I genuinely need outside perspectives because I’ve spent MONTHS trying to piece this situation together and I honestly can’t tell anymore whether I’m seeing real manipulation/patterns or if I’m just emotional and spiraling because I got attached.
I’m 21F. He is 22M. We were never officially together, which is part of why I keep invalidating myself and wondering if I’m overreacting. We only physically met twice, but the emotional intensity, contradictions and patterns genuinely affected me psychologically.
What confuses me the most is that the version of him I met in 2024 feels COMPLETELY different from the person I eventually realized he actually is.
When I first met him in 2024, he presented himself as extremely intentional, emotionally mature and disciplined.
He was:
- constantly texting me first
- calling me
- pursuing me harder
- planning things
- acting serious and future-oriented
- trying to appear stable and emotionally intelligent
He mirrored a lot of my values too:
- discipline
- self improvement
- masculinity
- structure
- biohacking
- wanting family eventually
- disliking hookup culture
- being selective
He also presented himself as kind of wounded but “good.” On our first date he talked about:
- his dad having cancer
- how much he values family
- an allegedly manipulative ex with BPD who lied to him
- how he stayed and tried to help her anyway because he “cares too much”
At the time it made me see him as emotionally deep, loyal and misunderstood.
He also acted extremely provider-like immediately. Our first date was over the top expensive considering we barely knew each other. He spent around $500 on the date.
After the date we went back to his place and found MDMA in his drawer. We ended up taking it together. Nothing sexual happened, but even then I remember feeling weird about the contrast between the image he sold and the reality I saw. He explained it away as old stuff from an ex.
Important detail:
Even during this phase, while HE was the one constantly pursuing me and driving the connection forward, after our first date he suddenly said:
“but you should text me too”
and
“I’m bad at reaching out.”
At the time I ignored it because it made no sense for him to say that when he was literally the one constantly contacting me.
Now looking back, I realize this became a repeated pattern.
Another thing that later bothered me:
I eventually found out he had dated a younger girl for years. He was born in 2004 and she was born in 2006, meaning they started dating when she was very young. When I asked him about it later, he became dismissive and weird instead of just explaining it normally. That added to this feeling that there were always details hidden behind the image he presented.
Another important thing:
At the time I asked him about Andrew Tate/manosphere stuff and he acted like he wasn’t really into that world.
This becomes important later.
Eventually I ended things because I started feeling uncomfortable with:
- inconsistencies
- the drug thing
- the weird age gap situation
- the feeling that he adapted himself depending on who he talked to
Then we stopped talking for around 9 months.
During this period he moved abroad permanently.
What bothered me is that when we originally knew each other, he framed moving abroad like some vague future dream. Later I discovered he had apparently planned it for years already and had joined expat groups long before. It felt like another example of strategically presenting information instead of simply being transparent.
When we reconnected in 2025, it genuinely felt like the mask slipped.
The person I saw now was VERY different from the version from 2024.
Suddenly he was heavily into:
- redpill/manosphere content
- “high value male” rhetoric, Andrew Tate
- hyper masculine content
His social media and dating profile became extremely curated around:
- “husband”
- “father”
- “protector”
- “provider”
- standards
- discipline
- masculinity
- leadership
He constantly talked about:
- standards
- control
- loyalty
- masculinity
- exclusivity
- discipline
- “high value men”
At one point when I called out the double standard, he literally said:
“I’m a man, deal with it.”
That shocked me because the careful, composed version from 2024 would NEVER have spoken like that.
At the same time, his actual behavior behind the scenes looked NOTHING like the image he was trying to project.
This is where my anxiety spiraled.
Late 2024 into early 2025:
He appears to already have been seriously involved with another girl for much longer than I originally realized. I’ll call her “Lena.”
At the same time there also appeared to be:
- Tinder girls
- nightlife girls
- multiple overlaps, women in different places
January 2025:
While apparently still involved with Lena in some capacity, he hooked up with another girl while traveling.
March 2025:
We reconnect.
He tells me:
- he hasn’t seriously dated anyone
- he’s mostly just worked
- nothing important happened romantically
Meanwhile I later realized he had likely already been involved with Lena for months at that point.
At some point Lena apparently even relocated partly because of him, which I only learned later indirectly.
This is where things started genuinely messing with my head:
The more information I got, the more overlap I discovered.
Example:
During a spring festival in 2025 he disappeared for almost an entire day.
Later I saw messages showing he had actually been trying to meet another girl during that exact period.
But at the time he told ME some innocent explanation about his phone being damaged.
He also added Tinder girls during periods where he was simultaneously talking romantically to me.
Another thing that disturbed me:
He very quickly became uncomfortable when he saw me talking to other men and said:
“I don’t work in situations where people build emotional closeness while keeping options open.”
But from everything I eventually saw, that is EXACTLY what HE himself was doing.
He also proposed exclusivity extremely quickly at one point after seeing me interact with other men, despite apparently still keeping multiple options himself.
Another weird thing:
At one point when I was affectionate and texting him a lot, he jokingly implied maybe I had “a plan to ruin his life” and was “trying to manipulate him.”
Which honestly now feels bizarre considering the amount of emotional confusion and overlap happening on his side simultaneously. It almost felt like projection.
Another massive pattern:
Whenever HE was pursuing and building emotional closeness, eventually he would subtly shift responsibility for maintaining the relationship onto me.
Examples:
- In 2024, despite HIM constantly texting and pursuing me, he suddenly said I should text him and that he’s “bad at reaching out.”
- In 2025, when I actually became the one reaching out more, he became annoyed and complained that we “only text and never see each other.”
- Then after our latest date, after building intimacy again and getting me to emotionally open up, he AGAIN said:
“If you want to build a relationship you should text me.”
This genuinely messed with my head because it felt like:
He creates emotional attachment and closeness, but then subtly shifts the emotional labor and maintenance onto the woman while pre-excusing his own inconsistency.
He also repeatedly disappeared and then returned intensely romantic again:
- talking for hours
- future talk
- talking about flying me out, all expenses paid
- saying he could “retire with me”
- flowers
- romantic intensity
while simultaneously:
- keeping unclear situations with other women
- disappearing randomly
- keeping multiple emotional doors open
During one trip where he visited our home country, I also saw things on his phone that made the overlaps feel very real and not just paranoia.
At one point when I questioned him about other girls he basically responded:
“That’s some shit you don’t gotta know.”
Which honestly summarized the entire dynamic.
The biggest thing for me is honestly this:
The more information I got, the LESS impressive he became.
Over time the image completely collapsed.
The more I saw:
- overlapping women
- contradictions
- image management
- impulsivity
- validation seeking
- emotional inconsistency
- different personalities depending on context
- hypocrisy between his standards and his own behavior
…the more it started feeling like the “high value disciplined masculine man” persona was mostly performance and image management.
The contrast became genuinely disturbing to me.
He constantly talks about standards, discipline, etc
But behind the scenes much of his behavior looked impulsive, performative, shallow, lustful
Another huge issue:
I genuinely do not think I could ever get a fully honest answer from him anyway.
Every direct question becomes vague, he flips suspicion back onto me, withholding information etc
At this point I genuinely cannot tell anymore:
- Is this narcissism?
- Manipulation?
- Avoidant attachment?
- Emotional immaturity?
- Or am I just emotionally attached and overanalyzing everything?
Because logically I know that we were never officially together.
But emotionally the contradictions, overlap, intensity and image management genuinely left me deeply unsettled. My mental health is ruined