Online dates where that perfect mystery girl turns out to be...your own sister. Craigslist meet-ups where that sofa comes with some extra creepy crawly "friends" in its cushions. Going on a friend's computer and accidentally finding the search terms you definitely weren't supposed to see. The internet makes a lot of things easier, but maintaining basic human dignity is apparently not one of them.
Online Horror Stories
PM’d Into a Love Triangle
I’d been chatting with a girl online for quite some time and we decided to meet. I drove 50 miles to her house and we had an amazing night together—but the next morning, events took an utterly chilling turn. I woke up to the sight of an enormous man ripping a window off its hinges and climbing in the bedroom. Turns out, this girl had a fiance. He was absolutely furious, and I was scared for my life. I managed to talk him down and explain the situation, but just as I thought I was out of the woods, the girl managed to make everything so much worse.
She had called the police and accused him of breaking and entering. During the time the police were questioning him, I made my escape and high-tailed it out of there.
Too Close For Comfort
I was talking to this beautiful girl on OKCupid. We just connected so effortlessly it was amazing. We made a plan to meet at a local pub. I show up and turns out my date was my younger sister. We both apparently made fake profiles.
Dial-Up for Murder
When I was about 7 years old my mom was online dating on AOL (it was about 1996). She started talking to this one guy and eventually he planned to fly to where we lived and meet her. He claimed to have his doctorate degree and told her he had published a well-known book. She searched for the book and eventually she searched it in some online database and found nothing. His lies before they met got worse.
Something led my mom to go to the police and they said he was actually a wanted man for previously attempting to kill women. The police used my mom to catch the guy at this point, he agreed to fly down here, and she was having him meet her at her office. When he arrived, the police were there to arrest him.
Well, You Did Throw the Bouquet…
We were friends online for years. She saw me through so much, so when I got engaged, I immediately asked her to be a bridesmaid. She flew out to be part of the wedding—that’s when it all unraveled. She was married, but at the wedding, she began flirting with one of the groomsmen and ended up cheating on her husband with him—but that wasn’t even the worst part. She blamed me for her actions because it happened at my wedding. We're not friends anymore.
That Sounds Like Harassment
I found a bike I liked on Craigslist and bought it from a man in a grocery store parking lot. His flaccid nether-region was sticking out of his zipper for the entire duration of the transaction.
Misleading Photos
I met a guy online, and in all of his pictures, he had a tight-lipped smile. When we met in real life, I couldn’t believe my eyes. He had not one whole tooth. What teeth he had were yellow stumps. He also did not have all of his fingers. It was a rather traumatic experience because I was caught off guard and didn’t know how to respond.
If he had been upfront about it, I would have felt way less awkward. I am not in a hurry to get back online.
A Deadly Connection
I met a guy online through video games, and he invited me to come stay with him. It was a little out of the way, so I declined. We lost touch, then out of the blue, I got a call from one of his relatives, and I discovered the heartbreaking truth about him.
She tells me that my friend had often spoke of me (using my old screen name) and was recently killed by another of our old online friends that he had invited to stay with him. It ended up being ruled as self-defense. She just wanted to know what I knew about the killer to try to make sense of it, but I couldn't remember much other than his old screen name.
Leave the Swords in the Game
I met a girl online who I liked, but she lived in another country. After a few times visiting her, I decided to move there and start a new life with her. I didn’t realize what horrible danger I was in. After living there for a couple of months, I slowly realized she wasn’t well. She had these huge mood swings paired with a lot of aggression. Then, one night, it all culminated in a terrifying altercation that changed my life forever.
While I was sleeping, she stabbed me in the side. I woke up screaming and drove myself to the hospital. After they patched me up, I took the first plane back home. She's still in a psychiatric hospital.
This Coffee Tastes Odd
I bought a Keurig on Craigslist, used it for a couple of days, and started noticing coffee grounds in my cup. I ignored them and just made do. Then I saw a cockroach in my kitchen, and found out it was coming from the Keurig. I took a flashlight to the inside, and saw that it was infested with a nest of cockroaches. That's when I knew: It wasn't coffee grounds in my cup.
Stay Away From My Baby
I met a woman online and we quickly became romantically involved. We started messaging a lot; we were sending hundreds of texts a day. When we met IRL, everything was great—except for one chilling detail. I was a single parent, and she was fascinated by my daughter. She immediately asked where she was and why I hadn’t brought her. When we went back to my place, she kept asking about her. I already felt weird about it, but it was about to get so much worse.
Whenever I saw her, she'd ask stuff like, “After this can I meet her?” “Would you let me babysit?” “Do you think she’ll start calling me mommy?” I was like chill, she’s a toddler. Then I realized she was actually stealing my daughter's stuff, hoarding her pacifier, a dirty onesie, and going through the diaper pail.
I decided this lady is crazy. She ended up stalking me for a while, but I was moving back in with my mom anyway, so I managed to escape.
She’s Getting None for the Price of Two
My brother met a girl in person that he had known for four or five years online, during which time they had kind of had an online relationship. She had brought her friend with her to meet him. They were sitting around a table awkwardly making conversation, with my brother apparently quite shocked at how bad she looked in person compared to how she looked online and having absolutely no interest in her other than as friends.
The girl sent her friend a message saying, “OMG get me out of here, he’s looking at me like he wants to jump me,” but she accidentally sent it to my brother. What ensued was likely incredibly painful to be part of. My brother showed her his phone and looked at her in disgust.
Santa Claus Is Coming to Town
I once hopped on my nephew’s tablet and proceeded to pull up the internet browser. What I saw was absolutely horrifying. I found myself staring at a screenshot of an overweight homeless-looking Santa Claus engaged in some adult behavior with what appeared to be a much younger Mrs. Claus. I immediately asked my nephew what kind of research he was doing with his Santa video, and his face turned fire-engine red before he quickly scurried back to his room.
Too Young to Run
This was the last time I ever tried to meet a girl online. I was a junior in college and had been talking to this girl a few states away. She claimed to be 19 (I was 20) and she was a cute redhead. I was in deep. At some point, she surprises me with her plan to take a bus to my university and spend the weekend hanging out. When I picked her up at the bus stop I barely recognized her. She sort of looked like the cute redhead I had pictures of, but waaaaaay younger.
I played it cool, trying to be a gentleman, but quickly decided that spending the weekend partying with what appears to be a 14-to-16-year-old would be a bad idea. I took her to my parents’ house where I figured we could lay low until Sunday when I could shuffle her back onto a bus.
Well, late the next evening while we were sitting on the living room floor watching a movie with my parents, the phone rings. I answered the phone to hear a crying woman pleading to know where her daughter was. That's when it hit me... I was harboring a freakin' teenage runaway.
I got the girl on the phone with her mom and started putting all of her stuff in my car. Apparently, her mom had found my phone number on their phone bill and traveled to my school looking for her daughter. I promised to meet her on campus with her daughter ASAP. Well, we didn't even make it out of the driveway before the police showed up.
The cop looked at me, then pointed to the girl and said, "Is that her?", and I replied, "Yeah, take her home man" and that was it. Luckily for me, I think this girl may have had a history of running away from home because they didn't ask me a single question.
Self-Esteem Booster
I met a girl on Tinder. We had fun but in the end, it didn't work out. After a few months, there just weren't any feelings. Then, she shared the darkest story I’ve ever heard. She told me that the last guy she dated off of Tinder was once so drunk that he urinated and pooped in the bed while she slept beside him.
And that wasn't even the worst guy she’d met! Since then, I see myself in a lot more positive light.
The Small-Bladdered Wizard
Met a guy for a walk-and-talk through my favorite park. We had a nice vibe online and I had hopes we'd at least have a good time even if we weren't attracted. He was completely bizarre. Spent a lot of time trying to get me to believe that he was some sort of psychic or wizard with magic powers, asked for a ride to the bus station from the park (I had no idea he hadn't driven himself there) and suddenly had to pee during the five-minute drive.
