[LONG] online gr0oming or ? advice wanted
I would like to start this off by clarifying I am completely uncertain of what I can call this, and hope that I don't offend or harm anybody in asking if it could be. I am just hoping for some honest answers in order to place this experience in the right place. Also I apologize for how long this is, I felt like I had to explain everything in order to ask the question at all. For context, I am 16F today.
A few days after I turned 14, I met a guy on an app similar to Yubo. I was only on that app to begin with because I was "bored" and knew not to take anything seriously. On his profile it said he was 17(m). We began talking casually and I was so immediately in awe of his depth, intelligence and humor. Growing up I've always had many friends and (I've been privileged enough to have) formed many amazing connections in my life, but it is rare that I find someone I feel I identify myself with fully. I felt that I not only understood him, but he understood me. After a few days of speaking, he casually brought up the fact he was actually 20. When I mentioned his profile said he was 17, he acted shocked and said it must've been a glitch and that he didn't believe I was actually 14. I knew even then it was wrong we were speaking, I kind of crossed him off as a weird guy but for some reason just figured it didn't matter if we kept speaking because "I knew what was going on" and it "wasn't serious". I thought he seemed interesting. He, for the first weeks, would call me things like "kiddo" and would mock me for being "younger" and "a baby". I remember I found it a bit cringy and odd, but for some reason I played along thinking once again, it "wasn't serious". I just felt I had the upperhand and it didn't matter if I played dumb, I just liked talking to him. I dont really know why I did that.
After a few weeks we kind of stopped speaking for about a month, we sometimes texted but not often. I didn't really mind. One day we randomly reconnected and ultimately decided to be good friends. He told me he had a girlfriend. Since nothing ever truly flirty had happened, I began to see him as an older brother or mentor, and he would often give me advice on my life and we would talk about really complicated topics. I really enjoyed speaking with him because I didn't have many people in my life who liked getting into conversations like that. At first I of course had my doubts about him, but overtime came to trust him more and more and despite the fact I knew it was odd he wanted to be "friends" with a 14yo, I began to believe it had just been a mistake we had gotten matched up and a pure coincidence we had gotten so close and connected and understood each other so much. After about a month he broke up with said girlfriend of about a year and told me all about how toxic his relationship had been. I didn't know if to believe him but he truly seemed so heartbroken, I thought maybe I could.
Fast forward six months, and our conversations began to turn more "romantic". On my side, I guess I just really adored him as a person. I wasn't sure if I really liked him and I knew it was dumb to be in a relationship with someone online but I admired him so much I just kind of let it happen I guess. I felt like I was more pretending and again it "wasn't serious". We told each other we loved each other a lot. I do think I meant it, I loved him as a person. But I'm not sure I ever asked myself if I truly did "love him" romantically. I just figured at an unconscious level "I love who he is but the romantic part isn't real" (it was online, he lived across the world, and I figured he wouldn't actually want anything serious with someone my age).
We kind of kept this "I love you, you're so amazing, etc, etc.." thing going on for about 5 more months but it didn't seem like anything was too serious on either side (we meant what we said but I didn't think the romantic part was meant to be real). We loved each other as people. I just wanted to keep him in my life I guess. I felt I knew it didn't make sense for him to take "us" seriously as a romantic option, so I guess I just let it happen. I also don't know why.
He would call me mature often, but I didn't find it shocking because it was something I've heard more than a few times (I've always been known as the "mature" kid who "grew up so fast"). He made a few sexual jokes during that time, once joking about me "flashing" him, which made me pretty upset, and of course he would call me beautiful, amazing, fascinating, smart, cute, etc.. once hot, which was also upsetting. I've always had issues with sexual things and lust, so all of those things bothered and unsettled me but I never made quite as big as a deal out of them as I felt because I thought it would sound stupid or disappoint (?) him. I kind of mentioned it but always said "its okay" when he would apologize and say it was a joke.
