I still feel embarrassed when I think about what happened to me, but I want to share it because I really want to know what other people would have done in my place. I’m 24 years old, single, and I recently decided to try online dating. I had never been very comfortable meeting people this way, but I thought maybe I should give it a chance.
I started talking to a guy named Ryan. We only talked for a few days, but he seemed nice and normal. There was nothing strange about our conversations. He asked me questions about myself, we joked around a little, and eventually he asked if I wanted to meet him in person. I agreed, and we decided to meet near a metro station.
That day I was nervous because it was my first time meeting someone I had only talked to online. I arrived a little early and waited for a few minutes. Then I noticed a guy standing not far from me, and I recognized him immediately from his pictures. It was Ryan.
I walked toward him, and he looked at me too. For a few seconds, neither of us said anything. Then he smiled and asked me my name. I told him, expecting him to say something like, “Nice to finally meet you,” but instead he just stood there looking at me.
There was this strange pause.
Then he said, “Sorry, I think I’m waiting for someone else.”
I honestly didn’t understand what he meant. I thought maybe I had somehow approached the wrong person, even though I was almost sure it was him. Before I could say much, he looked behind me and suddenly smiled.
Another woman was walking toward us.
He apologized to me again and immediately went over to her. She greeted him, and after a short conversation, they started walking away together.
I just stood there watching them leave.
I can’t really explain how embarrassed I felt. I had come there thinking I was going on a date with him, and now I was standing alone while he was leaving with another woman.
At first I thought maybe I had made some terrible mistake. Maybe I had misunderstood our conversation or mixed up the meeting place. I even took out my phone and checked our messages again.
But no.
It was the right day. The right place. And it was definitely Ryan.
That’s when my mind started going somewhere I wish it hadn’t. I started thinking maybe he recognized me when I walked up to him, but when he saw me in person, he didn’t like me. Then another woman arrived, he liked her more, and he decided to go with her instead.
I felt horrible.
On the way home, I kept asking myself what was wrong with me. I wondered if I looked different from my pictures. I wondered if he thought I was unattractive. I even started thinking about everything I had worn and whether I should have done something differently.
Then later that evening, Ryan messaged me.
And finally I understood what had happened.
He admitted that he had been talking to another woman online at the same time he was talking to me. Instead of arranging two different dates, he had asked both of us to meet him around the same time and at the same place.
I couldn’t believe what I was reading.
Basically, he wanted to see both of us in person and then decide who he wanted to spend the evening with.
And he chose her.
That hurt enough, but then his message became even worse.
Apparently, things didn’t work out with the other woman. She wasn’t interested in him and ended the date early. So now he was messaging me to explain everything and asking if I would still be interested in meeting him.
I just stared at my phone.
A few hours earlier, I had been standing at that metro station feeling like I wasn’t good enough because he had chosen someone else. Now he was coming back to me only because the woman he chose didn’t want him.
I didn’t answer him.
I blocked him.
But I wish I could say that was the end of it and I forgot about everything. I didn’t.
For a while, it really affected my confidence. The next time someone suggested meeting me after talking online, I immediately remembered Ryan. I started worrying that the same thing would happen again. I became more nervous about my appearance and started wondering whether people would be disappointed when they saw me in person.
After some time, though, I started looking at what happened differently.
At first I thought the most humiliating part of the story was that Ryan didn’t choose me.
But now I don’t think that’s the important part.
The other woman didn’t choose him either.
He treated two people like options and expected one of us to accept it. She didn’t, and neither did I.
Sometimes I still wonder what I would have done if he had been honest from the beginning. Maybe I would have reacted differently. But after knowing that he only came back because his first choice rejected him, I couldn’t imagine sitting across from him on a date pretending none of that had happened.
So I’m curious what other people think. If you were in my situation and he came back afterward, apologized and asked for another chance, would you have agreed to meet him, or would you have blocked him too?