Wet his pants just before getting out of the car.
I Like Your Blood
Girl messaged me on OKC. She's cute, so whatever. Talk to her. She's not an idiot, and I enjoy talking. After a week, we go on a date. And get ready to cringe...because this is going to get bad from both sides here, and I apologize for my part in it...So, when I asked her out, I offered to meet her somewhere. Meeting there, imo, is a better option. It gives both parties choice and autonomy.
She says she has no car, and I should pick her up. Well, I don't have a car. I get around by other means, so that won't work. I offer to come by and cook dinner for her then. She says her living situation is not conducive to that. Well, then I came up with this cringey idea of having my friend chauffeur us. She says she's fine with it. I still feel dumb, but whatever.
We swing by on date night to pick her up. Open up the back seat for her. Get in on the other side, and we're both in back. My friend's playing the cool driver, not saying things. It creates a decent atmosphere in the back seat. I tell her where I thought of for us to go for dinner. No dice, she was there recently. I rattle off my prepared list of alternative places (trying to go somewhere nicer, but not fancy, and no chains).
She has a problem with all of them. We end up going to The Outback. Don't get me wrong, it's my favorite place, but it's still a chain, and it's a first date. Oh well, it was her choice, and I can get a steak. We get there and I request a waiter by name. Not sure where that falls in the good/bad spectrum. We get him, and he takes amazing care of us. He recognizes me from previous visits and takes extra care as we're clearly on a date (He actually let us stay an hour past closing).
We're having conversation, and it's great...at first. Only then, out of nowhere, she said something that had me searching for the exits. She tells me she'd like to cut me while we do it and drink my blood. Because, you know, that's what you tell people on a first date...that you want to open their flesh and drink their life fluids.
But it doesn't end there: she used that as a lead-in to talk about her ex-boyfriend. She spent the rest of the meal sitting there talking about him. About how she moved to the area for him. About he's a douchebag. About how she still currently lives with him, and that's why I couldn't have just made us dinner. She talked about his parents. About how they live in his parents’ basement. There were...so many red flags...
And you know what the worst part is? I...I went on a second date with her...and a third. I have no idea what exactly was wrong with me. Also, no, we didn't do it, and thus she didn't cut me during it.
The Curse Of The Engagement Ring
I was planning to propose to my boyfriend when he suddenly left me, so I had this engagement ring. I didn't like having it around so I put it on Craigslist. A buyer meets up with me at the mall, where he goes to the jewellery store it came from to verify that it's a good deal for him. He says that he'll meet me the following day to purchase it, again at the mall because I don't want someone showing up to rob me instead or something.
The next day I got a text message I'll never forget. It said that his girlfriend accused him of cheating and looked through his phone to "prove it" but couldn't find anything. In retaliation, he looked through her phone "and found messages from multiple men." This dude had his life together and was getting ready to propose to her, spoke of nothing but her and the ring when I met up with him, and she was running around on him.
He did not buy the ring.
Age Isn’t Just a Number
He said he was 14. Turns out he was 38. My parents gave him a stern “talking-to.” Everyone is saying how he was a pedo and all that but let me clear thing up. He was always nice and friendly online until I found his Facebook and saw his age. At which point my parents had a mental breakdown. Was never allowed to play video games with him online again. Ok, maybe he was a total creep.
Couch Full of Surprises
I bought a really nice looking microsuede sectional on Craigslist for a good price. A couple weeks later, I lost my remote and realized stuff could fall behind the cushions and down into to the black fabric that is stapled to the underside of couches.
The only way to get it out was to cut a hole in this fabric. I got my remote out, and then realized there was other stuff in there too. I proceeded to pull out two mismatched dirty socks, toenail clippers, a bong, woman's underwear, and lastly a used and shrivelled up piece of, um, protection. I stopped after that.
Caught Swiping
I was single and on Tinder. Then I saw something that made me lose it. It was my sister's boyfriend. Apparently, he'd made a profile and was looking to mingle. I made a fake profile to catfish him and talked to him for a bit—it was obviously him, and I got his number. Showed it to my sister and she broke up with him.
Firefighter
I once met a guy from match.com. He was handsome, French and listed his career as a firefighter. We met for drinks and dinner and he seemed like a cool guy. Until...he started telling me about his career as an IT technician at a call centre. I thought to myself "I thought he was a firefighter? Maybe I am getting his profile confused with another one I looked at."
The conversation dulled suddenly and he got awkward. Then he blurted out the worst words possible: "Just to clear the air, I want to let you know that I lost my virginity had age 28 to TWO ladies of the night.” Yep. He said that. First date. Don't know why he felt the need to start that sentence with "clear the air." Anyways, I left and checked his profile.
Career: Firefighter. There was no second date. The guy I'm with now I met on Twitter...and I've never been happier. :)
Hell on Wheels
I used to play a war game and I was pals with this other person (a guy), and we became good friends. Then out of the blue, he asked me to be his girlfriend (he was a truck driver in the USA, and I was only 12). It freaked me out a lot and I ghosted him. It was a terrifying experience and a real eye-opener for me.
Not a Match Made in Heaven
I had been talking to this girl for a little bit. We decided to go on a date on the beach with her friends, which was really nice actually. She looked a little different than her pic, but whatever. When I went home, she texted me asking me to define the relationship. Being 17, I panicked and said uh, you’re my girlfriend.
I ended up going to see her and meet her family. She never came to me and it was two hours away. Her mom was great, but her dad hated me—he’s homophobic. That’s not the bad part. The bad part was two months later when I actually liked this girl, she went to be a counselor at a Christian camp and texted me to tell me God wants us to break up. So yeah.
I’m Seeing Double?
I met up with a girl I'd talked to online. I see a girl answering her description, at the meeting place we arranged. I walk up and say, "Are you Jane?" There's a pause. She looks very uncomfortable. She says, "Uh, no.” At this point we both know it is her, but she's taken one look at me and wants out. There is another long pause. She walks away. So, do I.
Not Worth the Mileage
My best friend had been talking to this girl online for a really long time. He was planning on driving to Texas (we live in north Georgia) to visit her. When he told her that he was going to drive over to see her, she confessed the awful truth. She was actually an overweight 43-year-old lady. He was 23 at the time. He doesn't like to talk about it...
Logging Off Forever
My best friend of 14 years who I solely knew online passed away back in September. I found out the night after he passed when his mother messaged me and told me the news and passed along the info for his funeral. I live in California and he was in Chicago, but I felt that it was my duty to finally go out there and see him.
It was completely surreal and horrifying to finally see him in person, in a box. That being said though, I'm so glad I flew out there for his service and had the honor of being one of his pallbearers. I just wish we had met up a long time ago before this.
Caught with Your Hands on the Joystick
I actually worked with this lady at the time. She was good looking and very flirtatious. Most importantly: we both played World of Warcraft at its prime. She ended up inviting me to join her server and being a lonely 20-something, I, of course, joined up. We played for a time and had a good PVP group going—her regulars.
Of course, she was still flirty with me in game and I was flirty back, all in group chat. Either way, we had some great times together slaying players in PVP. Summer comes and it’s a company BBQ, I find out she is bringing one of our PVP partners to the event. Cool! It was her husband. A cop. I’ve been virtually sexting her in the game in front of him for at least three months.
The Worst Shrek Movie
There are a few stories I'd love to tell that unfortunately involve Redditors, but here's one that doesn't. Went on a date with a Navy boy, he seemed smart and sweet online. He picks me up in this incredibly ostentatious yellow Camaro, which I have the sneaking suspicion he borrowed as it was a stick and dude was having a terrible time driving it. We decide to go walk on the boardwalk for a while, so he pulls into a parking garage—and that's when things started going completely off the rails.
