'My GF won't answer her phone and I suspect her friend is sending texts as her.' + 3 WILD UPDATES

"My GF [19F] of five months is won’t answer her phone and I [24F] think her friend [20F] is sending texts as her. Am I blowing this out of proportion?"

My GF (let’s call her Kathy) is off at college. She lives in a dorm on her campus, which is an hour and a half away from my house. She comes to visit me on weekends. A bit rough on gas budget, but it works for us.

We actually met at college, she was a freshman and I was a Senior+ taking a couple final classes to fulfill my credit requirement so I could graduate. I finished last semester and she’s still going. Long distance hasn’t been an issue so far, we just text a lot and spend the weekends making up lost time. She’s the sweetest, most easygoing person I know.

But today, something weird happened. We normally text throughout the day. We texted during the morning, then she had class so I stopped for a couple hours. Normally she texts me at lunch, but she didn’t. I texted her and she didn’t respond. I figured maybe she was busy.

I texted her a couple times an hour later when she normally studies. Nothing. I started getting worried at dinnertime. I called her and she didn’t pick up, which is really unusual for her. I started texting things like “Are you okay?” and “Please pick up.”

She didn’t answer, so I started searching through my desk for my address book to find the numbers for her friends. I figured maybe her phone was dead or broken. But while I was searching, I finally got a response from her phone. It was “im okay sorry my phone was on silent…”

But Kathy doesn’t text like that. She texts with capitals and complete sentences with normal punctuation. And she adds smiley faces to every single text, which I tease her about all the time. I texted “Are you sure you’re okay?” and she said “everything’s fine [my name]...” That really caught my attention, because Kathy exclusively calls me by a nickname. Most of my friends do.

So I dug out my address book and found the phone number of Kathy’s roommate Lauren. I texted her, “Hey, this is Kathy’s girlfriend. Do you know if she’s okay?” She responded immediately with “she’s fine she’s right here in our room with me…” No capitals or punctuation, ending the sentence with an ellipsis just like Kathy’s weird texts. I think she was the one sending texts from Kathy’s phone.

I called Kathy’s phone again and whoever has her phone rejected the call before it was done with the first ring. I got another text from Kathy saying “seriously [my name] stop worrying about me ill talk to you later…” followed by “goodnight.”

Am I just being silly? I feel something really weird is going on but I don’t know what it could be. I don’t think she’s cheating on me. From what she’s told me about Lauren she seems like a totally normal person. I don’t have any specific suspicions, I just feel like something’s gone wrong and I don’t know what to do.

Should I badger Kathy’s phone until she actually calls me or someone tells me what’s going on? Should I just let it go? I’m at a loss here. I don’t want to be the weird clingy girlfriend but this seriously isn’t like her.

tldr; my GF away at college won’t answer her phone and all her texts are in the style her roommate uses and not the way she actually texts. Am I being ridiculous or should I keep trying to contact her?

UPDATE #1:

Hey guys. Thanks for the responses, it calmed me down some. The situation has changed, now I need more advice. This morning I did what I always do as part of my morning routine, I texted Kathy. I'd nearly forgotten about yesterday. After 20 minutes of no response, I broke down and tried calling her.

The call wasn't even rejected, it went to her voicemail. I left a short message asking if she was still planning on coming over this weekend. I decided to take your guys advice and leave her alone from then on. I still felt like something was wrong, but I figured maybe I was misreading it and she just needed space. I tried to focus on work stuff. Stuff's going on in my personal life, but it is still a Thursday.

And then, at about half past noon, I got a text from a mutual friend of me and Kathy, Ben. The exact words: Ben: "Hey, [my nickname]. How are you holding up?" Me: "What do you mean?" Ben: "I mean, with Kathy." I called him immediately and asked what was going on, because I couldn't get ahold of Kathy. There was like five seconds of just stunned silence and then Ben dropped the bomb.

Kathy is in the hospital. I tried to interrogate him but he didn't know much, just that she was having some kind of emergency and couldn't take visitors. He said he had heard it from her roommate this morning. He apologized because he legit thought I already knew. He was actually texting me because he wanted to know if there were any updates.

I called Kathy and got voicemail. I called Lauren and got another instant rejection. I called her parents house and finally got someone. Her father said that a nurse had called early that morning and her mother had gone out there to see her. I tried to ask more questions but her father really doesn't like me and refused to tell me anything or even give me Kathy's mom's cell number.

I've texted a couple of her friends, but like Ben, they couldn't tell me anything. So my girlfriend is in the hospital and that is literally all I can find out about the situation. She's been there since yesterday (afternoon? That's what Ben guessed) and she's still there today and still hasn't contacted me in any way.

What do I do? Do I drive out there? We've only been dating for five months. I have no idea how serious this is. It's a 1½ hour drive. And I still don't know why her roommate went out of her way to hide this from me! Does Kathy not want me to know she's in the hospital for some reason? And even if that's the case, why couldn't she just lie to me herself?

