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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Gender-Ascender on 2026-02-13 04:24:47+00:00.
Okay so this wasn't actually today. This happened around 16/17 years ago. When I was 16/17 and in my first year of college (UK).
It was late morning, I had a break between classes and ended up sitting in a conversation with a few people I knew from my hometown. They all went to a different school to me before college but the same school as each other.
One of the girls in the group (lets call her Anna) I had known since we were toddlers. Our mams had been good friends so we had played together as very young kids.
But after around the age of 4 we moved to a different part of town and I never really saw her.
Meeting her again in college as young adults I was really attracted to her. We ended up talking one on one that day for a while after our mutual friends left and seemed to be getting on really well still despite never interacting since we were young.
Later on that day my phone pinged with a text from Anna saying something along the lines of "Hey forgot I had your number how're you doing?".
My heart leapt as I realised the girl I fancied had decided to keep up communication and I thought "Wow maybe this could go somewhere".
So I spent the rest of the afternoon slowly flirting with her via text until it seemed pretty clear we were both interested in each other.
At some point she mentioned that she had been invited to an awards evening for ex students of her school. But that none of her friends were supposed to be going so she wasn't sure she would bother since she had no one to go with.
I said something like "Hey, if you're getting an award then we gotta celebrate this so I'll come with you if that's allowed?"
We then agreed on meeting up in our town centre at the local supermarket to then walk over to this awards night.
As I walked down to the supermarket I was so excited. I had only had a couple of very brief, childish relationships up to that point. So the idea of having this film-like "Childhood sweethearts" type of reconnection and date was amazing to my theatre-kid brain.
She arrived before me and told me she was heading in to buy something real quick. I told her no problem and when I got there I waited outside at the door.
While I waited I did the usual people watching, then turned to look inside. As I did I saw, coming down the escalator, a girl that I very much was not attracted to (lovely person, just not my type) who I knew through mutual friends from a school in my hometown. She was called Anna.
I spotted her and thought "Oh hey there's Anna, haven't seen her in a while."
*Beat*
"OH DEAR GOD NO!" (Full on wide-eyed internal monologue moment)
Right then I realised my mistake, I genuinely have no idea when in the past I had exchanged numbers with this other Anna. But clearly as some point I did.
My first thought was "Run?" But I quickly realised I just couldn't do that. I knew if I was in her position and somebody I'd spent all day flirting with suddenly just disappeared, seconds after saying they'd meet up with me, it would fuck with my head forever. But I also knew that I couldn't tell her "Oh yeah I've been flirting with you all day cause I thought you were a totally different, more attractive Anna". Maybe I'm wrong but again if that was me I would be devastated to hear that haha.
So I stayed. Met up with her, gave her a hug and we set off to walk to this awards evening.
Luckily we were both nerdy, awkward teenagers. So being awkward around each other once we were face to face was no surprise. But eventually along the walk I couldn't handle it anymore and texted my dad telling him I fucked up and I needed him to call me asking me to come home.
My dad, being the legend he is, understood and called me saying I had to come home to babysit my little brother cause he forgot he and my mam had to go to an event.
I made a show of it, acting disappointed and fighting it a little before relenting. I apologised to her for having to leave after saying I'd go with her and that I would stay if I could. She understood, we hugged again and went our separate ways.
We had a brief text conversation after that, which died off pretty quickly and I have never seen her since.
As far as I know, to this day she has never known what actually happened that day.
Thanks for reading my story about my dumbass teenage self. xD
Sorry if the title seems misleading, but I couldn't think of a better way to briefly describe this stupid fucking situation I got myself in to.
TL;DR: I agreed to a date with the wrong girl by text, after confusing her with another girl with the same name, from the same town and school. She never found out (I think)