In his attempt to park the car, he completely sideswipes the car next to us, leaving yellow paint all across their car. He didn't even act like anything happened, so I say, "Umm, I think you may have hit the car next to us." He gets out, looks at it, then climbs back in and goes, "I guess we should park somewhere else" and peels out before I could even say anything.
Fast forward, the date is going poorly (as a hit and run is never a good start), and it's miserably hot out so we decide to see a movie. It happened to be Shrek The Final Chapter—a kid's movie. He has his feet on the seats in front of us, which is no big deal, until a dad holding his toddler daughter comes in and the only seats still open are the ones in front of us.
The dad goes to sit down; Navy boy doesn't move his feet; in fact, he even moves his feet forward a bit so that he hits the dad in the head. The dad looks back at us, and then Navy boy sighs heavily, takes his feet down, looks at me and goes, "My feet were there first."
After the movie he asked if I wanted to go to dinner, I said no, he drops me off (I'm surprised he didn't drop the transmission as well...) and asks when he can see me again, he had a great time. Married five years now! Just kidding, I took a mental note of his license plates and called the parking garage. Did not see again.
Mess With My Mom and We’ll Have Issues
My mom met a guy online. He said he worked for an oil drilling company and was off in the middle of the ocean on an oil platform. Then he told my mom that his daughter was in some dancing competition in another country, and she had fallen and broken her leg and he couldn't send her any money for the medical bills, and that he needed my mom to send thousands of dollars to some account, and that he would pay her back three times over when he came back into the country, and then he would basically take her away to paradise, and she would live in happiness forever.
I told her that he was trying to rip her off. She wouldn't believe me, or any of our family or her friends. She insisted that we all wanted her to be unhappy, but in the end, she didn't give him a penny, thank God.
She tried to explain why she wouldn't to him, but he kept hounding her about it. So I took it upon myself to teach him a lesson. I used one of those websites where they catch these sorts of people, and after telling them info about this guy, they confirm that he is a known con artist who scams women with this story. My mom was devastated.
Seeing her cry was too much. I sent him an anonymous, very threatening email, telling him that he had better confess everything or I would use my hacking skills to reveal his personal information to the police. Obviously, this was a bluff, but he fell for it. My mother received an email from him confessing everything.
Shower Life
I met a guy on Craigslist. After talking to him on the phone for a few weeks, I decided to meet up at his place for our first date. Turns out the second bedroom in his apartment is a shrine to his dead grandparents. I figure since they raised him, it must be his way of remembering them, so I let it go. We date a few months and it just so happens he demands we take showers and sleep naked every night so as not to "contaminate" the bedsheets.
I got out of bed for a glass of water once and ended up getting yelled at for 30 minutes about how I brought germs from the living room into the bedroom. The whole relationship was like something out of the twilight zone. We broke up shortly after he demanded my mother sign a letter saying she will respect his wishes not to meet her and have it notarized.
The scariest thing about this that he's an NYPD officer. Not exactly who I want out there protecting the streets.
Playing the Field
There was a guy I never even actually met because I got a super creepy vibe from him, but he would send out mass texts regularly asking if I wanted to do anything that night. I could tell it was a mass text because it showed the numbers of everybody else, he was texting on my iPhone. Conversation, after many ignored texts, goes as follows:
Him: Hey, want to do anything tonight? Me: Can you please remove me from this mass text list? I've never even met you. Him: This isn't a mass text lol. Me: (Screenshot where it lists everybody else he's texting). Him: Oh lol. You caught me. Random Stranger: Yeah, we can all read this. Me: Yeah bye.
This Plan Is a Slam Dunk
My 5-year-old kid really hates the basketball player Steph Curry for some reason. My wife allows the kids to use her iPad and, after she got it back from him one time, she saw that he'd searched stuff like: “Stef Curry home address,” “Cut off legs,” “How to cut off a person’s legs,” “Stef Curry legs,” “Band-aids for legs cut off.”
He later revealed that he had wanted to try and cut off Steph Curry's legs in order to prevent him from playing in the NBA Finals. At least he was courteous enough to look into getting him some bandaids?
Isn’t Deception a Sin?
We met through a gay dating site. I didn’t really make a big deal when I noticed he was totally catfishing me. His profile picture was gorgeous, in real life though, not so much. He told me he didn’t like it when I swore, but it’s not like I was dropping F-bombs in between every word. He had complaints about other things I did. I gave him the side-eye and told him I wanted to leave because there was NO way in heck I was going to hook up with him that night.
He said sure, but he then thought it was appropriate to give me a parting gift: a copy of the BIBLE of all things.
Checked Her Out and Then Checked Out
When I was in high school, I met a guy from a different high school in a local chat room. We hit it off and after a few days we agreed to meet up at the store where I worked at the end of my shift. Well, I guess he showed up a little early and came through my check stand. I thought it was him—we'd swapped photos—but I was really shy and didn't want to be wrong.
I waited for him to introduce himself, but he never did, and he and his friend paid for whatever they had and left without conversation. His cruel actions broke my heart. I was still hopeful that wasn't the guy, so I waited up for him for an hour after my shift. Of course, he never showed, because that absolutely was the guy. He must have been disappointed when he met me in the checkout line and instead of being a decent person and saying he wasn't interested, he just ghosted me.
If I could go back in time, I definitely would have said something to him at the check stand. That's my one regret.
Paired Up With the Plot
I played Everquest when it came out all day every day in high school. My girlfriend and I played regularly together, and we had made some friends in the game that we adventured with all the time. One particular “friend,” who we had been adventuring with for nearly four years, had just got stationed in Arizona and came up with a great idea for us all to move out there together.
We were a couple of years post high school and were ready for a real-life adventure, so we jumped on the chance. About three months into living together, with things seemingly going just fine, my girlfriend asked me to investigate why her PC was crashing. As I looked, I came across some event logs with old net send messages. What they said...I'll never forget it.
These were old command line messages you could send between networked computers that were built into Windows. They were discussing taking me white water rafting and pushing me off, and how far from civilization we would be, and that I would probably die in the water or trying to get home.
Extorting For $20
I went to buy a semi-rare video game (Final Fantasy Tactics, before it became a Greatest Hit). Met this girl in a Wendy's parking lot, she gave me the CD case. I opened it and it was empty. I demanded my $20 back, she looked at me and said if I did anything other than leave, she would lie and say I assaulted her.
I pulled out my phone and started to pretend to record her (my cell at the time had no camera) and she started stumbling around, pretending I had attacked her. After a minute of this silliness, our eyes met and I think she realized how ridiculous this was getting and gave me my money back.
Not in Good Company
Met a fellow seventh grader on Xbox, and we were pretty great friends. Even after I quit playing Xbox, we still kept in touch. He only lived two towns over, but it was right on the edge of where my parents would drive me. So after high school graduation, I finally made it out to see him for the first time. We were having fun, until I asked him, “Hey, is your girlfriend coming?”
She was a middle school girlfriend he’d had that we’d talk about a lot because I’d third wheel a lot of Xbox live parties with them, and we had a lot of inside jokes. Him and his friends winced and chuckled—kind of the awkward reaction I was aiming for—then I piece together from old memories that the other dude in his friend group used to date her too, and how they’d gloat about being Eskimo brothers, so he’d probably remember who I was from Xbox as well.
After a few more jokes, my friend leans in on me and goes, “Hey I know you’re not from around the area or nothing, but she died in a car accident a few months ago.” I immediately shut up and left. They told me they were fine with it all and we should hang out again, but when you’re making explicit jokes about someone whose obituary stated they played piano for the church and consecutive years on honor roll, you don’t really want to go back round those there parts.
I’m Too Old for This
When I joined Reddit about 7 years ago, I saw someone mention my hometown in a comment thread. I messaged that person, and we began chatting. She seemed very cool and intelligent, and one day she invited me to stop by her family's yard sale. I was picturing someone my age (late 20s) who was living alone. When I went to meet her, I nearly passed out: it was a 13/14-year-old girl and her boyfriend.
