My friend has been talking with this 24 year old man online since early 2022. She is into stereotypical nerds that are on the chubbier sides. He is a stereotypical nerd both inside and out, and is 350 lbs at 5"11. She thinks he’s the cutest man she’s ever seen. She met him on Reddit, he lives in California while she lives in England.
Early on he was very much into her. He kept complimenting her photos over and over, and would say things like “oh no…I scared you off didn’t I? Sorry…” if she was away from the keyboard for a few minutes. He’d also send her selfies where he’s carrying an invisible person over his shoulder, and then he asked her to imagine herself being carried by him. They voice chatted on Discord and had a lot of laughs, but over time he seemed to get less interested. He explained to her it’s because when they first started talking, he was working part time, but now he’s working from 5 AM every day along with classes until 10 pm some days so he’s tired and burned out. In his recent selfies he has black bags under his eyes and isn’t smiling. She said he hasn’t smiled in his selfies for a long time. He used to talk with her every day, but some days he doesn’t send any messages at all. When he does, he tells her he’s sorry for not responding, he’s been tired from work. He’s made “I’ll be free when I’m dead” comments lately. This made her believe he could be depressed due to burnout.
Recently, he admitted she lives too far away after she bit the bullet and asked him if he’d be interested in meeting up sometime, and she cannot travel due to a medical condition. He said “I think we’re fine the way we are”. He said it’s “not all that likely” that he’ll meet up with her in the future, since he’s not a fan of travel in general and the distance seems too much right now. She’s still very upset and feels empty because of this but they’re still friends and have been talking since. Something I found out is that he’s had two girlfriends in the past, and he said both of them were abusive, but also that his therapist thinks he’s the abuser trying to play the victim.
She also told me that there’s been two occasions where he punched other men. On the first occasion, he hit a man who was trying to leave a party with a half-conscious, visibly drunk girl. On the other occasion, it was because he embarrassed a gang member who was trying to mess with him. He showed my friend a photo of his two fingertips which are permanently bent because of his punching.
He has almost no online presence and made a post 2 years ago (shortly before he messaged my friend on Reddit for the first time) saying he’s giving up because he thinks no woman will ever find him attractive or truly love him. He said he’s kind of scared of women because of what happened to him before, and he claimed that one of his ex girlfriends tried to shoot him to death, with a bullet just barely grazing past his head.
I’m just trying to get a sense of this. He seems like a shy but gentle nerdy guy who loves collecting action figures and comic books, and I’m not sure how to feel about the other things. I can’t tell if he’s actually bad or not. I can’t tell if these are red flags or not.
Are these red flags?
You know what? Neither can we.
People don’t tend to be “good” or “bad” but usually just have various strengths and weaknesses. It sounds like this guy has an intense need for external validation, and your friend has an intense need for emotional attachment. As long as they stay as just friends and don’t become codependent, that should work out just fine; he’s probably right that as a romantic relationship there’s pretty much no way this one will work.
And that’s ignoring the “do either of them have abusive or manipulative tendencies” angle. The big thing is that neither of them should depend solely on the other for emotional fulfillment.
And the “he’s likely the abusive part” is chinese whispers. He told that to your friend. And maybe heard that from his ex who supposedly heard that from her therapist. That’s a long chain. Could be true. Could be his ex manipulating him or being angry, could be him manipulating your friend. Or a misunderstanding.
As of now, they’re still talking with each other. The reveal about it not being all that likely for him to travel to her was a few days ago, and they’ve been chatting on Discord since like normal. She also straight up admitted to him that she finds him attractive and if it wasn’t for the distance she’d ask him out. He said thanks.
She’s always been very friendly towards him. She tells him he’s cute whenever he posts photos, they talk about nerdy interests, show each other memes, she shows him music that she’s made, and she also comments on his collection of action figures that he’s very passionate about showing to people, as well as asking questions about the fandoms that he’s in. She’s a shy, nerdy woman.
Sounds like a potentially healthy relationship; I’ve had lots of similar ones on the Internet over the years, usually focusing on special interests. Although if someone tries to make it romantic I mention I’ve got a SO and have no interest in changing that relationship. Never had anyone try to push things further anyway or manipulate me. One of the benefits of the Internet is you can usually just drop the relationship if you need to.