so embarrassed
so not too long ago I was talking to this guy I met on tinder. we eventually moved over to texting and (mainly) calling, where we would talk about random things for hours. he was from the uk originally but lived not terribly far from me (hence how I met him on tinder, he was within a certain number of miles away). there were a couple of red flags I noticed but never anything major enough to seriously alarm me I suppose. I reverse image searched multiple pictures and nothing came up.
unfortunately for me I quickly became obsessed with this guy. he was exactly my type but I also loved talking to him/his personality, he was super cheeky and sassy and just fun to talk to. we exchanged instagrams and he had around 1800 followers with posts and highlights going back years - it looked insanely legit so I didn't think much of it. he ended up being super manipulative and would continuously ghost me, very hot and cold - typical "situationship" behavior I suppose. he came off as a MASSIVE narcissist and he definitely wasn't into me but I was really bored and he had successfully manipulated me into being VERY into him (obviously I should've stopped trying to talk to him a long time ago for this alone but you live and learn I guess). we haven't spoken over the phone since probably mid April, and we last communicated via ig dms towards the end of April. from various context clues it had seemed as though he had found someone else and moved on, which I was quite upset over. maybe a day or two later after the last dms, his ig account was gone. I thought I had been blocked, but I had a friend look up his handle and it was gone for her too, so it had been deactivated. a while after I checked my tinder dms and his account was gone from there too (which I didn't think too much of since, like I said, I thought he had met someone).
at this point I haven't really spoken to him or anything in quite a while, and I had mostly gotten over him, but recently he popped into my head. well, yesterday I was bored and looked up his Spotify, which was also gone. this is where everything felt like it had come crashing down. I decided to do a deep dive, and through a TON of trial and error I eventually found the real guy in the pictures. different name, different country, everything. I feel sick to my stomach. I think the biggest thing is that I've always considered myself pretty smart. I recently graduated from a top school and with all the time I spent learning how to vet sources and develop media literacy skills I cannot BELIEVE I was dumb and naive enough to fall for this.
the main issues are that 1. Im so embarrassed that I mentioned him to multiple people in my life (my closest friends and my sister, and he even spoke to my best friend and I on the phone for like an hour once) and 2. (the far worse one) he has pictures of me topless. they shouldn't have my face (that I can recall) except for one time that I changed clothes on camera so my full body was in frame. I can't believe I could be this stupid, especially since ive been SO careful my whole life. im assuming he's just collecting pictures and whatnot from girls for his own personal use, but im really scared of these images potentially getting out in some way and being connected to me. I just feel like I have whiplash and I honestly wish I just minded my business and left this whole thing alone so I would never have to know. im terrified of anyone I know finding out or dumb pictures fucking with my life. im so lost right now and just utterly humiliated. obviously things could be much worse but god this is awful. cliche but I never thought it would happen to me.