I almost got groomed

(obligatory English isn't my first language)

A few days ago I started deleting old and cringe posts from my social media account (one of my new friends showed me an old picture of me and I almost died). After a bit I made my way to Facebook and I decided to scroll through my old conversations because I thought it would be interesting to see what I was writing about at like 12-14 you know?

So, I saw a conversation I had with an online friend and I just felt a bit weird when I saw the profile picture but I wanted to read it anyway. Soo, I started reading and man there were a lot of red flags.

At first the conversation was pretty normal, just questions about hobbys and stuff, normal get to know you questions but after a few days the conversation kinda switched. The guy told me he wanted to be a girl and that he was 29 (that's what he said at least, I'm pretty sure now that he only said that so I would feel safer talking to him). He told me I was the only one that knew about him wanting to be a girl and that I am the only one he trusted enough to tell which, admittedly, made me feel really nice in a way. He asked me not to tell anyone about it which I promised I wouldn't and he was really happy about that as well, telling me that I am such a good friend and everything.

He talked about that a lot then, how happy he was that I was his friend, how much he appreciated me being there etc. until one day he started talking a lot about pantyhose and stockings. He asked if I wore them, which color I wore, which size, if I went outside with them and if I was okay with him wearing pantyhose. He then told me that he liked the way they felt and that he wished he could go outside wearing them under a skirt but that he couldn't. The conversation went back to me wearing pantyhose, stokings and skirts a lot after that but he always mentioned how much he wanted to wear that stuff so I didn't see anything wrong with it. I just thought he asked because he couldn't wear it as much as he wanted to.

Later he started to get a bit off? He started to talk about more sexual things like masturbating and things like that but I didn't seem to be weirded out at all. I just answered that I wasn't comfortable talking about that stuff and then continued talking to him like nothing happened. Rereading these messages I really don't understand how this didn't ring any alarm bells, I mean sure I was 13, but damn.

Anyway, a few months after we started talking he wanted to meet up with me and I said yes because I thought we were friends. So we started talking about where to meet and what to do and he insisted that he wanted to meet me in private so he could meet me as his "real self", wearing pantyhose, stokings and a skirt but he couldn't do that in public because, like he said, I was the only one that knew about this. He then told me I could wear pantyhose as well so we could match.

This is where my brain finally realized something wasn't quite right apparently, because I told him I wanted to meet in a coffee shop first and that we could go to a hotel after so he could still show me the "real him". He insisted on going to the Hotel immediately though, because he really wanted someone to see him for who he was. I said no and that I felt uneasy to which he said that nothing bad would happend to me and that I can trust him. He then told me that we're friends and that he has feelings for me so why would he hurt me?

I genuinely thought about meeting with him, especially because it felt good to be liked like that but I couldn't get myself to say yes. I'm pretty sure that's partly because I've always watched crime shows like Criminal Minds with my Mom. Also a few nights before he asked to meet up we watched an episode where a girl met up with an internet friend and ended up dead which might be why I felt so uneasy about the whole thing. So, I told my mom about everything, something I remember feeling bad about because I broke my friends trust.

My mom surprisingly wasn't completely against me meeting up with him, probably because I left some things out, but when I told her about the hotel thing she shifted gears a bit. She told me to wait a while before meeting him and that I shouldn't rush things. I can't remember the whole conversation but she said a lot of things that seemingly got me to actually wait instead of meeting up with him. She also started asking me a lot more questions about him and about what we were talking about. I really thought she was fine with me being friends with him and that she was just interested but now I'm pretty sure the only reason she didn't outright forbid me from seeing him was because she was scared I'd meet up with him in secret.

We stopped talking to each other not long after that, probably because I didn't want to meet him. It's been quite a few years since then and I haven't really thought about him since we stopped talking. I have to admit that I caught myself thinking that he might have been honest while rereading the messages though.

So yeah, that's the story on how i almost got groomed.