At around a year after knowing each other, he called me to tell me his "toxic ex" had come back into his life, and that he was officially ready to cut her out of his life forever, because he wanted to be with me. I remember kind of freaking out because it seemed odd to want to "end things forever" with an ex of a year, which you know in real life, over a 15yo girl you only know on the internet. I insisted he didn't do it for me, that if he did do it it was because he knew the relationship wasn't good for either of them. I also told him I refused to harm another girl or be that person for anybody. We had quite a few discussions about it, where he would say things like "you are perfect, yet I'm addicted to her", "you are the person I see myself marrying", etc. I found all of these things kind of unsettling, and it kind of dawned on me how serious this was for him (I know it sounds horrible, I felt guilty at the time but I just had never understood he actually wanted a real relationship with me), and also I just hated the position he had put me in and thought it was both unfair to me and the girlfriend, mostly for her, no matter how "toxic" she had been to him. Though for some reason, despite the distance I set in our own personal ""romantic"" relationship, I was still there for him "as a friend" and gave him advice and support for the entirety of the process, as he was very broken down and struggling. I feel like maybe deep down that's all I wanted to be, just his friend.
Long story short, he ended up saying "goodbye to her forever", and after that I talked to him about ending our friendship/"relationship" (?), because I wasn't comfortable with the position he had put me in, with the little regard towards her and I, and how strange he had been through all of it (he acted very out of character and very different that who I had known him to be during that entire period).
However, he kind of convinced me to let him set things right, though I asked for some time to think about it.
I ended up going to a different country on my own for a summer course soon after that, and I just slowly ended up warming up to him again as I kind of resorted to him for advice and reassurance during the anticipatory weeks (I was very excited but very nervous lol) and I started to see him as that really amazing, smart, incredible guy, my friend, as I had before. He was just great during that time I guess, he was the person I had felt I knew. During the month I was there, I kind of started to "develop" feelings for him. I knew it was odd and unconventional and "dumb", but we clicked so well I just kind of got lost in it. Even though I was living one of the most incredible and fun and exciting experiences of my life, I still would call him for hours everyday, update him constantly, put him on the phone with my friends, all of it. He was there for everything. We were constantly talking, despite our almost 8 hour time difference. During that time is when truly, I just adored him, admired him, and almost started to question if maybe it could turn into something real. I kind of what my first semi-sexual conversation with him, which I had never done with anybody before. As mentioned, I've never felt comfortable talking about that with anyone, and I'm not sure I did with him, but it just kind of happened, as awkward as it was for me. Once again, I just let it happen I guess. It didn't feel horrible at the time. It makes me kind of sick to think about it now, bad about myself, but I guess it just is what it is. He also mentioned a lot to me that month how he did feel guilty about our age gap and that he couldn't tell anyone in his life but I guess we kind of had a conversation along the lines of "we're different, this is different than those other stories".
Coming back home after that, we started sleeping together on the phone, facetiming often, and I began to be very vulnerable with him as he was with me. He at the time, was the sweetest, he was always there when I needed him and I was really happy to have him in my life. My mom had known about him for the entirety of us knowing eachother, but this is when I really came clean about him being 21 and us being more romantic, but I insisted it "wasn't serious" and he was, in my mind, my friend. She was doubtful but she really liked him as a person, and she trusted me since I was very "mature", and that she thought I "knew what I was doing". This went on four months, and I even began telling people I had a "boyfriend", even though I never gave any details. I felt like we were equals, he was my best friend and he just felt safe to me.
Around the 4 month mark, he sent me flowers, along with a smaller bouquet for my mom. I was kind of disappointed because I knew everything about him, and he had gotten me the one kind of flowers I don't like and the note made me a bit uncomfortable as it mostly was addressed to my mom. It came off as if he were trying to ease my mom into the idea of us dating and almost "bribing" her (?). My mom thought it was a lovely gift but it kind of threw me off (he ended the note with "a small token of appreciation for giving birth to this wonderful creature that you call daughter"), which didn't really sound like him and just made me feel weird inside.
A couple of weeks after that I found some posts he had liked which were weirdly disrespectful toward women and about cheating and just some gross things things. It bothered me not because of our relationship but more because of the principle and also the fact he had lied about a few things regarding that already. I didn't make a huge deal out of it but it kind of made me question who he truly was even more, and in the following weeks after that he started revealing more of his opinions regarding these things and it started really making me question everything. Eventually, in November he really started pushing the s3xual part, asking me more questions (which I usually worked around and wouldn't answer) and bringing up his urges more and more and how "hard" it was for him. I always felt kind of uncomfortable and wrong, and always made it clear it was awkward and hard for me to talk about, but he never pushed too much and I once again, just kind of let it happen. I often told him that he didn't have to pursue a rls with me, that i would be happy for him if he found a girl in his city, that I was sure there were loads of nice women that would wanna be w him, but he insisted they "weren't me" and that he "only needed me".
