Is this older guy just playing me? What does he want?

[Babooshka]

Hello everyone, nice to meet y’all. I’m brand new to these forums and I have an issue that I’m not sure how to handle. May I ask for your opinion?

 

I’m 17 and female. When I was 14, I got a crush on this guy I saw sometimes. It was a pretty hardcore crush and it lasted for two years, while I was still seeing him. He was 30 years older than me, and while he was always friendly and polite to me, we didn’t speak much. I did a pretty good job of keeping the crush a secret, because I knew very well that I was far too young for him.

 

Last year he changed jobs and I stopped seeing him. Then I found him online. It took a while for me to work up the nerve to do it, but I contacted him through a social networking site early this year, because I wanted to get to know him a little better. All that time watching him from afar and not knowing anything about him was so frustrating. I was nervous about talking to him, and I’m also paranoid about online safety, so I didn’t use my real name or put up any pictures of myself. (What if he thought I was a stalker?) To my surprise, he was quite willing to talk to me, and I found that he’s very nice.

 

After chatting for a while, I got tired of being so secretive about my identity, so I told him who I was. He was completely cool with it (and even remembered me), and we kept on talking. At this point I was glad just to be friends with him, because I thought it would never happen.

 

Well, lately he’s been talking about wanting to see me in person after I’m 18. (That’s not for a few months yet, so I’ve got some time to think about this.) The way he’s talking makes me think that maybe he’s returning my feelings, at least a little bit. I’d like to see him too; I think we could have a better conversation in person. But.

 

While I just want to be happy about this, I can’t help but question his motivations. See, he has female online friends – a lot of them – and he’s always talking to them and telling them how “beautiful” and “sexy” they are. This is allowed; he is single. I get jealous, but I know I really have no right, so I try to ignore it. He’s called me beautiful too – a harmless enough compliment, but it makes me squirm a little bit to have such an often-recycled adjective applied to me too. I don’t doubt that he means it, but that’s sort of the problem.

 

I’m worried that he’s throwing out lines to see which fish bite, and I don’t want to be just one fish out of many. While I like him very much, I don’t know him all that well yet, which makes it harder to guess at his intentions. Yes, he’s said some sweet things to me, but a player will say anything he thinks you want to hear, right? I do think that he’s genuinely fond of me but as to whether he’s into me as much as I’m into him, I couldn’t say. I'm the sort of person who tends to be too trusting of other people, and I don’t want to be used.

 

Maybe I’m taking all of this way too seriously. What do you think? Maybe a good course of action would be to proceed cautiously till I’m 18, and then see him a couple of times and see how things go from there… yeah?

 

Thanks for reading all this, I’d appreciate your thoughts!

[ADF]

Break off all contact with this man immediately. You'll be sorry if you don't.

 

Men in their 30s who date teenagers almost always have serious domination and control issues. Sure, they like sex with nubile young bodies. But they also like dating women they see as less world-wise than they are, who are less savvy and sophisticated, who they can manipulate and control. There is no way--NO WAY--you and this man can relate to each other as equals, which is what you need to do to have any kind of a sane and healthy relationship.

 

RUN.

[Babooshka]

Thank you for replying, ADF.

 

I'm considering breaking off contact with him, but I'm not going to make such a drastic move without thinking long and hard first. I know some couples separated by a significant age gap who function very well together, so I know it's possible, and he's given me no reason to believe he has control issues, although I will be keeping a sharp lookout for that.

 

What's concerning me more than that is the way he talks about wanting to meet me, while at the same time flirting constantly with other girls. I don't know what he expects from a meeting, but he's not talking to me quite the way someone who only wants to be friends would. If I was really into somebody, I would cut the flirting with everybody else right away because I wouldn't want anyone else - you know? So I'm wondering how much he really likes me, and whether he might just be paying attention to me because I'm young and an easy target (already liking him).

 

And then, maybe I'm just being too cynical altogether and everything really is on the up-and-up. But that's something I think I would figure out better from actually seeing him - "testing the waters," so to speak.

[thegoodlife]

If I were you I'd back out of this situation now.

 

The fact that you are even questioning his motives should be a sign.

[Babooshka]

Thanks muchly, thegoodlife.

 

I've done what both of you recommended, and cut contact with him. Woohoo. I think I'll be better off for it.