Did I completely miss the red flags with this girl I knew as a teenager?

When I was 18, I started going to my local community college’s board game night. That’s where I met this girl. She was 17, super friendly, and asked for my number right away. We texted and hung out a few times.

Because we live in a rural area where you have to drive to get anywhere, I thought it was odd she didn’t have a driver’s license yet — but I brushed it off and just picked her up whenever we hung out.

At first she seemed quirky but harmless. Then things got… weird. • On the second time we hung out, she started moaning in public because she thought it was hilarious. • She kept bringing up how “having sex in a hearse would be awesome.” • She told me she’d been homeless a lot growing up and had been on hard drugs before but was “clean now.”

I’m religious, so I started taking her to church with me. She really seemed to like it and I thought she needed a sense of community. I introduced her to my friend group too. I genuinely felt like I was helping someone who’d been dealt a rough hand.

But over time her behavior got more intense. She became obsessed with me, even though I told her I wasn’t interested that way. She’d show up at my friends’ workplaces to interrogate them about me, or corner them whenever I left the room at group hangouts.

Then came the strangest part: her living situation.

She lived with a man she never clearly identified. Sometimes she called him her uncle. She told me he would come into her room at night when he was drunk to “sleep or cuddle” with her, and even admitted he’d “touched” her on occasion — but said it like it was no big deal.

The house itself was bizarre. From the outside it was insanely nice. Inside? Completely empty. No pictures, bare furniture, just essentials. Her bedroom was massive, but she slept on a tiny bed on the floor in the corner. Even the attached master bathroom was empty.

As time went on, her mental health seemed to spiral. She harassed my friends so much that eventually I had to cut contact. I’ve since heard from one of my friends that she’s doing okay now, which is a relief.

But looking back as an adult, the whole situation feels like a minefield of red flags I just didn’t see at 18. The strange house. The older man. The inconsistent stories. The erratic behavior.

What do you all think was going on?