I [25F] finally met my World of Warcraft sweetheart [33M] in real life and...he acted repulsed by me. Help and advice wanted!

Hello there, I apologize for causing anyone to cringe to death at the un-ironic use of "WoW sweetheart" in the title, but I couldn't think of a better way to describe it!

I'll try and keep things brief, but here's the backstory for Jim [33M] and I [25F]. We met three years ago on the popular video game World of Warcraft; it was a typical story, he was the raid leader/main tank and I was a random dps. At first I was a bit intimidated by him because he was very aloof and cool, but over the first few months we started doing a lot of 5 man dungeons together and we'd stay up all night talking to each other on discord. Y'all, the chemistry was INSANE. I've never met anyone IRL who even comes close to Jim, in terms of being able to relate to me and we were both blown away at how much we had in common and how in sync we were. Everyone in the guild teased us about flirting but we both vehemently denied it for a few years. I had a massive crush on him from the get go, but I assumed he didn't feel the same way because frankly, he is out of my league.

So after three years of daily talks and occasional video chatting, he texts me 3 months ago that he's in love with me and that he needs to meet me IRL (he even offers to pay for plane tickets and everything, since he sadly lives across the country). Jim admitted that he had felt this way for years and always held out the hope that we'd somehow get together. I remember how hard my heart was pounding when I read the messages, because I couldn't fucking believe it- my dream had finally come true! So we spent a few weeks being really sappy and flirty and telling each other all the things we had been holding in for years. He confirmed many, many times that he was "super into me" and that he couldn't want to finally kiss me and cuddle with me. I was PSYCHED to meet him, y'all. I was literally counting down the days until my cross-country journey to meet the man of my dreams.

I just got home from that trip about 7 days ago, and I'm....embarrassed. Don't get me wrong, the trip was still fun and our chemistry was still insane but Jim literally treated me like a sister or cousin. He had been hyping up how beautiful and amazing I am and all these physical things he was dying to do with me, and when we met he barely wanted to hug me at the airport. I felt pretty humiliated and confused, at night we sat down to watch our favorite TV show and he literally sat across the room from me even though we spent months fantasizing together about cuddling. I finally brought up how uncomfortable I felt and I asked him if anything was wrong, and he was silent for a long time. Then he goes, "Does it bother you that I'm almost 10 years older than you?" And I immediately said "no, not at all! I've known the whole time and it's never bothered me." He said something about how I reminded him of his students, and how "off-putting" that is to him. For context, he teaches at a local college and most of his students are like 18-19, way younger than me. Jim pretty much changed the subject after that, and I asked for a hug because I was feeling really weird. He hugged me the way you'd hug an obese, stinky homeless man. Like, arms barely touching me and his body as far away as possible. I felt ugly and defeated.

It's been nearly a week since I got home, and now he's sending me mixed messages and I'm getting frustrated. He said that he wants our relationship to "continue" and he's said that he wants to come visit me next, but he also doesn't flirt with me anymore or tell me that I'm cute. I feel like I got rejected, yet he still talks to me daily and seems to really care about me. I feel like the age thing was just an excuse, because he's known my age the entire time and he insisted before that it didn't bother him...the insecure part of me feels like it's because I'm kind of fat, but he 100% knew that before he met me. We had video chatted multiple times and I sent him many honest full body pictures of myself, which he always praised as being cute and sexy.

Tl;dr: I [25F] met the man of my dreams [33M] from WoW and after years of intense flirting and interest, he suddenly cools off after seeing me IRL. Am I ugly or is there something else going on? Help and advice for how to ask him about this needed! I suck at confrontation but I need answers.

​

​

Submitted October 27, 2018 at 08:12AM by RoseOfMay18 https://ift.tt/2z7QPoK