They were both so young and nerdy that I could barely communicate with them—they literally spoke in memes. It was like they'd never had friends before. And both of her parents were clearly raging drunks and high on painkillers, and they tried to hit me up for money. It was creepy as heck. After I was there for about 15 minutes, she looked at me and said, "Awkward Penguin?" and I responded, "Yup, Awkward Penguin." Then I got in my car and left forever.
Three Is Not Company
I had been chatting with these two girls, let's call them Maisie and Maya, and we all got on great. We discussed meeting, planned to have sleepovers, just generally have fun. The first day we met up went really well! We all had a good time; I thought it went brilliantly. Then a few weeks later, I found out they were carrying out all the plans without me.
They still have sleepovers to this day when Maya is back from university, and I'm just left out. I don't speak to either of them anymore. It hurt.
A Big Deal
On OkCupid, Summer 2006, I met a girl in West Hollywood and we went to dinner. She turned out to be way bigger than her pictures, insanely rich, was Ozzie Osborne's cardiologist's daughter or something like that, and had a nasty drug habit. The whole date she was doing drugs in the bathroom and barely ate her food, and then afterward, we went back to her place where she visibly spiked my drink with a mickey and then asked me to tie her up.
Then she refused to allow me to drive my car out of her garage, leaving me to wait in my car all night until the morning when I followed someone out. She called three days later to say that I caused her miscarriage. Did not know she was pregnant.
From the Mouth of God (Not Really)
I was catfished before the days of the internet. I'm a girl, but this boy in school did an uncanny impression of my voice (prepubescent). He used to call some of the other boys in school pretending to be me, having hour-long conversations. No idea why this kid did it, but the best part is that his dad was the minister in our town.
Craigslist Hold-Ups
I am a firefighter. A couple of years ago, the siren goes off I get sent to a gunshot victim. We arrive on scene right behind the ambulance only to find a male in his late teens laying unresponsive on the ground with an entry wound in his chin. No respirations, no pulse. We begin CPR. As we cut all of his clothes off, we discovered that he'd been shot in the lower abdomen and also the chest.
As we later uncovered, he'd posted a Craigslist ad selling a pair of headphones. It turned out that an assailant had been responding to this kind of ad, meeting people in quiet areas, and then robbing them at gunpoint. Luckily, our seller was a bit suspicious about the meeting place and asked his friend, who happens to be a cop to come along.
When the cop friend realized what was going down, he called his unit to get over there. Even though we got there as fast as we could, sadly, the victim didn't make it. The internet is a genuinely scary place sometimes.
The Predator in Your Inbox
Turns out my internet friend was a registered offender. He was a former high school teacher who was hooking up with one of his 15-year-old students. I thought the guy seemed a bit odd, but when I saw the headline in the newspaper a lot about his strange reclusive lifestyle started making sense. We are no longer friends.
A Less Than Fairytale Living Arrangement
Back during WoW's second expansion, there was this guy in my guild I'd become friends with, mostly through other friends. We talked more and more over time and became fairly close. He had this jerk roommate, and I could hear the guy sometimes, especially when something went wrong during a raid. He'd scream and throw fits; he was pretty awful-sounding.
My friend told me he wasn't just loud and obnoxious, but verbally and sometimes physically abusive, too. I had my own apartment, so I said, “You know what? Come stay with me. Just long enough to get you on your feet and into a place that's safe.” He showed up at my place with a trash bag full of his stuff and a laptop.
I set him up in the apartment and started trying to help him find a job. I thought all the drama would get resolved, but I was so, so wrong. It turns out that he did not want a job. He did not get a job, either. He sat in my apartment, day after day, eating my food and slowly draining my savings. No matter how hard I tried to get him motivated, he would just dig in his heels and somehow become more sedentary.
Eventually, I told him he had to go. I couldn't afford to keep him there. He was just couch surfing. I spoke to some people and eventually pieced together that his method of securing a new "temporary" place was playing on the sympathies of his friends to convince them he was in a terrible living situation. It just worked really well on me because he had that loud, obnoxious roommate to play off of.
He wound up calling a nearby relative to come and get him, I think his aunt. I don't know what he told her I supposedly did, but I have never seen a more venomous look from someone in my life. As far as I know he moved in with his sister and brother-in-law after that, but frankly, I don't care where he ended up. He also stole a bunch of my stuff. First and last time I do anything like that.
Just the Benefits
Online dating hasn't been kind to me. One time, a guy drove by to pick me up and then texted me, "I can't go out with you. I'm too superficial" after seeing me standing outside. This was at least six years and 50 lbs ago. So, I went back inside feeling really down about it. That's when I get another text, somehow crueller than the first: "Ok, we can do it, but no dating or relationship stuff." Unbelievable.
It Takes Two to Game a Relationship
A guy I knew in college met a girl online and spent every day talking about her. She lived about six hours away, so he planned to take a semester off and pursue this relationship. He got a job in her town and asked if I'd help him move out there, since my car would hold more than he could take on a bus. I had a long weekend off and figured why not?
A road trip cold be fun. I'd drive him out as a goodbye present, and the way back I planned to visit Yellowstone. Well...we arrive, and it turns out he doesn't have an apartment lined up and while he found a job posting in his girlfriend's town, he hadn't actually gotten the job. Or even applied yet. I make a bunch of phone calls and find him a room to rent that will let him move in that day with just first, last, and deposit, even without a job.
I'm tired and disgusted with his lack of planning, but figure it's worth staying the night and trying to end things on good terms with my buddy. Then he breaks down and confesses the truth: He hasn't actually met this girl. The nights he spent "video chatting" with her were really just him watching her vlog and jacking it. They've never talked. Never texted.
Never even emailed. Hell, he's never even left so much as a comment or "like" on one of her videos. She genuinely didn't (still doesn't) know he existed. His plan was to hang out at this game shop she talks a lot about, until she showed up and somehow create a relationship from that. He thought that they'd meet, and she'd fall in love with him and move back to our college town to marry him...all before the next semester began.
That didn't happen. Instead, I made my "buddy" buy a bus ticket for his ride back to school and left. He came back to school and got more cringey, not less. I lost track of him after that.
Just Like The Movies
My laptop got stolen out of my truck one night. I filed a police report and everything but they weren’t going to do anything. So being pissed off I thought I would check Craigslist and guess what? The guy who stole was trying to sell it on Craigslist two towns over. I had him send me some pictures of it to confirm that it was mine.
I contacted the police and we set up a sting operation at the local Starbucks and caught the guy. It turned out to be a minor and he had weapons and other stolen crap in his car. I was pretty proud of myself for that! I never thought I would see that laptop again. Guy didn’t even wipe the hard drive.
Your Princess is Holding Down Another Castle
I met a girl I'd been chatting with online and it was the biggest mistake of my life. The first issue was that she used a picture of herself when she was younger and thinner. She used to be around 120 pounds, I believe she told me. She was easily over 300 pounds and couldn't walk for long. Eventually, she took out a cane. I didn't know how to react to a 21-year-old using a cane.
Someone that is injured? Sure. Someone that spent 90% of their time watching YouTube and reading anime? Not fine. We walked, sat, walked, sat, walked sat, talked for a bit. She warned me she has anger issues and might snap at me at any random time. She would constantly look at her phone and sigh loudly. We met up basically on a date to see a movie.
When watching the movie, she would constantly burp and fart during every romantic scene. She would cheer herself on every time too. In the freaking theater. After the date was over. I didn't want to see her again but, apparently, I left a good impression. She would call me constantly, every night. Usually crying about how much she hates where she lives, how much she hates why she can't leave, etc.