In December I decided to end everything. I had really started to resent him at that point, I suspected heavily he had been lying to me constantly (which I always made clear was the one thing that completely breaks my heart, I hate being lied to), I just felt wrong inside all of the time regarding us, I felt like he was so different now, I resented his perspectives and opinions and most of all, he sometimes disregarded my feelings and was often arrogant and disrespectful, and I just wanted out desperately despite the fact I didn't really know why. I just knew it wasn't what I wanted, that it wasn't right. It was hard to "end" things because we had been so close for so long then, and I found myself often wishing I could've just kept him as my best friend. It was a dramatic and hard goodbye but I got it done and I kind of felt better.
After around 2 months of no contact, I met a new friend who mentioned she was talking to a 21yo. When I saw their messages, I was pretty horrified to discover that this person spoke to her almost exactly the same way my person had to me when we first met ("kiddo", "you're so smart, so mature", "when you're older, you're too young", "I can't say that it would be wrong to say to a baby", "little sister"). I always felt I had had the upperhand because "I knew what was going on", and that nothing bad would happen to me because I was "smart" and "mature" enough to manage it (not too sound arrogant or self-assured, I just for some reason thought I had it under control). But to see it from an outside perspective, when it was happening to another person, I so blatantly saw how odd it was. That saying "I can't say it" is a way of making you say "noo tell me", so when they say something kind of weird you can only blame yourself for insisting, it made me question if maybe what I once had believed was a friendship, that what I had convinced myself was an accident, was actually all strategic. "Grooming", that maybe he had "prepped me" in a way. That he had planned out those six months of friendship to build up my trust, that that subtle transition from friendship towards relationship was MEANT to be subtle, that I wasn't crazy or bad for being kind of surprised when suddenly things felt very serious. Just all of it, that none of it was with good or genuine intentions, it was all planned.
I felt dumb. All this time I was so convinced I was in control.
I ended up messaging him, I needed to tell him or ask him ig for some reason . It was about a 6 hour long talk, I told him everything that he had done that had hurt me or affected me, we kind of argued and he also managed to make me feel incredibly guilty about the fact I had hurt him horribly when I left. I figured that was fair since I had done it pretty suddenly. I brought up the fact I was questioning if maybe "it" (us) wasn't so much something we had done together but rather something he had done TO me. He was upset by everything I said. I ended up agreeing to not having him blocked (even if we were supposed to not speak unless it was an emergency) after things calmed down. I felt guilty for how much suffering I had apparently caused him, I guess I missed my friend too. Over the course of that month he would text me every once in a while to say he missed me. I started missing him a lot more, I missed my friend more than anything, I missed when I felt I knew him and I felt safe with him. I missed that person I had once felt so seen by and that I admired so much.
After about a month I texted again, I felt I needed clarity. I needed to understand what had happened. We ended up arguing for hours once again, where I told him again and again I felt like I stopped knowing him some time ago and that he was a different person. He had been pretty mean to me since last time we had talked and he had just never been like that to me. He also started being weirdly misogynistic. I reread our messages from when we first got together and I saw more than ever, just how manipulative he had been. I was kind of horrified. He kept telling me that he loved me, that he resented me for not seeing how much he loved me, that I was the only person he had ever seen a future with, that "if I felt he had hurt me then he wasn't sure I was ready for what the next one might do to me". I said "my love for you shouldn't be measured in how much pain I am willing to endure for you" and he said "maybe it should". It all just felt threatening and kind of sick, just someone completely different. Then, he kind of randomly admitted he had been talking to his ex girlfriend the entire time we were ""together"" (I knew once she had reached out to him because he called me once bawling his eyes out and I found out when we broke up (three months later) it had been because she had been insulting him, but I was not aware it had gone on for the entirety of our ""relationship""). It upset me quite a bit when I found out because he knew I have a lot of issues around lying and ""cheating"" and it just made me upset that the person I knew as my best friend had lied to my face for six months. I asked him to show me the messages. He refused, I insisted. What he showed me was so gross. It was only her messages, but they were the most fr3aky, graphic descriptions of sex, almost what I believe is called ddlg, from her. I matched up the dates and they were all from nights where we (him and I) had been talking. His excuse for his sometimes horrible behavior had been that he was recovering from a terrible year and an incredibly difficult, toxic relationship. He often said that I had been his motivator during that year as I often uplifted him and was there for him always, that I had kind of "saved" him. It became clear to me their relationship had indeed been strange, because the messages were even a bit "psychotic", but still, it didn't seem abus1ve to me in any way outside of how apparently these messages were used to "manipulate" and "tempt" him. I figured if she spoke to him that way it was because he spoke that way to her, as well. At that point I just began bawling my eyes out. Not only had he lied to me, went behind my back, when I was supposed to be "safe" with him, but I just felt that this amazing and intelligent person I had once known as my friend, was someone completely different. I was just more in shock than anything. Who had I been talking to for a year and a half? is what I couldn't stop thinking abt lol. know its dumb, I know I should've known better than to trust him, than to believe in someone I'd never met in real life, but I had genuinely believed I mostly knew all of him because we had shared so much and spent so much time together. I didn't know him at all obviously.
