This story takes place over a 2 month period. So much crazy in such a brief amount of time.
So, I meet this guy on Tinder. Profile says 5 months sober. Ok, thats not a long time but I do have family and friends who are sober and everyone is different. I will give him the benefit of the doubt We will take it slow. So we meet and hit it off wonderfully. We talk for hours about everything and anything. He is respectful to me and very caring. I don't doubt he was those things, but I later found out that he was terrified of me finding out who he really was. Or at least, the things he has done and continued to do.
Two weeks after we meet, I stop hearing from him for a few days. He calls me and tells me he's relapsed, and wants to be honest with me about it because he knows how much I appreciate honesty. I feel awful for him, and tell him I will be there for him... but that I cannot continue to date him because it wouldn't be good for either of us. He tells me over the phone that his parents are bringing him to a behavioral health center for mental issues and I probably won't see him for awhile.
Well, while he was in the facility I contacted his parents to just see how he was and how they were. I found out that he wasn't sober when we met. He was sober once, but it was way before he met me. In reality, he was using heroin the entire time. He was also a felon. He didn't have an apartment like he said he did - he lived at home. He stole thousands of dollars from his parents for drugs. He stole money from his job.
When he got out of the facility he went straight to jail. I wanted to be there for him but while he was in jail I started to really think about what just had happened in such a brief period of time. We used protection and him and his family were adamant that he only smoked heroin and didn't do any intravenous drugs, but I still went and got tested for HIV. I started to get really upset and angry about all of the lying.
The other thing was that his family kind of clung to me like a life raft. They wanted me to be a part of their family, they wanted to take me out to dinner. It was overwhelming and it made me uncomfortable. When the guy got out of jail a month or so later, he was homeless. His parents had kicked him out when they sent him to the mental health facility. He started calling me, texting me, emailing me about how he felt about me and that he wanted to see me. At this point, I was fairly pissed off. I realized that yes, he had a disease but he had lied on top of lies, told me half truths and used my appreciation of honesty to manipulate me. It is one thing to be an addict - it is another thing to pull another person into your shitty world.
I agreed to meet up with him for coffee to tell him that it would be the last time I saw him. He had nowhere to go and no money but I did not let him stay with me. I did share some food with him and then I went home. I felt guilty leaving him, but I also needed to draw the line. I could not take on such a crazy burden. That was the last time I saw him. He sent me a letter and a drawing. He is actually in a sober house and doing well.. His parents still message me on Facebook about meeting me, but I told them I wasn't comfortable meeting them since I don't talk to their son anymore.
I deleted Tinder after that and have put dating on hiatus.
tl;dr: met a guy off of tinder who was actually a drug addict with a felony warrant.