In my life I’ve been given many second, even third and fourth chances, at times when I didn’t especially deserve it. Let’s face it, at times I didn’t deserve it at all. And I’m very grateful for it. Amongst other things, it has made me more understanding, empathetic and forgiving of others, qualities which I somehow have yet to learn how to bestow upon myself. A matter for another time. As usual, I digress.
I gave the pitcher another chance. I sent him a message, and yes it was a little verbose. It basically said… well, it’s easier if I just show you the message:
“I feel life is too short to beat around the bush. Our phone conversation left me nonplussed. It has nothing to do with your politics. I was surprised that you didn’t take your first opportunity to speak with me having a back and forth conversation. You talked almost the entire call. I was also surprised you took your first opportunity speaking with me to talk about anything political, let alone things that might offend me. It clearly says I’m a Democrat in my profile. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt that you perhaps didn’t realize how much you monopolized the conversation. If that is not indicative of how you normally speak with people, I’m happy to talk with you again if you’d like. If that is a pretty good representation of how you normally converse, I’ll wish us both luck in our searches and it was nice to meet you.”
(Okay, so something you should know about me, I have a large vocabulary and I like to use it. It’s a little test of knowledge and disposition. If he doesn’t know a word, that’s totally fine. I certainly don’t know them all. But if he’s put off by it then I know he’s not for me. Yet another digression…).
He almost immediately wrote back. Oh I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize I was monopolizing the conversation, I hate dead air on a phone conversation and I was nervous…. and so on. I can be stupid even when I’m not nervous, so I understand if that was the case. I also didn’t want to immediately eliminate someone with whom I disagree politically. I’m trying to be more open minded in that regard.
So we kept chatting. Our next phone conversation was completely different. It was a balanced interchange on a variety of topics. That’s a fancy way of saying it was a good back and forth conversation. We chatted every day and talked on the phone again. Remember, it’s the middle of a pandemic so we can’t actually meet. Ain’t no one want to transmit the Rona. Neither of us suggested a video chat. I’m not sure why he didn’t. I didn’t because I’m not very photo or video-genic. I’m better in person. I don’t necessarily want my 1st face-to-face meeting to be via video. As you’ll see shortly, I quickly got over that.
And so it went for about a week. Then one Sunday morning I didn’t text him back as quickly as he thought I should. Seriously? I told him I had to feed the dogs and myself and then I would get back to him. He texted back “so I come in THIRD??” Uh, yeah, yeah ya do. We’ve never met. I hadn’t yet given him the correct spelling of my first name – in my profile it’s spelled “Robbie.” My real spelling makes me a lot easier to find, and something told me not to give it to him. In addition to the little freakout, he’d shown no interest in getting to know me. He never asked my last name, never asked what most people do – is Robbie short for Roberta? Never asked about my twin brother, my life past or present. And now I’m supposed to put him first? Aw hell no. Surprisingly, that’s not the end of the story, but it is for now.
Around the same time I was chatting with the pitcher I started chatting with another man. In his pictures he’s gorgeous. Frankly, I wasn’t sure why he’d be interested in me. There are a myriad of more beautiful, younger women I’m sure he could choose from. I don’t think I’m ugly by any means, but I’m realistic. I am not a “10.” I’m hoping to find a man who thinks I’m a “10” to him, but I have no delusions of grandeur.
Dating during a pandemic when social distancing is required is difficult, as I’m sure you can imagine. Messaging, phone conversations and video chats are about it. If it progresses, many people are doing video dinner dates and such. After about a week of chatting with Mr. Gorgeous I was a little bothered that he didn’t want to talk on the phone. Okay, a few men I’ve met also weren’t interested in a phone conversation likely because they had varying degrees of a lisp. He also didn’t want to do a video chat. That bothered me a lot (I told you I got over it, maybe someday I’ll tell you why). So he agreed to meet. Don’t get all bent out of shape. We practiced social distancing. It was to be a “drive by” meeting.
Right before I was leaving my house to meet him he sent me a message saying not to feel bad if I didn’t like what I saw. Ok, now my spidey sense really kicked in. That was definitely not good. I had to see what this was about, so I went anyway. I arrived and backed into a parking spot where we agreed to meet. He pulled up almost immediately and said “this is me. Are you still interested?” No, no I’m not. It wasn’t even the same man. Not that he didn’t look much like his pictures, it wasn’t even the same guy. Even if I had found him attractive I wouldn’t be interested in someone who would lie and misrepresent himself like that. Before I even got home he had deleted all our messages exchanged on the dating site. I reported him anyway.
There is an old adage, if it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t true. I should have known that since most men I’ve met from online dating don’t look much like their pictures he probably wouldn’t either. I guess I wanted to believe someone as gorgeous in pictures as whoever that man is would be interested in me. I’m not saying he definitely wouldn’t. I’ve been told I’m smoking hot by a very handsome and sexy man in my life, so some men find me more attractive than others. But it seemed too good to be true, and it was.
On the plus side, I needed lettuce and we met across the street from my Safeway so at least I got an errand done.