She wanted a relationship to rescue her from there. Life would be better if she had a boyfriend and just did her own thing. The only jobs she had were at fast food places. Those didn't last long. Each one two to three months at most. She constantly smelled like fish. She dropped out of college because in her words, "I couldn't stand the stuck-up people there. They really made it unbearable."
Also, she does not like studying. After a while, she stopped contacting me. I believe that she had taken the hint and backed off. In reality she went to another guy. He can barely keep down a job, he can barely maintain himself, he drinks himself silly, and she is just happy to be away from her family. She started contacting me again begging me to save her from him and I'm like, "Uh, I have a girlfriend now. Bye."
She left me a 16-page rant through Facebook. I haven’t heard from her since.
Wizard of Disguise
My ex-boyfriend met a girl on WoW who lives in Texas. He lives in the Midwest. They talked for many months via WoW and email, but never via video chat. He told his parents about her as things were getting more serious, and they agreed to let her visit and stay at their house for a week so he and her could meet in person. The flight was bought for her, they discussed how excited they were to meet, and then the night before the flight, she admitted "she" was actually a 19-year-old gay guy.
Not All Friends Should Be Forever and Ever and Ever
We met online through a fandom. After a few years, most of the group lost touch, but a handful of us stayed friends. A guy, let's call him D, was very normal, the rest of the group seemed to love him, and about four years after just being online mates we met in person. It went fine.
We kept interacting on FB and Instagram, but then I hit a really busy period in my life and had to go offline. When I started posting again, I noticed something weird: Most of the group were no longer friends with D. Then I checked my messages and it all started falling into place.
I saw message after message after message asking why I wasn't responding, what was I doing, could we arrange a meet up, etc. I explained I was super busy, and it was also coming up to the anniversary of my mum's death, so just give me some time and we'll see about meeting up another time.
He said "Oh yeah, I forgot about the anniversary. You can have that day, but I expect a response after.” Screw that. I blocked him, so he sent email after email after email asking me, “What is your freaking problem, what the heck do you think you're doing" etc., so I blocked his email too. After three very peaceful weeks, there was a knock on my door: it was D, and he had a six-page letter detailing why we had to be friends.
I shut the door, used an anonymous email thing to tell him that if he contacted me again or showed up at my door, I would call the police. Went on Facebook and told everyone (including the two remaining mutual friends) about it all, and could the mutuals not share anything about me/my life and actively discourage him from attempting to make contact.
The friends who had long since unfriended him started messaging me. They told me the real story: they stopped talking to him because of how creepy he was being in private messages about me, always asking if they knew what I was doing, had I talked to them, was I seeing anyone, was I actually busy because he was convinced wasn't, etc.
I haven't heard a peep from him in over a year. He has apparently deleted his Facebook and Instagram, and thankfully just disappeared. Good riddance.
Making Friends is Ruff
I went to meet this dude from OKC and he was wearing like half a fursuit, like the costumes that furries wear. I just turned around and texted that something came up and I couldn't make it.
A Chinchilla Gained
I met a girl I was chatting with online at a local pub for a few drinks, and we get chicken fingers. The conversation is terrible, but I notice she's taking the chicken fingers and ripping them up in her hands and putting the breading in her huge purse. So naturally, I call her out on it. She smiled and said, "Oh, I'm just feeding Sammy" and pulled out a fat chinchilla from her purse.
She plopped the thing in the middle of the table and it just kinda chilled out. I played with the chinchilla a bit and she kinda got mad at me for playing with it and back in the purse it went. I was ready to call it and leave, but she mentioned she could go for some ice cream, and I was cool with it. So we go to Ben & Jerry's.
We get to talking about tattoos and piercings, and she tells me she has nipple piercings, and I'm like, "Oh?" and then she pulls down her shirt, in the middle of Ben and Jerrys at 8:00 p.m. and shows me her nipples. I had no idea how to react. So then I decide to walk her to her car. She kiss attacks me, and well, she WAS kinda cute so I made out with her, sort of, her lips were tense the whole time and she licked my teeth.
I friended her on Facebook for some reason after that. She had a Facebook page for her chinchilla that had more friends then I did. A few months later, the chinchilla passed and its Facebook was a memorial page where a bunch of people (like, 35) commented how much they missed it.
I liked one of her statuses and she called me crying. I unfriended her but not the chinchilla. RIP Sammy.
Playing the Game
I met a girl on Xbox Live when I was 17, playing Black Ops 2. We ended up exchanging Instagram handles, and eventually phone numbers. She was in Texas & I am in Washington. After about six months, we started to do long distance dating, as we’d both taken an interest in one another. However, I had to accept that I was probably never going to meet her due to the distance, so I broke things off after a few months.
Apparently she didn’t like that. Two days later, I came home from school to make a bizarre discovery. She was sitting on my front porch with her bags. She packed up her life and moved to Washington because she wanted to be with me. We ended up dating and living together for three years until she left me for another guy that she met on Xbox while playing a game that I bought for her.
Welcome to the 21st Century
I had a guy that I met online pat me on the head and say that my belief that men and women were equal was “cute.” No more dates.
Try Disappearing Forever Next Time
I met a guy online, we really got on and he came over a few times so we could hang out. I did find him attractive and tried to hint that I was into him (note, I can't flirt to save my life), but nothing ever happened. After a few "dates," he suddenly vanished. No social media, he wasn't answering texts or emails, nothing. I thought he'd ghosted me.
After six months he reappears, I asked him where he'd been and he said, "I don't want to talk about it." A few weeks after, there was a fad where people were Googling their names and posting humorous stories they had found about similar people with their name (mine was about a ship that had my initials), and I started to Google friends’ names out of boredom. Big. Mistake.
I Googled his name and found a local news story from his area, one of those "crime and courts" things that he had been arrested for statutory assault of a minor and online grooming, and had his computer and phone seized as evidence.
Just Gross
My desk/office chair broke. I called the manufacturer and they sent me a new part for it, but it would be a few weeks until it got there. I didn't want to use a hard, uncomfortable chair for two weeks so I got on craigslist And found a guy selling an office chair for $15 near me.
The pic looked good, I called him and he still had it. I got to his place, and when I arrived he was outside cleaning his car. He took me into the garage and showed me the chair. It had a huge stain down the middle of the seat like he had pooped the chair or sat in it naked and let his juices flow into it.
I declined to buy it, and when he asked why I told him I doubt anyone will buy a chair with that stain on it.
Sick of You
This is way back in the mid-90s. Bulletin Board Systems were all the rage. I made friends with this guy from NC—he was friends with a bunch of us from my dorm, mostly females. That should have been a red flag, but I was extremely naive at the time. A couple of months in, he mentioned he was coming to our state for a wedding and asked if he could come by our college to meet everyone.
It was agreed he’d sleep in my dorm room, since my roommate was almost never around. Now, there was no discussion of sex, but I was pretty excited to meet this guy and see if he was as funny and charming as he was online. Well. The day arrives, dude shows up. I should mention that I and all my college friends were 18 or 19. This guy was 24. Or so he said. His appearance was haunting.
Guy looked like, and I’m not exaggerating, a cancer patient. Pale, gaunt features, long greasy pale blond hair except where he was bald on top, and just generally looked like he was about to die, or he was dressed as a ghoul for Halloween. He insisted on hugging all of us. I was trying to remind myself that looks don’t matter and that he was a cool guy despite his very unsettling appearance.
But then, when we all started hanging out together, things just got way worse. He was asking really invasive questions to all of us, making weird comments about whatever was said, just all around creepy and distressing. I was sitting on the floor with another friend and actively rocking back and forth from discomfort.
I lied and said I had hurt my back and that sleeping on the floor helped, because that night he kept insisting we could share my tiny twin college bed. Nope nope nope nope nope. Last time I ever met anyone from that site.
