I woke up this morning thinking about yesterday evening. Not in a dreamy, what-a-night way, but the kind where your conscience is clear, and yet your stomach still feels a bit queasy, albeit not from anything you’ve eaten or drunk.
You know: the moment when something, or someone, finally reveals it/themself for what it/they is/are.
This story isn’t about heartbreak. It’s about something darker that parades around in online chat groups with a cheeky banter and pops up whenever a new female joins the group. It’s about a man who thought he could keep living like he was in his 20s, even though his behaviour was showing signs of something much uglier underneath.
Let’s start with the background: he’s married. And not shy about trying it on every single day in group chat. And as an admin, I tend to leave my DMs open in case anyone has an issue. He’d DM me, trying to “woo me” over… Every day for the pat 2 weeks. I’d remind him, kindly at first and then more directly, that he was married. His response? A sarcastic “oh yeah, thanks for telling me,” as if I’d just ruined his fun with a boring little detail like integrity. No apology. No reflection. Just passive-aggressive sulk. That alone says plenty.
But it didn’t stop there. This man, who admitted he’d had a few affairs (including with his current wife’s sister…), was actively scouting around for a “friends with benefits” situation. He said he was 54, but it was clear he didn’t like admitting it. Not in a harmless, we-all-joke-about-getting-older way, but in a quietly desperate refusal to own the truth. As though acknowledging his age would collapse the illusion that he still had the pulling power of a man in his twenties. That illusion, of course, seemed to be propped up by ego and a fantasy of younger women still wanting him. Unless they were after a sugar daddy, that ship had sailed. But he hadn’t noticed. Or wouldn’t admit it.
And then came the porn habits. He’d like to discuss the topic of his “midnight movies”. I mean don’t get me wrong, given he claimed not to have been intimate with wife#2 for over two years, I understand. But last night, he PMed me 2 images of content labelled as “teen” with older men. These weren’t a naughty 40 year old choosing to dress up as a school girl for a bit of fun, but girls who looked 16… I’m not about to launch a full moral inquisition, but when the pattern includes infidelity and a taste for barely-legal visuals with older men, it starts to point in a very uncomfortable direction. Let’s call it what it appears to be: predatory behaviour wrapped in the illusion of charm.
When I brought his attention to all this, without drama, just calm facts, he replied “I’m no Gary Glitter”. He also left the group chat about 3 minutes later. No explanation to the rest of the people he had interacted with on a daily basis for a very long period of time. Just gone. Some of the others questioned his hasty departure without even a “bye”; one woman said: “he seemed to like chatting with you”.
I didn’t disclose what he had done in PM; there’s no need to share drama. But it does make the exit all the more revealing. It wasn’t a protest. It was a retreat. Because someone called him out and he couldn’t accept what he shared in DM made him look like. This wasn’t the dramatic unmasking of a villain. This was the slow realisation that a man many took at face value to be fairly harmless (and with a blue light job) was quietly manipulating his way through midlife, pushing himself where he wasn’t welcome, clinging to illusions, and hoping no one would say anything when the mask started to slip. Until I did.
Psychologists would call this a form of cognitive dissonance. The discomfort experienced when one’s actions and values don’t match. Most of us, when we feel that dissonance, course-correct. We apologise. We reflect. We take stock. But for some, the discomfort gets projected outward. They lash out, blame others, or disappear entirely, all to avoid facing themselves.
He also seemed to be deep in what therapists might label narcissistic vulnerability. Not full-blown narcissism, but that sensitive kind. The type that looks for constant external validation to fill an internal black hole. The need to feel desired by younger women, the avoidance of ageing, the entitlement to push boundaries despite being married. It all points to a man desperately trying to hold onto a version of himself that’s long gone.
There’s also a less flattering term from forensic psychology: covert sexual deviance. When a person consistently seeks out sexual gratification in ways that avoid direct confrontation but exploit power imbalances or blurred boundaries, they often couch it in charm or humour, so it’s harder to call out. Until someone does.
I’m not sitting here writing this with a glass of wine and feeling guilty for what I said. I’m writing because I think it matters that we talk about this. That we stop pretending it’s just “harmless flirtation” when someone persistently ignores boundaries and feeds their ego, including barely-legal porn, while propositioning women outside their marriage. When a woman makes it clear that she’s not interested in meeting up, stop harrassing her with daily comments such
Hi Sexy
I’d love to f**k you
What are you wearing
…
It also matters that we call a sulk what it is. Not remorse. Not shame. Resentment at being seen. Because these men don’t tend to blow themselves up dramatically. They withdraw in silence, they let their discomfort speak volumes as they back away. And sometimes, that’s the only closure you get. But it’s enough. Because when someone walks themselves out of group chat rather than face the truth, that’s not rejection. That’s confirmation.
And like after last night’s storm and that spooky electric bolt, the group feels better today; cleaner too.
