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To begin with, I titled this “Online Dating Sucks” because…well…it does. Sucks like a big ‘ol freaking Hoover.

One of my biggest beefs with the whole process is that I feel that the online venue allows for people who might otherwise lack the social skills to enter into a dating relationship in the normal course of life. This is not to say that it always attracts socially inept individuals (case in point, myself) but it does seem to cater to them. After all, how easy is it to meet women from your hiding place behind a computer? You don’t even have to be yourself if you don’t want. No one’s going to make you be honest. No one’s going to call you out on not being true to who you really are. No one’s even going to know that the picture you posted is a 10-year-old glamor shot from the mall and doesn’t even remotely look like the non-airbrushed you who, incidentally, weighs an additional 40 pounds and no longer has hair. I’m just saying.

Again, I understand that the online thing works and has worked for a lot of people. For me however, it has yielded less-than-favorable results.

In addition to the “protection” that online dating provides, I also feel like it lends to microwaving something that really ought to be slow-cooked. You may or may not like someone within the first few seconds of meeting, but that doesn’t mean the jury should immediately render a verdict. Most recently I discovered I had an attraction to someone that I had known for months and would never have thought I’d be interested in…but getting to actually know him was what changed that. Online dating doesn’t allow for this. Instead, I think we lean towards calling the jury back prematurely rather than looking to maybe begin a friendship. Seriously, where’s the fire people? Stop running around with your hose! (No dirty pun intended) Why not calm down, relax, and enjoy the ride!

But that is not what happens.

Allow me to elaborate by sharing with you my typical online match-up experience which has gone something like this…

• In a fit of optimism, I join eHarmony (or match.com or the like, but for the sake of this example and the fact that I’m on eHarmony right now, I’ll stick with that).
• I see a lot of profiles and a few of which I actually like.
• One of us reaches out through eHarmony’s “Guided Communication” process.
• We take a few days to work our way through all of the Q&A sessions and end up finally going back and forth through site-handled email.
• We exchange phone numbers, and then someone makes the first call.
• We talk. It usually goes well because, let’s face it, it’s hard for a standard small-talk discussion to go badly.
• We decide to meet up (usually sooner rather than later) for dinner/coffee/what-have-you.
• The night of the “big date” arrives with little (if any) fanfare.
• Afterwards, the guy typically proceeds to fall off the face of the planet…or at least they seem to.

The End.

Sometimes I’m disappointed when this happens. Most of the time I expect it. This last time out was no different. Experience has taught me not to get hopes up. That if you must be optimistic, do it with caution signs. “Danger: Potential Flaky Guy Ahead”. Yeah, you ain’t just whistling Dixie.

As I said in my previous post, I was cautiously optimistic about this last guy. On paper, he seemed great. Said all the right things, did all the right things…with gusto, I might add. In our conversations he even implied that, while we may not be each others “perfect match,” that was no reason to think that we wouldn’t still be friends, at the very least. It seemed to fit… Our interests were similar. As were our personalities. And, while I really don’t think that ending up with someone just like me would be a good idea (how would anything ever get done??), I definitely thought there was friend potential. My mistake.

We had our date last Friday night. I didn’t sense a true click (read: chemistry) like you do when you meet someone you think you could see yourself with, I still finished the night thinking, “Gee, that was fun. He’s pretty cool. I definitely see friendship” only to find after the weekend was through that he didn’t feel the same way…or at least, that’s what I assume. See, after receieving dozens of text messages and spending hours on the phone, since our outing, he has barely seen fit to respond to any communication from me. Well, whatever.

The thing that pisses me off really is that interested or not, to disappear on someone is just rude. It goes against everything your mother (hopefully) taught you about basic, polite social behavior. How about a little respect fellas? Why not at least say, “Hey, didn’t really feel a connection, but I still had a nice time hanging out with you”? What’s so difficult about that? I mean unless your dinner/coffee companion threw a drink in your face and called your mother ugly, there’s really no excuse to not at least manage a pleasant “Adios” after the date is done for the sake of closure if nothing else.

But the sad thing is that this is what I’ve come to expect because this is what happens again and again and again. If it weren’t for the fact that I have solid friends who would tell me if there was something I was doing that provoked this behavior, I might be tempted to think that it is somehow about me. Something I’m doing or not doing that’s screams “It’s okay to blow me off” to these guys.

Thankfully, I’ve also had relationships in the past that have lasted (none of which were begun online, I might add) and so I know I’m capable of being in a relationship and being a good girlfriend. I am. Promise.

Even so, since the only common denominator in these stories is me, it’s difficult to not feel like somehow I’m bringing this on myself…but how can you really know? That’s where you come in.

I’m really hoping that this post finds its way onto the computer screens of not just my extended circle of family and friends, but that some other women out there who have maybe had similar or otherwise frustrating experiences with the online dating scene and may find my thoughts resonating with them.

So please forward the link to anyone single women you know, or if you are one, I’d love to get some feedback or hear other people’s stories…and not the ones that are all about someone you know who met their husband/wife online. I’ve had enough of those. Right now I just need to know that I’m not alone…and/or crazy.

