I'd met "Nick" over OKCupid. By chance I came upon him, and saw his profile was pretty sparse just showing five pictures of this skinny white guy (one image was repeated), listing his age as 20, that he was "Very ambitious fun loving hardheaded," and that he'd only answered fifteen match questions. First red flag. But I thought he was cute. So I favourited him, and then saw he'd already favourited me. So I sent a message. After a bit I did some cross-referencing with the pictures in his profile, and saw they were from a picture blog site, as well as a personals ad in South Carolina. Second red flag. Despite this I did still want to talk to him. We did chat sporatically on OKCupid over a couple of days, and he then gave me his phone number so we could text.
He was pretty quiet in text on the first day despite having just given me his cell phone number. Third red flag. But then the next morning he and I chatted for a few hours over text. He told me he was seventeen (specifically he said he was turning eighteen next year, and that today was his birthday; you do the math), lived with his grandmother, worked at a Sonic, and that he was concerned I would treat him like everybody else has because of his age, and that he'd like to date. He sent me this huge block of text about how he's always being treated like a child. Some bits were difficult to understand; the syntax was a little unusual, and it seemed like words were missing from his sentences. In fact, it was a giant run-on sentence. Later on in the conversation he says he has something important to tell me about, and he was scared. So I reassured him. He sent me the exact same block of text word for word, syntax for syntax, lack of periods to denote the end of a sentence and all. Fourth red flag.
You'd think I would have just cut off contact at this point, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I talked to him about the pictures on the blog, and questioned him on how long he'd been living in Austin. His responses sounded plausible; the blog pictures must have been because of a vengeful ex, and he'd just moved to Austin three months ago. So, despite my obvious concerns I still wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Not once in my entire text conversation did I imply having sex with him, or anything beyond acknowledging that 'I'd like that' in response to him wanting to date me. He asked me for naughty pictures, but I didn't send any. I pivoted away. He didn't send any, either. I called him cute, and at one point I called him sexy (sentence: "Hope your night went well, sexy").
The next morning (just a short while ago) I get a call from Nick's number. It was his 'father,' he was upset, he saw the texts, his son is only 15, his wife (or son, I forget) hurt himself, his wife was getting ready to go to the police, and he wanted to know what we could do to rectify this. His 'father' sounded black (sorry, it's not a race thing, it's an ethnicity thing). I apologized, and said I would cease contact completly. He pressed on saying that I could go to jail, that this is soliciting a minor, that we exchanged pictures, that he had the whole text conversation... I told him I didn't send him pictures, he did not send me pictures, and I never implied having sex with his son. He said that I knew his son was 15, but I paraphrased the bit Nick telling me it was his 17th birthday (yes, I sent him messages when he was still "16," but at the time I was under the presumption he was 20). The back-and-forth went on for about five more minutes before I'd had enough. I told him I'd already begun to wonder if this was all a fake in the first place, because I'd found Nick's pictures on a photo blog, and how Nick had cut and paste an entire text to me. Nick's 'father' never specifically said what he wanted to rectify the situation; he wound up just hanging up on me. Apparently I called him out on the scam without realizing it was a scam.
I've since blocked the phone number, and the OKCupid profile. I'm keeping the texts and messages, though.
I'd met "Nick" over OKCupid. By chance I came upon him, and saw his profile was pretty sparse just showing five pictures of this skinny white guy (one image was repeated), listing his age as 20, that he was "Very ambitious fun loving hardheaded," and that he'd only answered fifteen match questions. First red flag. But I thought he was cute. So I favourited him, and then saw he'd already favourited me. So I sent a message. After a bit I did some cross-referencing with the pictures in his profile, and saw they were from a picture blog site, as well as a personals ad in South Carolina. Second red flag. Despite this I did still want to talk to him. We did chat sporatically on OKCupid over a couple of days, and he then gave me his phone number so we could text.
He was pretty quiet in text on the first day despite having just given me his cell phone number. Third red flag. But then the next morning he and I chatted for a few hours over text. He told me he was seventeen (specifically he said he was turning eighteen next year, and that today was his birthday; you do the math), lived with his grandmother, worked at a Sonic, and that he was concerned I would treat him like everybody else has because of his age, and that he'd like to date. He sent me this huge block of text about how he's always being treated like a child. Some bits were difficult to understand; the syntax was a little unusual, and it seemed like words were missing from his sentences. In fact, it was a giant run-on sentence. Later on in the conversation he says he has something important to tell me about, and he was scared. So I reassured him. He sent me the exact same block of text word for word, syntax for syntax, lack of periods to denote the end of a sentence and all. Fourth red flag.
You'd think I would have just cut off contact at this point, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I talked to him about the pictures on the blog, and questioned him on how long he'd been living in Austin. His responses sounded plausible; the blog pictures must have been because of a vengeful ex, and he'd just moved to Austin three months ago. So, despite my obvious concerns I still wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Not once in my entire text conversation did I imply having sex with him, or anything beyond acknowledging that 'I'd like that' in response to him wanting to date me. He asked me for naughty pictures, but I didn't send any. I pivoted away. He didn't send any, either. I called him cute, and at one point I called him sexy (sentence: "Hope your night went well, sexy").
The next morning (just a short while ago) I get a call from Nick's number. It was his 'father,' he was upset, he saw the texts, his son is only 15, his wife (or son, I forget) hurt himself, his wife was getting ready to go to the police, and he wanted to know what we could do to rectify this. His 'father' sounded black (sorry, it's not a race thing, it's an ethnicity thing). I apologized, and said I would cease contact completly. He pressed on saying that I could go to jail, that this is soliciting a minor, that we exchanged pictures, that he had the whole text conversation... I told him I didn't send him pictures, he did not send me pictures, and I never implied having sex with his son. He said that I knew his son was 15, but I paraphrased the bit Nick telling me it was his 17th birthday (yes, I sent him messages when he was still "16," but at the time I was under the presumption he was 20). The back-and-forth went on for about five more minutes before I'd had enough. I told him I'd already begun to wonder if this was all a fake in the first place, because I'd found Nick's pictures on a photo blog, and how Nick had cut and paste an entire text to me. Nick's 'father' never specifically said what he wanted to rectify the situation; he wound up just hanging up on me. Apparently I called him out on the scam without realizing it was a scam.
I've since blocked the phone number, and the OKCupid profile. I'm keeping the texts and messages, though.