333 signs + nightmares were screaming that my 26yo boyfriend wasn’t who I thought… I wish I’d listened sooner

Hey, this is gonna sound crazy but I need to get it out. I’m 18 and moved to Chicago last year for college. Life here is expensive as hell and kinda lonely at first. Five months ago I met Alex (26) at a small bar in Logan Square. He was funny, paid for everything, had his own car and apartment. The age difference felt exciting at the beginning — like I was in a real adult relationship. My roommates kept warning me but I didn’t listen.

We started doing a 0F pretty quick because rent was killing us. Just normal couple stuff — nothing super wild. It actually felt good at first. We’d film, split the money, laugh about the weird comments. I thought it was bringing us closer.

But after a month or so I started getting this heavy feeling that something was wrong.

It started with the number 333. I’d wake up at 3:33 almost every night. Then I’d see it on my coffee order, on the bus, on my Spotify shuffle time. My mom always said angel numbers are messages, and 333 means “pay attention, something in your love life is fake.” I kept brushing it off, telling myself I was just anxious from school and the 0F pressure.

Then the dreams got bad. I kept dreaming that Alex was in our bed with someone else, but when I tried to get closer I couldn’t see her face. I’d wake up crying. When I told him he got annoyed and said I was letting the internet mess with my head.

He also started getting secretive. He’d film extra clips alone “for the page” and get mad if I wanted to watch them first. Said subscribers liked “spontaneous solo stuff” and I was being too controlling because of the age thing.

Last Tuesday it finally snapped.

We had a fight about money so he stormed out to “clear his head.” I stayed home and opened our 0F on my laptop just to check the new tips. That’s when I saw a folder he forgot to close — screenshots of messages with another girl. Not just chatting. They had been meeting up for weeks. She was 24, lived two stops away on the L train. He was telling her he was single and that our 0F was “just content with some random girl for the money.” He even sent her our private videos and joked about how I had no idea.

He was using me as the cute young girlfriend on camera so the page would make more money, while he had a whole real relationship on the side. The ultimate fake.

I waited till he came back. Showed him everything. He tried to cry and say it was “just stress relief” and that the 0F made him feel trapped. Blamed everything on the age gap and said I was too immature to understand.

We broke up that night. I kicked him off the 0F immediately, deleted every single video we ever made together, and kept the account only for myself. Now I’m sitting in my tiny apartment with no boyfriend, half our bills still due, and I can’t stop thinking about those 333s and dreams.

They weren’t random. They were trying to tell me the whole time.

I feel so stupid for ignoring them. Was the 0F the real problem or was it him from the start? Has anyone else had the universe (or numbers, or dreams) basically yelling at them before a betrayal? Did you listen? And honestly… how do you even trust anyone after something like this?

Throwaway for obvious reasons. Thanks for reading if you got this far.