Seeing her for about two months, just getting to know each other but it seemed promising. She was really busy a lot so we texted back and forth for a couple of weeks between dates, but no big deal.

Valentine's Day rolled around and I got tickets to "Once" the stage musical at the local performing arts center. Asked her to get dressed up nice, she met me at my place, I was dressed nicely, I took her to a nice dinner downtown and then the show. We went for a walk along the river after, had a long talk before going back to my place, where I invited her in and she declined, kissing me a lot but then going home.

I thought, hey, great, this is really a promising relationship.

She texted me the next afternoon to meet up for an early dinner. I get there and she tells me that she has strong feelings for me and realized it the night before; what happened was, after she left my apartment she went to meet up with her FWB who she stayed the night with, and that morning she was talking to him about me and how really promising our relationship was.

I was in so much shock that I barely heard her telling me that her told her he had feelings for her and wanted their relationship to be real, and so she had ended their FWB thing and wanted to be with me...

It took a minute or so of her talking to really process everything I had just heard before I stood up and walked out of the coffee shop.

I think after "FWB" came out of her mouth I never said another word. I have thought a lot over the years of things I feel like I should have said, or even shouted, but I didn't. Just got in my car and went home, we never spoke again.

I'm still upset about that shit. How can anyone think it's okay to go out with someone, then leave them and go fuck someone else? I know a lot of people are poly or that's their fetish, so okay no judgements if that's explicitly your thing but come the fuck on.

I think the mainstreaming of hookup culture, combined with FOMO attitudes, and the commodification of intimacy through dating apps have all had the effect of making people act really horribly to each other in today's dating environment.