The First Meet Up - red flags and signs everywhere

I have met this man on an online game I have always been interested on since some of my friends were also playing with him. But even before that, I have already heard about him since he is working with some of my friends. And one day, I just received a message from someone I didn’t know and later discovered that it was him. It was all a friendly chat but later fell into something deep as he consistently messaged me day by day and little did I know, we were already sharing our deepest thoughts as weeks passed by and we both knew it was something else already.

Month of March, we were already talking for more than a month and later agreed on finally meeting in person. The first moment we met, I felt nothing because I wasn’t really thinking yet of the possibility of having a relationship with this man at that first moment and I am just gauging if I can last a day with this man without us being awkward to each other.

But I felt comfortable with him from the very start. Maybe because he projected himself as this humble guy who jokes a lot and that made me at ease.

But there was something weird I already felt at first. I know the place we went to was very nice but he was taking a lot of pictures of me already even though we just met for a minutes. I even thought to myself “feeling close already” or someone who is a little bit crossing your boundaries already even though you haven’t had a very close relationship yet. As someone who is not very into the front of the camera, I felt uncomfortable but I brushed it off. Maybe he just loved taking pictures and would like me to have some nice photos.

The second time that day that I felt very weird was when we went to a church and there was a lady at the entrance who chatted with us and I don’t how did the conversation went to him saying to her, “We are trying to build a family together.” He means me and him. Like in my mind at that moment, I only met this man for a few hours and now he was claiming to a stranger that we want to build a family together? It might be a joke but I am not used to someone casually joking about those things. (Love bombing? Future faking already at the very first day we met.)

And there was another incident on the church when we saw our initials on the elevator and I don’t remember if it was the same lady at the entrance and he said to her that it was our initials. Meant to be. WTF.

And then came lunch. A very late lunch since we were too busy roaming around a lot and we wasted a lot of time taking pictures but mainly him taking pictures of me but I never did get any proper picture of him because he was refusing me. I thought we were just gonna have a casual chat during that lunch and eat, but boy, that was the heaviest and most emotionally difficult lunch I had. While we were eating and chatting, he was telling me a lot of sob stories about his life which I didn’t really ask him about at all and just shocked how did our conversation even went to that. And little did I know, that is the start of his trauma bond on me. Because after hearing everything he had gone through before, I felt really sad for him and all I started to think at that very moment was I want to protect and love this man because he needs someone who will love him truly and will be kind to him.

The day was not yet over and there were another sign that I wasn’t able to see. A lot of love bombing actions already from the very first day which I wasn’t able to see because I was not aware of those signs. We decided to end the day by going to a pub near the train station and as he was ordering a drink, he was undecided and asked the bartender some suggestion on what drink to get by saying: “What drink can you recommend that would make her fall in love with me by the end of the night?” I could never forget that line because it really caught me off guard again. Those flowery words. THOSE FLOWERY WORDS WERE THE SIGNS ALREADY. And unfortunately, I missed all those signs and as a woman, your normal reaction would be butterflies in your stomach and flattery. Which what happened to me. When it should have been disgust because I didn’t know that I am on the path of falling into the trap of someone very deceptive.

Everything went well that day. Before the day has even ended, he already completely got my trust and to be honest, him sharing to me his deep past and how wounded he was made me feel special, made me feel that I am already a big part of his life for he shared his vulnerabilities with me. Little did I know, it was the start of the trap. For me to pity him from the very start. So he can always instill on my mind that he is a victim. Of everyone. Everyone around him hurt him in the past and mistreated him and now all his actions will be reasonable because he has a deep trauma. What a perfectly executed type of manipulation. A common trait of a narcissist. The usual sob story to pity them and make them look like a victim when truly they are a monster. Looking back, I can perfectly understand everything now. From the very first day of meeting him, he has shown me red flags which I didn’t see because I have never encountered a narcissist in my life. And meeting him proved to me that they really do exist.