So despite my earlier claim to be pausing my days of online dating, I never actually "disabled" my OKC account. As I have absolutely zero will power, this resulted in the casual exchange of messages with several people. Nothing led anywhere until recently when I had a date request for Thanksgiving weekend.
To start with, this guy's opening line was "why are you so awesome?"...how am I supposed to walk away from that? Flattery in a unique format will always catch my eye, particular when it's not "u r butiful". So we started chatting. He wasn't my usual type - he's bald and glass-half-empty, based on his profile. Despite my sarcasm and dash of cynicism, I tend to be fairly positive. Classic unicorns and rainbows type. But, I thought I should set aside my physical guidelines and try it out anyway.
We met for coffee in the afternoon the Saturday after Thanksgiving. First of all, this was my first ever sober online date. I was a little freaked out about it, but I pulled it together with my belly full of leftover turkey. I actually had a pretty good time. We chatted for a couple of hours over one cup of coffee, and while I certainly wasn't head over heels, I couldn't find anything wrong with him. (Sidebar, I'm very aware of just how terrible a perspective that is.)
He was good on paper: he owns his condo, works as an engineer for the government, and seemed to have a pretty tight relationship with his family. I wasn't particularly attracted to him, but I didn't dislike him either. There were a couple of bits of conversation that I wasn't too fond of - a slight repeat of the "I am not your Weight Watchers' support group" - but I've had worse.
So, when he texted me immediately after we parted ways, I was happy to agree to a second date. He texted me on that Sunday to schedule the date for Wednesday. He picked the place and set the time. All things that make me really happy. Sunday night, I couldn't have been more excited to go out with him.
And then Monday morning, I got a "Morning! It's not even 9am, and it's already an exciting Monday." For the record, I'm about 90% full this was supposed to be chock full of sarcarsm; however, I had one date with you, I'm not quite ready to be texting buddies. I was very slow to respond and truthfully didn't give him much to work with, hoping he would take the hint to leave me alone until Wednesday. He didn't catch it and proceeded to text me all day. All. Day. Monday evening, after my apparent failure to respond to two texts in a row, he asked me if I was home yet. This falls on the list of things that you, sir, do not need to know.
Tuesday morning - another text good morning. I completely ignored it until about 3pm, at which point, I said "busy day" and not much else. Please note, that even though I can be a bit of a pacifist and people-pleaser, I did not apologize for my lack of response. He immediately replied "Oh, no problem. I'm in training and thought I would bug you." Ugh.
As I said before, I'm an only child. I love my independence, and I've never been the girl that can jump into anything (let alone a relationship) with a total sense of abandon. Not ever going to be me. Toe in the water, and then I'm probably not going to fully submerge for at least 3 months. My mother hated taking me to the water park.
Wednesday morning rolls around, and I make myself a promise. Despite not really wanting to go on this date at this point, I swear that if he leaves me alone until the afternoon and then just confirms the date, I'll force myself to go. Too bad he decided at 8am to text me. I was driving to a seminar in the suburbs, so I waited until I got there to respond (PSA time - don't text and drive, at least on a smartphone; it's virtually impossible to watch the road). He wanted to push back the time to accommodate my schedule, so I agreed to an 8pm dinner instead of the originally planned 7:30pm. And I brushed him off with a "see you then" for the rest of the day.
All through my seminar, I was stressing out about this date. I didn't want to go, but I also felt bullied into going at this point. I waxed and waned for the better part of the panel discussion about whether I should cancel. Finally, at about 4pm, I decided that I couldn't sit through dinner. At least not tonight. Between an exhausting day of seminars and the traffic-infested drive that would be had on the way home, I simply wasn't up to playing nice. So, I claimed illness.
I'm not proud, and I'm aware that there are better excuses. We do what we have to do. I sent him a quick note that my seminar had just ended and I felt awful (frankly, all true...just not necessarily how he probably interpreted it). I told him that I would be worthless after the drive back to the city, and apologized, but said that I needed to cancel.
Within 5 minutes, I got back a "Are you sure? We could get something closer to the neighborhood and just chill together". Again, not wanting to endanger all drivers on I-90, I waited until I got home to respond. It's an hour drive in traffic, but apparently a twenty-minute commute would have been more than this kid could handle. Because within 15 minutes of the first text, I got one saying "flaking 3 hours prior to the date is pretty bad, I have to say."
Oooooookay. And he sealed the deal that I was not going to reschedule. One date, two hours, and he was clinging like a cotton skirt to tights. Whoa. I ignored it. I don't like confrontation, and I find it particularly useless with someone I will never encounter again. So, I left it alone.
Fast forward two hours later - another text. This one can be summarized as me = villain who toys with men. He chastised me and told me I was a terrible person. Okay, fine...think what you want. And I'll acquiesce that my behavior wasn't perfect - but I did plan to go out with him again originally. He just overwhelmed me with useless conversation. I was drowning in text messages.
I deleted his number and all the texts, and as I set my phone down, one last message came through. A lovely send off with my first and last name, title, and company that I work for. All followed by the phrase, "your Pinterest is a leaky faucet of information".
Apparently, someone can internet stalk. Big freakin' deal. I don't care who you are, I strongly recommend researching every date you go on. As you may know, I've had some bad luck with this, so I do think the more you know, the better. One minor caveat - PRETEND YOU DON'T KNOW! Common courtesy demands that we all act completely oblivious of any information we learned through our internet travels. This guy, however, felt like he could use my name and job to scare me. And that, my friends, is truly crazy.
I won't pretend I'm all big and bad...I was definitely freaked. I still am half-expecting him to show up at my office at some point (note that he did not today). I don't like someone using who I am as if it is a weapon against me. I'm certainly no one famous, but I don't appreciate a total stranger acting like he has some kind of power to destroy my life. I can't imagine how celebrities feel. I may have to start carrying a giant umbrella a la Crazy Britney Spears to defend myself against this potential stalker.
As a result of this creepy encounter, I changed the privacy settings on my Pinterest (which, thanks for divulging your source), truly disabled my OKC account, and revisited the privacy settings on my Twitter page. I can officially say that I am taking time off from online dating for real now. My theory that everyone comes into our lives for a reason holds true - I really am meant to give this up for a while, and dragging my feet called for an intervention arriving on the express train from Crazy Town.
So, for my one loyal reader (here's looking at you, Mom), this is certainly not the end. Just a new beginning. I'm still dating, but we're going back to a simpler time. Let's see what I can pull off of a bar stool...
No comments:
Post a Comment