u/Reasonable-Room8977

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19F and I swear my brain is years behind reality.

I was that ugly kid growing up. Got bullied, got made fun of, even my family used to joke about my appearance. It wasn't anything crazy but it happened enough that I think it completely messed up how I see myself.

The weird part is that people are actually nice to me now. I get compliments sometimes, guys seem interested occasionally, people approach me, do favors for me, my family literally jokes about my glow up now..But I still act like I'm the same insecure kid.

I'm SO awkward it's actually embarrassing. If someone talks to me I suddenly forget how to be a person. I avoid eye contact, keep conversations short, look away, and apparently I always look either annoyed or angry because my face goes completely blank when I'm nervous.People probably think I'm mean when in reality I'm just socially malfunctioning.

And don't even get me started on guys. I've never had a proper relationship because every time someone seems interested my first instinct is basically "abort mission" and I accidentally push them away The funniest part is I genuinely don't understand why some people have had crushes on me. I barely talk, barely go out, have like 3 friends, don't flirt, don't make moves, don't do anything. What made me think about this was something that happened tonight at a wedding. A cute guy was looking at me from across the room. I looked back, he smiled at me, and instead of smiling back like a normal human being I immediately looked away and acted like I didn't care.

Meanwhile my actual thoughts were: "OH MY GOD." I probably looked cold as hell when really I was just panicking.

I don't know what's wrong with me. It's like my confidence got frozen at 13 years old and never updated.

Has anyone else gone through this? Is there an actual name for it or am I just painfully awkward?

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So I met this guy on one of those anonymous apps where you talk to random strangers worldwide because I was bored out of my mind and wanted entertainment. Biggest mistake honestly.

At first he seemed normal-ish. He was supposedly from Sweden and had this super bubbly personality. Like EXTREMELY talkative. The type of person who jumps from politics to food to trauma dumping about being lonely within the same 2 minutes. At first I thought it was kinda funny.

Then of course he does the classic “let’s move to another app” thing literally every guy on those apps does. I find that annoying as hell already, but whatever, I suggested a more private app and we moved there.

First red flag: this man immediately wanted constant voice calls.

I wasn’t even that interested but somehow we ended up talking for like 3 hours that night. At the end he starts telling me how sweet, smart, kind, amazing I am. Sir… we literally just met.

Anyway somehow this became a DAILY thing. Mostly because HE talked non-stop while I just listened half the time. And then after THREE DAYS this man says he wants to VISIT ME.

THREE DAYS..

I genuinely thought he was joking so I laughed it off and joked back. Huge mistake because apparently he was dead serious.

And this is where the insanity slowly starts leaking out.

The more I talked to him the weirder he got. I started asking questions and this man casually reveals he’s into predatory roleplay fantasies involving pretending I’m underage, degrading stuff, rape fantasies, all kinds of disturbing shit I don’t even wanna repeat here. Completely unprovoked too. Like why are you telling me this??

Then the next day he’s suddenly BOOKING TICKETS to come see me.

At this point I’m sitting there like ??? brother WHAT relationship are you in because I’m definitely not in one with you.

Meanwhile he’s acting like we’re already together. Wanted constant calls, video chats, sexual conversations multiple times a day. Dude genuinely thought I was obsessed with him when in reality I was mostly talking to him because I was bored and curious.

And the more he talked, the more obvious it became that he was deeply unstable. He trauma dumped his entire childhood lore onto me, talked obsessively about his exes in graphic detail (why do men do this??), and openly admitted he found the age gap “hot.”

I’m 19. He’s 36..THIRTY SIX.

Like dude please go pay taxes or something.

Eventually I finally told him there was absolutely no way I was letting him visit me and he completely lost it. Instant personality switch. Suddenly I’m a “catfish” and a “romance scammer” because I didn’t wanna show my face on camera to a mentally unstable stranger with predatory fantasies.

But somehow EVEN AFTER THAT he kept texting me saying he loved me and wanted to keep talking.

Like brother if a girl “scammed” and “catfished” you why are you still begging for attention from her??

Honestly after talking to him I fully understood why this man is 36, miserable, lonely, and still searching for random teenagers on anonymous apps

I met my roommate on my first day in the dorm. At first, she seemed like a nice person, although I did notice she had a strong resting expression that made her come off a bit unapproachable. Still, I didn’t think much of it.

Over time, I actually started warming up to her. She turned out to be more social and kind than I initially expected, and we got along pretty well. I honestly thought I might’ve judged her too quickly at the beginning.

But as I spent more time around her, I started noticing a pattern: she really seems to enjoy being noticed. It’s not the stereotypical “attention-seeking” behavior, but more subtle things how she presents herself, the way she dresses, and how she carries herself when we go out. She clearly puts effort into highlighting her body, and it does get her a lot of attention from men in public. On multiple occasions, we’ve been out together and she’s gotten a lot of stares, comments, and even online messages from guys who noticed her.

At first, I didn’t really think much of it, and I was even happy for her if it helped her confidence. She has also mentioned before that she doesn’t really feel attractive facially, but she’s confident about her body, so I assumed she was just trying to lean into what she likes about herself.

The problem started when her attitude changed over time. She became more self-focused, almost arrogant, like she fully started believing the attention meant she was “above” others. That shift definitely made it harder for me to be around her.

Things escalated because of a situation involving her ex-boyfriend. One day, he made a joke when he saw me for the first time. I didn’t even properly hear it and just left it at that. But when I came back to the room later, she was extremely upset and aggressive. We barely spoke for two days after that.

I kept trying to talk to her normally, but she would only respond briefly or shut me down. Eventually, our mutual friends in the dorm had to step in and force a conversation between us.

During that talk, I honestly didn’t know what to say because I didn’t feel like I had done anything wrong. She, on the other hand, became very defensive and emotional, and even said she felt like her boyfriend might be interested in me after seeing us together. She connected that to other things she noticed about him and ended up indirectly blaming me for the situation.

Since then, I’ve mostly kept my distance. I understand she was probably acting out of insecurity and jealousy, but it changed how I see her and made the friendship uncomfortable

Even though I still have some regrets about how things went, I can’t lie..her blaming me for everything really stuck with me. It made me feel like I somehow posed a threat to her, and like I ended up being the reason her boyfriend might have been more drawn to me