jgib -- what Virgo said. It sounds like you haven't done any video chatting, which means you might be right about that 'being something in his head' because you all haven't had a chance to see one another's expressions and hear voices in real time. I've shared my first online long distance experience and it was just that ... he was something in my head. Because I got the feeling that everything he was feeding me was a crock and he eventually creeped me out, I started doing reverse photo lookup (
https://ctrlq.org/google/images/); if you use Chrome, you can most times right-click on a photo and the option to look up the photo is there. Anyway, after that whole debacle, I started setting my preferences for someone in my general area (I live in Southern California, so driving an hour to meet someone is not too crazy). On this new site, the first guy to message was from Virginia; the written banter was friendly enough and then he asked when I was coming to Virginia. I said I wasn't and asked him when he was coming to SoCal. He said he wasn't. I wished him all the best. He replied with something like 'Well, that was fast' -- I was irritated and wrote back something like, 'In my profile I clearly stated I was looking for someone in my area, which in this case is Southern California. I have a lot going on that precludes my traveling. It sounds like you to have restrictions on your time so I figured you were looking for someone either in your area or willing to travel there and am wishing you the best.' In the end, he sent a couple more messages that sought to discover if I was there for a hook up like him (can you feel my eyes rolling? My profile also said I was there for a long-term situation). I ran into a couple of relatively local people who were all about the hook up as well and when I didn't go for it, they ghosted.
My best advice is that online dating is not for the faint of heart. It is not easy to make a connection, whether you are on a free or a paid site. It takes patience and thick skin to deal with the jerks, players, fakers, ghosters, and takers. It is a steep learning curve but one that can yield a good connection once you situate yourself in the reality of it all. You may find meeting in person that you don't make a connection and that's okay. Keep trying. Keep meeting. If you want to include online dating in your repertoire of how to meet people, do so! Just remember that the 'dating' part of the equation can't really happen until you actually meet face to face
I have friends who started out as long distance daters, but live video was how they started getting to know each other, leading to travel and in two cases, marriage.
