This happened a few years ago...
We exchanged a few emails after meeting on Match.com and decided we had enough in common to make it worth an in person meeting for coffee. When I got to Starbucks, the only person inside was a short (maybe 5' 6"), thin (maybe 130lbs.) and possibly gay man (not there's anything wrong with being gay, just wasn't sure why he was looking for a woman). Surely this could not be the 5' 10" car buff and self-proclaimed handyman who promised to sweep me off my feet. Alas, it was!! He was already sipping on his coffee, so I spouted off my bourgeois order, "grande, non-fat, toffee nut latte with whipped cream," and stood by while the barista prepared my tasty elixir. He sashayed up to the counter and introduced himself, then led me back to his table. Our conversation was enlightening: he was unemployed, lived with his brother's ex-wife and wasn't sure where he'd be living in a month. He asked me if he was what I was expecting. I skirted the question. I told him it was hard to know exactly what to expect, but he pressed me for an answer. I told him that I would be happy to answer him honestly, but that he'd need to take a minute to figure out if he really wanted to hear the answer. He opted not to. The place was getting packed. These two women in sunhats and and sundresses walked in and he nudged me and asked, "Don't you just love her beach hat?" On that note, I thanked him for meeting me and excused myself.
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We exchanged a few emails after meeting on Match.com and decided we had enough in common to make it worth an in person meeting for coffee. When I got to Starbucks, the only person inside was a short (maybe 5' 6"), thin (maybe 130lbs.) and possibly gay man (not there's anything wrong with being gay, just wasn't sure why he was looking for a woman). Surely this could not be the 5' 10" car buff and self-proclaimed handyman who promised to sweep me off my feet. Alas, it was!! He was already sipping on his coffee, so I spouted off my bourgeois order, "grande, non-fat, toffee nut latte with whipped cream," and stood by while the barista prepared my tasty elixir. He sashayed up to the counter and introduced himself, then led me back to his table. Our conversation was enlightening: he was unemployed, lived with his brother's ex-wife and wasn't sure where he'd be living in a month. He asked me if he was what I was expecting. I skirted the question. I told him it was hard to know exactly what to expect, but he pressed me for an answer. I told him that I would be happy to answer him honestly, but that he'd need to take a minute to figure out if he really wanted to hear the answer. He opted not to. The place was getting packed. These two women in sunhats and and sundresses walked in and he nudged me and asked, "Don't you just love her beach hat?" On that note, I thanked him for meeting me and excused myself.
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I had a guy refer to sex from behind at least 4 times over dinner the first time we met...
ReplyDelete1. loved this weeks Modern Family, where the kid walks in on the parents doing it "doggie style", did you see it, did you? Too bad, it was great!
2. my favorite scene from Austin Powers is the one in the tent with the flashlight when it looks like he's pulling stuff out of her butt, so funny, wasn't that the best scene?!
3. yeah, so i bought some concert tickets, they didn't bend me over too hard for those.
Ok, so maybe it was three times, but the final joke he told was the nail in the coffin..."you ever hear of the one eared elephant trick, that's when you turn your pocket inside out and pull down your zipper and whip it out"
Thanks for sharing. Was there any indication of this before the face-to-face or was it a total surprise?
DeleteNothing stood out as far as that. I wouldn't have shown up for the dinner. He volunteered at Metropolitan Ministries, worked for some corporation, talked about his nieces, he seemed normal and nice...but apparently obsessed with sex (from behind)!
DeleteI met My wife of seven years online.
ReplyDeleteI had been on many first dates through AOL when it was popular. NONE of the profile pictures were ever true to life. They were always from four to five years back. So imagine my surprise meeting these women for the first time and seeing them with an added fifteen to twenty pounds of extra weight. Not that I would have been turned off by that had I been told that the picture was an old one. I am the type of person that likes to know what he is getting into before he arrives at his destination, AND as far as I was concerned, I had just encountered the first lie from these women. Needless to say there were no follow up dates.
I had finally given up on contacting women when I decided to post my own profile to see what kind of hits I would get. After a while I had to keep a notebook to keep up. This became problematic as I like to keep my life simple and without the games that are played in some relationships.
I had finally become tired of all the things that were going on again.
Just when it seemed as if things were going to go on like this forever, I was contacted by a very interesting and beautiful lady. We shared information back and forth for a few weeks then decided to talk on the phone. Soon the conversations were lasting in excess of two hours.
We then planed a meeting.
She was everything she told me she was through our online and telephone conversations, and even more precious than I could have imagined. We hit it off right away and the rest is history.
We have been together now for twelve years and married for seven years.
Sometimes its rocky, sometimes it's scary, but mostly it is awesome. I couldn't imagine myself ever being married to another woman.
She is my soul mate, and best friend,
I love you honey.
Thank you for sharing your success story with me!