Dark Side of the Pond
I work as head of IT security for a large insurance company. One of the people I work with was recently scammed out of over 250k. Saddest thing I ever saw. She's essentially screwed. 56 years old and she got nothing. I did what I could to give her advice about her next steps, but couldn't convince her to tell her family, she's so embarrassed.
She met a guy on a popular dating site. The profile looked good to her and the two of them "hit it off." He claimed to be from the UK, but no surprise, turned out they traced it back to Africa. They chatted for a couple months and money was never mentioned, but from time to time he'd talk about a business opportunity he had.
He makes all these promises to fly her out to the UK and get married. Then the hook. He logged on one day and said he was very unhappy. He told her that he was short on money and couldn't put the business deal together any more. He might even lose his house because of it. He convinced her to send $25k. That was the beginning of the end.
He continued to use various tactics (I won't go into detail) to convince her to send a little over $250k through 7 separate transactions. In the end, he had her doing transfers to other people's accounts (routed back to him no doubt) because Western Union suspected fraud and had stopped allowing transfers to him.
The wakeup call for her came when she saw a Dr. Phil show about this sort of thing. After seeing the show, she realized she may have been victimized and called the police. A really sad story.
Pinterest
A Sunnyside-Up Friendship
My friends and I had this online friend (who lived in a bordering state) that we played games with all the time. He found out we were planning a big LAN and asked if he could take the train down and come. We all thought it'd be cool, and I agreed to let him stay with me at my mom's place. The guy was 6-foot something, 400+ pounds, and I don't think showered often (In the four days he was there, didn't take a shower).
Now, I'm not trying to rag on him, he was a nice guy and fun to play with, but it just goes with the story. He ended up falling asleep on my bed at one point, which was next to the window. We lived in basically the desert, and it's about 100 every day during summer. The blinds happened to be open, and he literally was roasting in the sun. The next morning, I nearly puked.
The sweat had completely soaked the mattress (I so wish I was kidding), and the smell wouldn't go away no matter how much we washed or scrubbed. Sadly, had to get rid of the mattress.
Not Your Prince Charming
I met a chick on Myspace that only had "angle" pictures and close-ups. I could tell that she wasn't the hottest girl in the world, but I was bored so I figured I'd have a go just for fun. The second she showed up I regretted it. She looked like Octomom and was crazy. She lived with her ex-husband and got all creepy obsessed with me and would write poems about me on the internet.
At the time, I was a career alcoholic, broke and had nothing to offer anyone, so the fact that she got all obsessive was just that much weirder. She'd get mad at me if I didn't call her twice a day. It took about two months to get her out of my life.
You Look Good Enough to Eat
Online dating. We met at the train station and walked to the restaurant. Within 10 minutes, he stopped me, turned my body towards him, said "You're so beautiful," and leaned in for a kiss (which I would have been okay with). I was wrong: Apparently, he did not want a kiss. Instead, he licked my cheek.
Plot Twist
My friend had been dating this girl on Facebook for the longest time (around two years) and one night at a party got drunk and made out with a mutual friend. However, it was just a drunken fling with no attraction and as it turns out—he told the online girlfriend. She proceeded to lock him out of his Facebook profile (since he had given her his password) and for the next two hours following she uploaded every single nude photo he had sent her. Literally.
Cover Photo. Profile pic. Shared multiple photos of just my friend, in the nude, in multiple positions and angles. Sometimes with a cowboy hat. Other times with a ribbon around his nether regions. Needless to say, we all saw a bit too much of him. And that wasn't even the worst part. It turns out at the end of it all, the girl wasn't real. It was a group of guys playing a really sick prank on him.
A New Look He’s Going For
Just the other day, my twelve-year-old little brother posted a topless photo of himself on his public Instagram page, along with the caption "Ladies’ Man." I guess he forgot that I had access to his account and could see whatever he was posting. I have no idea what gave him the idea to do such a thing, but it was both hilarious and kind of scary at the same time…
Staying for the Movie
Before I met my current bf, I went out on a few dates from guys on OKC. There was one guy who I thought was pretty cute, so I decided to take a chance and go out with him. We go out for dinner which was fine...until he started talking about his ex-fiancé who was a dancer on some popular TV show back in the Philippines who actually had a husband etc. That already turned me off, but oh boy, it got so much worse.
Then we go out to a movie and he starts to touch himself! Right in the theater! He just unzips his pants and starts going at it, and I'm sitting next to him horrified! And he had the nerve to tell me I'm the weird one because every normal person does that in movie theaters...this was during the trailers btw.
Then he tried to go at it with me in the theater which I really wasn't in the mood for so I moved across the theater to enjoy the movie while he sat in his corner fapping for all I know. Needless to say, we never saw each other again. The movie was great though!
Back In Nigeria
I was trying to sell my old laptop on CL. I was flooded with scam emails saying, "I would like to purchase this item for my brother/uncle/nephew/etc. who is studying/volunteering/doing missionary work in Nigeria. Please send your bank account number and information so I may wire transfer funds."
Seriously, I got like 100 of these emails all saying some variation of that story. They were all OBVIOUSLY very fake emails.
Anyway, I finally get a legit sounding message saying this guy wants to buy it. We meet at a Starbucks and he checks out the laptop and asks some questions, seems satisfied so he gets out his cash. As he hands it to me he says, "Thanks so much, my brother is over in Nigeria for his studies and really needed a computer so this will be a great gift!"
I accidentally burst out laughing, and he just looked at me like I was crazy and left.
Nightmare Couch
My girlfriend and I arranged to buy a couch off of a couple in a fairly bad neighborhood. After a hassle of trying to find the place, we get in the apartment, the couch is in REALLY good condition, and it was retail listed for $,1200 while we were paying $500. You know the saying, "If it sounds too good to be true, it is"? We learned it was true the hard way.
They were moving the next day and really needed to sell it. As I'm carrying one of the sections of the couch out with the guy, I see a bug scuttle across it. The guy flicks it off with a quickness and looks at me with the most apprehensive stare ever. Long story short, the couch was absolutely infested with roaches, like I'm talking thousands INSIDE THE COUCH. They knew.
Given the Switch-A-Roo?
I matched with a girl on Tinder and we agreed to meet up at a nearby coffee shop. When I arrived, I was sitting in the parking lot and noticed only 2 people in the coffee shop, some old guy and a girl who looked similar to the girl I matched with on Tinder. She didn't entirely look like the girl I matched with, but she looked enough like her for me to pass it off as her using filters to make herself look better.
I texted her that "I'm here,” when I did that the old guy and the girl got their phones out at the same time and I got a text that said, "I'm inside.” I went inside and went up to the girl and said, "Hey, Melissa, right?" She looked up from her phone, frowned, and said, "No, wrong person.” Right after she said that, the old guy tapped me on the shoulder. I turned, he gave me a toothy smile, and casually said "Howdy." I ran out like I was running from a killer.
A Chat to Remember
I met a guy named Josh online when I was younger. At the time I was too shy for phone calls, so for two years (from age 12 to 14 at this point) we would chat every day. I was completely in love with him, and then Josh got diagnosed with cancer about two years into our relationship. It was quick moving, sometimes I wouldn't hear from him for days during his treatment.
I saved my allowance and did extra chores to send Josh flowers when I could, I considered myself an advocate for cancer research and volunteered for the cancer center and cried nightly. About six months after his diagnosis, I didn't hear from Josh for a week. One day, his friend Kate logs on. She tells me Josh has died. She was so sorry, everyone at her school was devastated. My world stopped. My first love was gone.
About four years later, I get a message from a girl on Facebook. I have no idea who she is. She remembered my name though. What she told me changed everything. She said that she was Josh and that she had fabricated the entire thing because she was bored and wanted to see what would happen. She apologized for hurting me, but she didn't know an 'out' at the time, and hoped I was doing well.
I don't believe anyone on the internet is who they say they are anymore.
