited info to go off of), this is where the questioning starts. One person suggested I may have been love-bombed and abruptly blocked and that it’s apparently a common thing people do on dating apps. I hoped this wasn’t the case as he seemed to be really interested in me and I hadn’t gotten any ick from him (or at least nothing glaring or huge) and I really thought we vibed well…

His first messages started off ok. He noted my interests in Minecraft and Pokémon being pretty solid choices and that he loved those games too. He complimented my pictures and was very sweet and a little flirty right off the bat. He liked to call me gorgeous.

In hindsight I have noticed as we got started on getting to know each other that I was asking most if not all the interest questions but he was very agreeable about them. Sure a lot of my questions were bringing up my interests just to see if he shared them but still. It made my heart flutter anyway because hooray somebody who (seemingly) knows ball and can match my whimsy (and my freak).

I asked him what kind of movies/shows he liked, what music he liked, what video games he liked. Said he liked graphic horror movies (me too but not if it’s too graphic) and he’s been mostly playing Fortnite/COD lately (put me off a little tbh). But those seemed like normal, predictable albeit maybe generic answers for a millennial dude. Then I brought up what I liked such as Disney, Minecraft, Pokémon, Coldplay, Lady Gaga, and such. He said his favorite Disney movies were Aladdin (so romantic 💘), Hercules (one of my faves), Monsters Inc (another fave), and Beauty and the Beast; he loved Minecraft and liked building forts and empires and Squirtle is his favorite Pokémon (believable yet common answers again); when I mentioned Lady Gaga he said “I’m obsessed” (which I loved because who doesn’t love mother monster). The music talk actually came up during a bit of somewhat spicy talk though so he initially shared some of his own spicy time playlist. They were actually all bangers I’ve heard on TikTok before, notably some The Weeknd and The Neighborhood including Sweater Weather, Earned It, Daddy Issues… 🤔

So yeah, admittedly some things were moving a bit fast. It was just earlier this week things started getting a little spicy. No exchanges of any super explicit imagery occurred, thankfully, we just talked about what things we were into one day and he really liked some of my ideas which I’ll admit turned me on. The daddy kink thing was already growing on me since I turned 30 half a year ago and I love the idea of pet names like babygirl (even though I’m nonbinary). Although there are some things I don’t feel comfortable sharing here because they’re a little tmi… (which I also brushed off because again he got me going a little too). He once said I got sexier the more I talked and he also agreed on being big about physical touch (my main love language aside from humor). Most of our conversations were relatively tame though just talking about what things we liked with more flirting threaded in between.

While we were talking about Disney he said I could be “his princess” and called me “his Jasmine” which in the moment I thought was cute (I can admit I like the idea of a little bit of princess treatment I even already have my own tiara and dress collections I’ve built over the years purely for fun and whimsy). When I asked about his favorite holiday he said Halloween which is also my favorite. I told him how I still dress up for it even as an adult and he agreed because he’s “still a kid” (didn’t bother me since I can kind of relate). He suggested we could dress up as Disney couples which is unironically already something I would LOVE to do with a romantic partner and have fantasized about in the past. It’s like he read my mind. It felt too good to be true or like a dream come true… I’m wondering if it might have been and he was just feeding my delusions and fantasies.

I can admit I have some personal things that still need to be worked out and I have already been seeing a therapist for a few years. I think one of the big reasons I liked this guy so much was because of the daddy kink thing (but I am aware it’s probably just part of some personal issues, yes I’ve been talking about it to my therapist already). I told my friends about this guy and this update on the situation. One gave me a little tough love saying “tbh I think you’re overthinking it, you never met the guy so it’s not that deep”, my bestie mentioned the possibility of him being a bot because of how agreeable he seemed (she has a couple years experience with chat bots), and my mom said he could be a scammer or predator and I liked him because he was giving me the attention I wanted (my therapist will probably say the same thing and honestly it’s unfortunately a reasonable sounding take).

He did compliment my looks a LOT though we both talked a lot about wanting to just be all over each other in between other topics. I don’t think he was a bot but maybe he could very well have been another wolf in sheep’s clothing. I probably overreacted and it probably wasn’t my fault the chat disappeared but then again I kinda needed the crashout anyway for other reasons. Maybe some old wounds from past dating flops might have even gotten busted open (I guess I didn’t get to process them properly the first time).

If it’s relevant I’m AuDHD and I also recognize that for me personally being neurodivergent can make me a little naive in dating situations. I mean it doesn’t help I’m a noob at dating stuff, too, but I also just don’t want to jump to any bad conclusions. I don’t know what would hurt more, finding out he was actually a chill guy albeit a bit of a thirsty one who could’ve worked for me or if I actually dodged a bullet and maybe his account was struck down for something or he deleted it himself. Another strange quirk I noticed was sometimes it would take a while for him to respond but I attributed it to him being busy or asleep (as if often the case for me and my friends as well). I also feel horrible because I fear he might think I was the one playing games with him and I ditched him out of nowhere when really it was all on accident. I don’t know, did I fumble literally and figuratively or did the universe secretly come in clutch for me?

Probably just exposed myself and answered my own question but I felt it was worth a shot. I’m almost starting to wish he was a bot so it’ll be easier to get over. And don’t worry I was already planning on telling my therapist tomorrow all about this whole thing anyway… 🥲