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ReplyDeleteWhat I realized from online dating is that it was way easier to end things quickly when they didn't feel right. When we meet people in person and there's chemistry, we feel compelled to play it out a bit and by the time we are able to see flaws that could be detrimental, it's sometimes too late and we have developed feelings that make it hard to end things. I was on a second date with a guy who was having a hard time turning his head. He said it had been bothering him for weeks but he didn't think he'd be going to the doctor. I was able to forward think and imagine life with someone who did not take care of himself. That was our last date. Another time, I went on a first date with a guy who had written in his profile that he was 45 and athletic. When we met in person, he admitted to being 48 and I could see that he was far from athletic. Not knowing him well and having no initial chemistry made it very easy to wrap the date up early and cut my losses.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your input...
DeleteYou are right! When my ex-husband worried about the money he spent, I considered him responsible and "thrifty". But when a guy I met off a website talked incessantly about cost - how much his friend spent on a shirt at a department store, how much the athletic shoes his son wanted were, how he drove around to four different places to save $12 on a window he was installing himself, I wanted to run screaming from dinner. I didn't of course, but that was the first and last date...
Ha! I know exactly what you're talking about. This guy and I exchanged emails for a few days and then had a phone conversation. The phone call lasted about an hour and a half and it was mostly good except for the fact that he started out by trying to prank me with some scary, deep voice. Anyway, the next day, he wrote an email calling me out on the fact that I had been back online. He wrote something like "cheating on me already"...RED FLAG! I'm sure he thought he was being funny, but it didn't feel like a joke.
DeleteHas anyone had the experience of feeling like you were on a job interview? There was this one time I met a guy at Borders for coffee. We walked around and talked and looked at books. Sounds nice and relaxing, right? Wrong! By the time an hour and a half had passed, he had pumped me for what felt like all my information and told me way too much about himself. I was out of breath when we were done. It seemed as though I had dumped all my dirty laundry and shared all my secrets. It was horrible. I was thrilled that I never heard from him again because I couldn't stand the thought of facing him again.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your input...
DeleteWhat's interesting about your experience is that without some base or foundation, it seems there's not much to balance secrets or dirty laundry from the past. If a relationship has had time to develop and grow over time, there's a foundation of trust and positive experiences which can offset any stories that you might hear about who the person you are dating once was. But too much information in the name of full disclosure can be overwhelming and take all the fun out of the getting-to-know each other process. After having that experience, did you encounter anyone who tried to take you there again? If so, how did you handle it? Just curious, if you don't mind sharing...
Not at all.
DeleteI've not come across anyone as intense as that guy, but I've been asked questions that I knew I was not ready to give the answers to. After that experience, I decided to not be afraid to let someone asking very personal questions know if I feel it's too soon to talk about certain things.
There's not much about our first date - but how we met online is a little silly. We were in a local chatroom that are large group of friends/acquaintances used to frequent. My sn was similar to my friends sn and I guess my friend liked this guy. He was sending her a picture of him and his friend (socially, not to date her or anything) and it accidentally got sent to me. The header on the picture said something like I'm the one on the right. When I saw the picture, I responded, "Too bad you're not the one on the left!" - I was semi-joking. The reason I had said it was because the "right" guy had a shirt with my favorite band on it, which was fairly rare to see in that particular town in that time. He responded that he WAS that guy, it was a typo, or something (I don't remember what had happened).
ReplyDeleteWe exchanged numbers (I trusted him b/c my friend knew him... I found out later she LIKED him and it caused a lot of drama but anyways) & I ended up meeting up with him later that day. We've been together ever since (12 years+3 children).
(Lisa, I'm gonna put this as anon, but you may figure out who I am, and I'm totally fine with that!)
Thank you for posting...
DeleteI hadn't thought about people who get to know each other in chatrooms. I wonder if people are more or less likely to be who they really are in chatrooms as opposed to the profiles they create for online dating sites. Thank you for adding a new dimension to this conversation!
One guy I did date a bit. He was a doctor that looked great in his photo. There were “work” photos that ended up actually being staged. Meaning, he had no “office” and the photos were taken at his apartment. But I did not find out these dirty little details until later. So we arranged to meet at one of my favorite restaurants.
ReplyDeleteOddly enough I got to the restaurant on time and my date was nowhere to be found. I went into the restaurant and sat at the bar and waited for him to arrive. About a minute after I sat down he showed up. I was flabbergasted. To me he looked nothing like that hot doctor I had seen in the profile picture. He was a pale skinned [dyed] red head that was only average in the facial looks department.
We sat down and at some point during our conversation I found out that he was sitting in his truck waiting to see me walk in and check me out before he would come in and commit to the date. (I apparently ignored that red flag as to character once I found out.)
The whole thing turned to be a bad match in the end because he was entirely too twisted for the likes of me. Funny thing is I had a hard time getting rid of him until he started with a new online contact. Go figure even when it doesn’t fit folks are unable to let go without a replacement of some sort.
Directly taken from a profile - I have learned to be careful. It's amazing how some people present themselves only to turn out to be the EXACT opposite. I used to be such a great judge of character, but wow the internet makes it so hard anymore.
ReplyDelete