A Considerate Thief
My friend was trying to buy something off craigslist. He made arrangements to meet somewhere, agreed on a price blah blah blah. Couple minutes later, the guy calls my friend back and says something chilling: "Hey man, don't come. I was just going to rob you, but I heard some kids in the background when we were talking on the phone."
Return to Sender
After more than four years of playing WoW together and chatting (online and on the phone), he invited me to visit him in Australia. I figured it was safe, since I'd known him for quite a while and had never gotten any weird vibes—no flirtation, no creeper-ness, nothing. Two days into my very-clearly-stated platonic visit, he tried to assault me.
I ditched all of my stuff except what I had in a small duffel bag and took off, traveling on my own for the two weeks until my flight home. A few months later, I received an unsigned postcard from the Gold Coast that just said, "Thinking of you," with a smiley face.
Nothing Heals a Heart
A fairly attractive Asian girl started messaging me in a chat room on gay.com. I am lesbian, so the gay.com chatrooms for the women weren't really known for having bots. She comes on strong and actually shows a lot of interest in me even though I didn't really have much interest in her at first since she was in Florida and I'm in Oklahoma.
I actually start to really like her and think maybe we could really hit it off if we met. We started talking/texting pretty much 24/7. Then she tells me about how she can't date anyone locally because her dad is a marine engineer and builds multimillion-dollar yachts for famous people. I don't really believe it at first, but then she takes it to the next level.
She starts mailing me all these fairly expensive things like clothes, flowers, gift cards, etc. to 'prove' it, even though I tell her I didn't really want them.The weird thing is she wouldn't tell me her last name and would be very weird about it, saying if I found it out I could Google it and it'll pull up her dad's yacht business and I could see how rich they really are.
She said she wanted to make sure that I really wanted to be with her and wasn't just in it for the money....Even though she kept sending me gifts without me asking to "prove" her wealth. She also said she was a head hair stylist at Tony&Guy and made $700/day in tips. Anyway, one of the gifts she sent the company sent a receipt slip that had her last name on it.
I Googled it, and nothing really pulled up. Even (name) Yachts, nothing. (Name) yachts Florida, nothing. Nothing at all came up for it. Things started to seem weird, so I called the Tony&Guy she claimed she worked at and asked if I could schedule with her. No one worked there with that name. I waited a couple days to tell her that her name came on the receipt.
When I did she flipped out and said I was crazy, and that she was going to stop talking to me anyway because she has cancer, then hung up on me and disconnected the number within minutes. It was so weird. I don't know what the point of that catfish was, I'm the one who got a bunch of stuff, and I didn't even ask for any of it.
The High Price of Online Friendship
We were friends online for years. We’d meet up every so often and when we started families we’d meet up and take the kids to the zoos or whatever. She wanted us to go on a cruise together, with our husbands and kids. I made the comment towards the effect of “We can’t afford that." She went completely nuts.
We shouldn’t have had kids if we can’t afford them, we shouldn’t have more children, our life sucks blah blah blah because I didn’t want to go on a cruise with her and her bratty kid. Sounds like a nightmare.
Who Needs Soaps When You Have AIM?
Back when AIM was all the rage, I started exchanging messages with a young woman. She described herself as being petite, attractive, and physically active, and the pictures that she sent seemed to confirm those claims. For a while, we discussed standard (boring) teenage topics... but eventually, our conversations took a turn for the bizarre.
One evening as we were talking, she told me a story about how she and her twin sister had "switched boyfriends" in the middle of the night. They were caught, and neither boy was particularly pleased about the situation... so in order to make it up them, the girls agreed to have a foursome.
The tale struck me as being more than a little bit odd, but I could see no reason for someone to lie about it, so I went right on believing.
Things got stranger from there.
As the months progressed, I was treated to a dramatic saga of epic proportions. First, the girl's twin sister was killed in a car crash that also ended her father's life. Not long after, her mother was killed in an accident (which was strongly implied as having been a suicide). The girl herself—being under eighteen—was sent to live with her uncle, who forced her to work at a strip club in order to pay the rent.
When I asked how she, a sixteen-year-old girl, was allowed to work there, she told me that "the fire marshal said it was okay." A week or two later, she attempted a suicide of her own, but was caught by her piano teacher.
That was about the time that the alarm bells in my head drowned out my sense of trust. I went back and reappraised everything that she had told me, and I noticed some rather glaring inconsistencies. After coming to terms with the fact that I'd been blatantly lied to for months, I started calling out every potential untruth that I spotted, and I gave the girl an ultimatum: Unless she came clean about who she was, I would cut off contact with her entirely.
She protested at first, going through such acts as being angry that I didn't believe her and depressed because her "only real friend" had stopped trusting her word. Still, I stayed adamant, and eventually, she agreed to let me see her on webcam.
It turned out that she was an impressively overweight girl who bore absolutely no resemblance to the pictures that she had sent me. Her stories—or so she claimed—were all invented to "keep me interested," because (according to her) I wouldn't have kept talking to her if I'd known who she really was.
Truth be told, she was probably right. Still, I made an effort to keep conversing with her after that, and to learn who she really was... but I never felt like I could trust anything that she said, and eventually, we just stopped talking entirely.
At least I never tried to meet her in person... which is more than I can say for the second time that I got catfished.
That's another story, though.
Searching for: Partner in Crime
One girl that I met online went crazy and started to stalk me. She even found out where I worked. She said that all of it was because I wouldn’t help her steal a gosling from a petting zoo.
A Tragical Romance
He and I were part of the same forum many, many years ago. He was dealing with his issues and I was dealing with mine. I think we both went there to escape, where people wouldn’t judge. We used to share everything with each other over MSN. I’d give him advice about his love life, and he’d listen to all my screw ups.
It took quite a few screw-ups before we eventually met up. I think I already knew we were in love but seeing him in person really cemented it. We decided to give it a go, even though we lived 300 miles away from each other. We had a lot of ups and downs, but we finally moved in with each other.
I thought our issues were going to be solved when there was no distance between us. Ends up, we were just very different people who wanted very different things and the distance wasn't going to change that. We broke up after three and a half years together. I didn't know it then, but things were about to get so much worse.
About a year and a half after breaking up, he gets back in touch and we talk like it was in the beginning. After a few weeks, he asked if I want to get back together. I said no. The next day, I got a phone call from his work because I was still his emergency contact. They said he hadn't turned up. Then the police called me. The last phone call that day was from his mum, to let me know that he’d died by suicide.
A Bloody Strange Thing to Ask
I have no explanation as to what this means or why it was in my 9-year-old son's Google search history, yet I once accidentally stumbled upon the phrase, "Do girls in England poo blood for a month?" when using a device that we share. It really makes you wonder what the heck goes on in their little minds, doesn’t it?
Maybe Parental Permission Before Going Online Shouldn’t Apply Here
Met this dude on EverQuest, and we've played games together ever since. Been a part of the same guild, help each other out on mobile games, and have conversations about life in general. It isn't him that's the horror story, it was his mom! So one day, I think we were playing WoW at the time, and I log on to do some quests.
Suddenly, his user comes on and asks to chat by video. We've done this before and there's no problem, but after I click to start the video chat: I was instantly scarred for life. There's his mom butt naked on the screen. She asks me to watch her and I'm like "No lady, this is just awkward," and I log off for a few days. I get an email from my friend, and he wants to know why I haven't shown up for quests or anything.
So, I tell him what happened and he is seriously like "What the heck!?" Turns out his mom had been doing this to a lot of his online buddies and she eventually goes to prison for assaulting a minor or two. Buddy's doing great though: wife and kids plus we still play the occasional game together.
Best Mugging Ever
I sold my original Xbox on CL and had tried to include over two dozen games as a package deal. A girl contacted me just wanting the Xbox for her boyfriend. We agreed on a time and she came over with a friend, another girl. Both were very attractive. We did the "see it works" test and I was unhooking everything to box it up for them.