Or did her roommate go crazy and hurt her and that's why she's in the hospital and now her roommate is trying to cover it up? Everything is so frustratingly vague. I feel lost. Any advice or insight is appreciated right now.

UPDATE #2:

Sorry I was gone so long. Lots of stuff has been happening. I’ll try to summarize here: Kathy had a seizure in class, went to the hospital, told Lauren not to worry me and Lauren misinterpreted it as telling her to lie to me. Ben tracked her down and told her off. I went out and stayed in a hotel and visited with Kathy and also found out from her mother what was going on.

She has a rare genetic disorder which I won’t name because that would pretty much instantly identify her. Her mom is warming up to me, even if her dad still kinda hates me. Kathy got out of the hospital after a couple weeks but has to keep going in for checkups on the regular to make sure it’s under control.

Kathy’s recovered mostly. She isn’t supposed to do strenuous activity, but she’s doing good and managed to do well enough on her finals to make up for the work she missed and pass her classes. She apologized for the whole thing, for not telling me about the genetic disease and for saying something that Lauren misinterpreted as “lie to her”.

I’ve forgiven her completely, I absolutely don’t think it’s her fault that any of this happened. I don’t even really blame Lauren for the first few lies to me, she was under a lot of stress and didn’t know what was going on. I do absolutely blame her for continuing to lie after she found out I was Kathy’s girlfriend and for the awful text she sent when Ben confronted her,

(“hey i’m really really sorry but kathy is in the hospital and its bad she told me not to tell you sorry bye”) because what the hell. But I was willing to put that behind us because I’m not going to interact with Lauren much. And then Lauren went insane.

Lauren started sending me texts begging me to talk to her and let her apologize. I finally relented and let her take me out for coffee, and she all but threw herself at my feet and said she knew she messed up and asked for my forgiveness. I awkwardly accepted and she thanked me profusely and we parted ways. Kathy moved out of the dorm and moved back into her parents house.

I thought everything was over. And then Lauren found out that Kathy doesn’t intend to ask for her as a roommate next year. And sh!t hit the fan. Lauren started blowing up Kathy’s phone, demanding to know why Kathy hated her and saying that she had already apologized for everything and why was she being so cruel and unforgiving and just generally making Kathy feel like sh!t.

I called her intending to ask her to stop, and she started sobbing over the phone and told me she has a crush on Kathy and a crush on me and she can’t bear never seeing either of us again and to give her another chance. I was really startled, so I think I just stammered out something about how I forgave her but she needed to stop harassing Kathy.

She worded it vaguely, but I think she agreed. I hung up. She did stop incessantly texting Kathy’s phone, so I thought it was over again. Now today Ben texted me asking if Kathy and I had broken up. I told him no and asked where he got that from, and he said that Lauren is telling everyone, including a lot of our mutual friends, that Kathy and I weren’t together anymore and Lauren was dating me long distance.

I have no idea how to react to this. Lauren seemed like such a normal person, and now she’s doing this sh!t. I told Kathy, and she said it seemed really out of character for Lauren and looked worried. Lauren lives far away, in a different part of the state, so we’re probably never going to run into her again if we don’t want to, but she lives near a bunch of my college friends who I did intend to keep in contact with.

Kathy and I hung around in the same circles, and after I graduated she would sometimes bring Lauren with her to events because Lauren didn’t seem to have a ton of friends. So Lauren knows all of these people and I’m sure she’s talking to them. I don’t know if I should clear it up or just try to ignore her or meet with her and hash this out or…? I’ve never been in a situation like this before.

Then, OP shared this third update in a new post:

Two days ago, Lauren drove three hours from her house to my parents' house and convinced them to let her in. She told them that she was my new girlfriend and they thought it was weird but let her in and she had dinner with them.

She was (supposedly) friendly and perfectly pleasant to my parents, talked the whole time about how great I was and how she was dating me, and left without incident. She didn't do anything wrong, but I still find it terrifying that she somehow tracked down my parents' address and took a 6 hour round trip just to try to convince them she's dating me.

This is really freaking me out. Lauren seemed like such a normal person from Kathy's descriptions in college and the couple times I met her, and that's how she comes off to everyone else, too. A lot of people have started giving me weird looks and implying that I'm the one lying when I deny that I'm dating her now.

She hasn't made any threats, she stopped contacting me and my girlfriend when I requested it, she hasn't come near me personally. But she drove for three hours to try to convince my family that she's dating me. Does this qualify as harassment or stalking? Can I get a restraining order?

I'm afraid of what she'll do next, but I don't know if I have enough of a case to take any preemptive action against her yet. And I'm very afraid it won't be taken seriously because all of the people involved are women. I'm losing sleep over this. Please help. Thank you.

Yikes. Good luck, OP!!!!!