TLDR: If your gut feeling tells you something seems off, it is. Do not let gaslighting, conditioning or begging convince you otherwise.

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So I had met this guy on OLD and at first, we really seemed to hit it off.

Interested in many things, lots of interests we could talk about, asked me if I know FDS, only to tell me that he lurks here and the woman's perspective really helps him be a better person, tells me how he wants to be the best he can be, believes in good role models and wants to be the dependable, protective, wise, reliable person, accepts criticism, and apologises, says he want to be better, uses proper grammar, is against porn.

Sounds good, what could go wrong.

Day 2, he tells me he will be free to call in 2h. After 2h, no call. I tell him goodbye, that I think he is a great person, but I want someone more interested in me. He begs me to stay, he has been busy a lot and really wants to call. Weird gut feeling, let's call anyway.

Day 3, we plan to watch a show together tomorrow. Tomorrow comes, in the morning he tells me he doesn't want to get out of bed today. So I say okay, a friend called and asked if I have any plans, I don't seem to have any, so I went with my friend. He says "Enjoy your day and have fun". I come back, write him that I had a great day, but I would really like to call it off, since I'd rather spend time with people more interested in me, like that friend today.

He gaslit me and made it sound like I was the one who canceled and he was "confused".

Usually, I would just block and delete, no explanation, no questions. Before the gaslighting I felt he was a good person, so I wanted to tell him goodbye. He begged to make it up to me, wanted to call, I said no, he kept insisting. Again, tons of apologies, I said, that's nice, but I don't feel like it.

I don't know why, but I let him persuade me.

This morning - the day after - he had sent me a message, saying he has growing up to do, yada yada, no interest. I'm glad he did it, since yesterday he really added some large negative value to my life and I should have believed my gut feeling before.

EDIT:

He didn't even know I had a reddit account, and I never told him about this sub. He came out on his own and said "I'm on reddit and there is this sub called FDS I've been on a lot in the past". He told me all these ideas on his own.

I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that a lot of women nowadays are pickmes and don't have any standards and expectations for their partners whatsoever, so when he talked to me and read between the lines, he realised I do have them and guessed I might be on here and like him telling me about this sub. He gave me what he thought I might want to hear.

A lot of "woke feminist" men try to bait women like pedos do children with candy, so I wouldn't be surprised if he implemented this as his go-to predatory behaviour as well.

On an unrelated note, imagine our social expectations for male behaviour being so low that "I'm going to treat you like a person" is an effective baiting method for predators and makes them sound like the top 1%.