We ended up calling and thats when things went downhill. I was talking to somebody just absolutely different than who I had believed him to be. I quickly understood he had shown me the purely sexual messages with intention: that was the one thing I hadn't "fulfilled" for him. When I was crying asking him why and who she was speaking to, he asked if I was "jealous", and then proceeded to say "no one could ever f**k her as good as he did" later in the conversation when talking about her new bf. I just felt like he was trying to genuinely make me "jealous" (?) and my mom says he was trying to show me how "desired" he was. I just felt gross inside, to me all of that seemed like the girl was degrading herself and he himself clearly only saw her as an object to own, his "property" I guess. Especially about the ""ddlg" stuff, I felt so gross. I believe this girl was his age, but it made me feel even more disgusted about all the wanting me to call him "d4ddy" jokes lol, which I had pretended so many times not to notice. I should've known better, I think. Anyway we eventually ended the call after a lot of me crying and quite a bit of arguing. I told him I would never speak to him again. I feel sick every time I think about those messages, about the way he spoke abt it.
My question is, would this be considered grooming? I feel like it isn't, because technically I was kind of aware and I guess mostly consenting. I felt we were on equal ground for most of it, up until the end. Also I just feel like our situation is strange. I feel like I do not look like the typical "victim". I wasn't unaware, I guess I wasn't vulnerable or isolated outside of the fact I have always felt different because of how "mature" I am meant to be. Everyone around me, even the adults that know, don't think it was weird because "I knew how to handle it". I know I am very privileged, I have good, loving parents, I had a good childhood. I feel like I am okay with myself. I'm very grateful. I feel like its almost unfair to think to call myself a "victim". And he was pretty "normal" I guess. Nothing like the typical examples of "pr3ds" one would expect to see. He has good friends, is known for being "good looking" and "popular"I guess, from a good home, with parents who provide for him. I mean I know to try to be in a rls w someone so young means something is not right in your life, but my mom says he probably just didn't wanna grow up and must be immature. But then like I feel like there's better ways to deal with that, I've often wished he would've "cared enough" as to have wanted to protect me from the obvious hurt that would come as a result of all of this. But then I just wonder if maybe we were like two confused ""teenagers"" who just happened to connect, him a young adult who was lost in his life and needed support, and me wanting a safe space and someone who I didn't feel "different" around. I just feel kind of embarrassed I tolerated all of that. I don't know if it was just an accident. Like what if he was on that app looking for little girls, it wasn't a "glitch", what if thats what he was wanted, and I fell for it, and he was never truly my friend (he did mention all in our last conversation that he thought I was beautiful from the start and I said "you were my friend" and he said "you were too, romantically). So then I guess I know all those things are likely. But what do I call it? I mean he was never overly sexual, he never pushed me too much, he did care for me and was a great friend and bf when things were good, he supported me, he was always there, he cared for me, comforted me, put in effort, was respectful, kind. I also feel guilty with his girlfriend, that I was talking to him thinking he was my friend when the whole time he was just trying to get with me. Another thing I've heard is that parents can also get "gr00med" which I wonder is what he attempted with my mom? I feel gross about myself I guess? I don't know why I let all of that happen. But I also don't know "what" exactly happened. I just was hoping somebody could help me figure out where to place this. "What" happened? What do I call this? Thank you so much for anyone that read through this, I would really appreciate any honest insight and I hope I am not doing any harm in asking. Thank you.