Did I ever tell you how much I enjoy online dating? No? It’s because I don’t. Not even a little. You know why? Because of dates like Mr. 28….wtf???
He was my only date on an ethnic-specific site that I was on for a very short time. Yes, there are sites to attract certain ethnicities–although, technically, anyone can use them. What can I say–I was trying to date a homeboy, since I’d had so much luck dating everyone else. Don’t worry, this was a short-lived experiment after this date. I wrote to him and he answered fairly quickly–while telling me that he had received numerous e-mails and mine was the only one he answered–because we were both from back east and he appreciated that people from that part of the country were ‘real’ and that’s what he was looking for…good start, right?
We spoke on the phone first and it went well. Very well, in fact. I liked his voice and his energy. We talked a lot about ‘home’ and how different it was living in California. We agreed many people here are not what they seem and how much more ‘real’ people from our neck of the woods are. Again, with the ‘real’. Like you do what you say you’ll do–honest and forthright. I have to admit I was looking forward to this one.
Well, continuing my trend of Starbucks dates, we met for coffee. And it went well, for the most part. He was physically what I expected, if you don’t count that he had 2 ‘bad’ knees and he walked very strangely. Hey, body parts are pretty interchangeable these days so even that didn’t bother me. We spoke a lot about living back east–he even had a plan to live there 6 months and live here the other 6. I could easily see myself doing that–again, so far so good. In keeping with the ‘real-ness’ of ‘our’ kind, he told me that doing business here was so different because he would do business on a handshake back east and not worry about it but here he felt things were just not so honest. He harped on this difference–men back east had integrity that seemed to be missing in So Cal. So what is not to love??
He walked me to my car, while specifically asking me where I wanted to meet for dinner for our next date. He promised to call within 2 days to set it up. The man who couldn’t stop saying how ‘real’ he was. I am still waiting. I think he has been living in So Cal too long. I did actually send him a note after a week telling him that I was pretty surprised that someone who preached integrity just disappeared like that–still waiting for a answer here too.
Lessons learned:
1. If you are going to talk the talk, then walk the walk. Don’t harp on how honest you are if you are going to lie to my face. Not cool at all.
2. Reread number 1. Is it really that hard to be honest these days??