She then asked if she could have all the games as well. I told her I was probably going to trade them in to get some new 360 games. She asked if she could have them for a discount, I was like, umm sure, there are 27 games here so how about $100, $4 a game? She said no thanks and got the Xbox and left.
About 3 hours later, knock on the door, I open and they are back and stinking drunnnnnnnk. They ask if they can hang with me because her friend thought I was cute. Yadda, Yadda, we have a 3way.
I'm in my bedroom when they get dressed to leave. Girl with the BF goes to use the bathroom and ends up going outside to smoke by her car, I walk her friend out, get her number. Turn around and notice my box of games is gone. Car is pulling out the driveway.
The Butt of the Joke
I once caught both of my nieces playing an animated game online where the objective was to spank a cartoon butt with a paddle. Every time they'd "swing the paddle" at the butt, it would emit the sound of a woman moaning. They were too young to even understand why the game was inappropriate, and were laughing hysterically while playing.
A Mile In My Heels
When I was 18, I signed up for a dating site pretending to be a 15-year-old girl (the thought was just pranking a friend) the number of messages I got from creepy old dudes was amazing! (I'm a man, by the way).
There was this one guy, he was about 54 years old and a construction worker, who was VERY graphic in his first message, so I got curious and started talking to him, he was such a jerk. I told him I (my persona) lied about my age and I'm actually 13 years old, he didn't mind. I was disgusted by this guy, but I also wanted to teach him a lesson. In the end, we kept chatting and he said he wanted to meet with me.
So I said sure let's meet, I would send him all over the country for a "date" with me, and I told him to buy all these ridiculous things like ballerina outfits, 4 dozen bananas (told him I wanted to have a banana milkshake party with some friends). I stopped doing this after like 3 or 4 days.
To be perfectly honest this was a learning experience for me too, I didn't know how creepy & messed up guys could be on dating sites & in general, I have way more respect & empathy for women having to put up with this stuff since then.
With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies?
This is actually really horrible, and I still feel guilty to this day. In grade 8, my best friend, Sara, and I decided to make a fake MSN profile and add another friend of ours, Tim. We called ourselves "Brett" and chatted with Tim day after day, claiming to be Sara's acquaintance from the neighboring town.
We got him to confess a ton of things, like his crush on a friend of ours and that he found my mom hot. After a month, we realized we went way too far and shut it down. He would talk to us about Brett and that he missed having a guy to chat with. We felt horrible and promised we'd never speak of it again.
Sara ended up having her wedding in this neighboring town about 5 years later and Tim told me he couldn't wait to finally meet Brett in person. I'm worried for the day karma comes for us.
So Much for Privacy Settings
I was interviewing for a big promotion at my old job. I had put in the time, the hours, and the effort for this promotion, and I had been passed up a few times, so I was sending out resumes while trying to get this promotion. I go through the first interview, and everything seemed great. They invited me for the second interview.
I was so excited. Flash forward two days, and I go in for the interview. The interview is with the regional and site managers. Everything is going great, they are asking me, "What are your priorities, goals, etc." At the end, the site manager changes his posture and says, "Would you say that you're a loyal employee?"
Taken aback, I say, of course, I've been here almost two years, etc. And like a shark circling his prey, this dude turns his computer monitor around, and shows me my PRIVATE Facebook posts that I posted that I was in the market for a job in the same field. Now, there's no way he could have seen this, as it was a friends-only post.
Someone I work with had to have tattled on me here. He then proceeds to read them to me out loud, not only the posts about my job search, but personal posts about my health situation and questions that I didn't bring up to anybody other than personal friends. I look at the regional manager and this guy won't look me in the eyes, he is shifting, obviously uncomfortable.
I tried to say that I was looking just in case this promotion didn't work out, as I am a college student paying my way through school, but he kept interrupting me and saying, "Loyalty is key." He then tells me, "We will think about it," and points toward the door. The regional manager kind of coughs and goes to shake my hand, but by that point, I was already out the door.
So I said "Thanks anyway," and then proceed to have the most uncomfortable walk back to my desk—I was wearing heels for the first time in like a year so I stumbled on my way out the door—with coworkers asking for the details if I got the promotion. I didn't get the job. I think the whole thing was just an "in your face" type deal.
I went on to get a promotion in a different department. I worked there for about another year and a half, and then I moved on to work for Netflix, actually. So, it all worked out! That manager was unfortunately promoted to regional, but the replacement manager was much nicer and not a huge jerk.
Merry Christmas!
I was a 19-year-old waitress. A 49-year-old man who I had served tried to connect with me through the missed connections page on Craigslist. He then came to my workplace and professed his love for me in a Christmas card that, ironically, showed a cartoon of Santa being kicked in his private area by a child with the caption “Stranger Danger.”
In his note, he said that he wasn’t sure if I’d be interested in an older man with a wife and children, so we’d have to find a way around that little detail. I didn’t feel safe at work anymore, so I had the police intervene and tell him not to bother me ever again.
Vacuum Nut
I sold a vacuum; it was nothing special. I inherited it from a move out. My price was a reasonable $15. I described it as an average vacuum with average abilities. It was bought by a TA at CSU. She pulled up in a $40k car and wanted to haggle with me. I sold it for $10. She then proceeded to send me pictures of it not picking up things it vacuumed for an entire day. I got out of work and told her the hose was detached. "Oh."
Two days pass... Cue pictures of it not picking up stuff "to her standards." I reiterate the purchase price of said vacuum.
My parents come to town, she is blowing me up with texts and pictures of a dustpan of dirt from her yard dumped onto carpet as some kind of "display" ... I don't respond, I will refund her once my parents leave in ONE DAY!
We come home from dinner to her severing and smashing the vacuum cleaner to bits in my front yard, holding a note in her hand that said, "You can keep the money, jerk."
We basically caught her red-handed. She looked extremely embarrassed. I made her pick it up and throw it in my trashcan. Then I told her to leave and never come back. Also, she idiotically corresponded with me with her douchey email signature where she basically listed every achievement and address and life experience she'd ever had. I told her that if she ever did anything to my property, I would come find her. The end.
Search History
As a kid, my father and I would occasionally take weekend trips a couple hours down the road to see my grandfather and step-grandmother and stay in their house with them. These trips were fun because they were like mini-vacations, and both my grandfather and step-grandmother were veritably some of the coolest people you'd ever meet in your life. I actually didn't get to know them until I was half-grown, they were a disconnected part of my family. Sometimes my dad would leave me with them for the weekend.
My step-grandma had a fully kitted out—for the time—desktop computer in her office at her house. She was computer savvy and much younger than my grandfather. Me being a gamer, I was most definitely interested in her computer, and she let me browse the Internet on it sometimes. This was back when a fast internet-enabled computer in the house was less common.
One night, when all the adults were doing boring adult stuff and talking in the den, I snuck into the office to use the computer. Didn't have any ill-intent at first, just wanted to browse Cartoon Network or whatever like usual, but that night I had a fresh thought pop into my brain. I pulled up the very old original version of Google, and looked up "free... adult content."
With my heart pounding, I browsed some sites, all of which were very cringy and tame by today's standards. All the good stuff was hidden with starbursts and lens flairs. I looked at the sites for a little while, and then left the room thinking I'd gotten away with it. I didn't know that they could check my history.
My grandparents approached me later and told me they knew what I'd done. They asked me to confess and I did, then asked how I thought I should be punished, at which point I told them I was pretty sure my dad was going to be angry when we told him, but predictably I said I didn't think I deserved that.
They said I was forgiven and I apologized. My dad didn't spank me for it like I expected him to. I think my grandfather had a private heart-to-heart with him, or either didn't tell him at all. Seems silly in hindsight, but at the time it felt like I'd been caught red-handed with a murder weapon.
Sources: Reddit, , , , 5, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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