I’ve done enough venting, but thanks for listening. Now it’s time for you guys to weigh-in…please! And while you do, I’m going to sit back in a chair on my fabulous patio in the warmth of late Spring, enjoy a beer, and be thankful that I have such a great life even though there’s no man in it (online or otherwise)…yet.

“When you’re young, your whole life is about the pursuit of fun.  Then, you grow up and learn to be cautious.  You could break a bone or a heart.  You look before you leap and sometimes you don’t leap at all because there’s not always someone there to catch you.  And in life, there’s no safety net.  When did it stop being fun and start being scary?” – Carrie Bradshaw, Sex & the City

Okay, so I wanted to do a little…well…talking, I suppose.  And I didn’t want to put it out on the blog without a password because I’m not entirely sure that the guy I’m talking about hasn’t discovered this blog yet.  My plan originally was not to tell him about it, but alas I sent an email that had a link to it at the bottom (oops) and so I’m not certain that he didn’t see it and click on it thereby rendering all things posted as potentially unsafe.

[UPDATE:  Since we are now several months past this whole event, I have removed the password and changed the names to protect the innocent so I feel there's no longer any danger in making this visible to the world.]

I should probably begin by explaining how, around my birthday I had a moment of pure optimism and rejoined eHarmony for the first time in over 2 years.  I’m sure I just made Cbo’s head explode or at the very least, her skin crawl with that statement.  Honestly, I can’t say that I disagree with either of those responses.  In fact the first couple of days, the only matches I received were balding men in their late-40’s who looked for the most part like they either had a bunch of bodies hidden in the freezer, still live at home with mom & dad, or some combination of both.  However, now 3 weeks later, there have been a few thrown across my match page which actually managed to catch my attention.

Only two of them have I actually gotten all the way to emailing with so far.  One of them is 2 months out of a 4 year relationship and while I know that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s not ready for another one, he did bring up his ex twice in the first phone conversation we had prompting me to ask how long the relationship had been over for.  That doesn’t bode well and I can’t ignore the little robot inside me screaming “Danger, Will Robinson!” while waving red flags.

The other one of the two is who really intrigued me.

For the sake of privacy, I’ll just call him H.  H is 39, lives in Massachusetts, and has lived a very VERY interesting existence up to this point.  In our conversation last night (which lasted over 2 hours) I found myself shocked that this guy was still single.  He doesn’t seem to be emotionally stunted.  Nor does he appear to be socially inept.  He doesn’t spend his weekends LARPing.  He’s not a closet serial killer, and he assured me that he’s not gay (although I’m not sure why he felt the need to assure me of that) and has never before been married.

But…I can’t help think there’s got to be SOMETHING.  Something about this guy has got to be off…  He’s good-looking (or at least that’s what I pick up from his photos and just some other in-between-the-lines indicators), he’s got a family he loves, he’s insanely upfront and open, and by all counts appears to be just one of those “good guys” you always read about.  So…where’s that other shoe that surely about to drop right on my head?  I have no idea…at least not yet.

Now I’m not typically this skeptical…  In fact, more often than not, I’m the glass-is-half-full girl, however in the realm of dating (ESPECIALLY online dating), I tend towards being cautious.  I can’t help it.  I think anyone would who’s been burned as often as I have would be.  I’ve actually lost count of how many guys I’ve had great phone conversations with, but who turned out to be total duds in person.  I also have had others seem as great in person as they were on the phone only to never be heard from again after our meet-and-greet.  One even was amazing on email, practically proposing to me on the phone, but then when it came time to meet up in person, he completely freaked out and couldn’t go through with it.  Still others were not even interested enough to venture into a phone conversation.

That’s just a taste of my experiences in this arena – can you blame me therefore if I look at these new guys a little sideways?  The wounds are no longer raw from these other idiots in my past, but the scars are still there.

H’s story, as best I can summarize, is that he’s spent the majority of his life living and/or traveling all over the world (sound like anyone you know?)  He was in the Air Force working as a photojournalist.  About a year or so ago he was struck by a drunk driver and suffered a near-broken back.  The last year he’s spent in physical therapy getting back to himself.  He was unfortunately forced to give up his job since he couldn’t lift a can of coke let alone a camera bag, and so he ended up taking a job with a company in Mass. which focuses on technology program management (which sounds very similar to what I do with project management).

From what else I can gather, he’s smart, very articulate, extremely trusting, and doesn’t appear to have any unabomber tendencies.  Even though I don’t see any glaring red flags as yet, I think there is a potential yellow or orange one.  One of the questions he posed to me before we got into the whole open-emailing phase was centered around how I felt about opposite gender close friends.  We discussed this a little further last night since I had a hard time answering that question with the multiple choice selection, and I was sure there must be some driving force behind him asking it in the first place.  Turns out one of his best friends is a woman.  We didn’t discuss at length since it’s nothing I felt needed to be talked over in an initial phone conversation.  Neither would I care unless we became seriously involved.  Essentially I feel that if I were to end up in a serious relationship/marriage with any guy, I would expect that the most intimate relationship in my and his life would be ours.  I would think it strange if I got married and my best friend continued to be some guy I knew that wasn’t my husband…and I would hope my husband would think that would be strange as well!  Call me crazy, but I’ve seen relationships torn apart over less.  I’m not saying it would be an issue, but just that it could be.  However, it’s also not something I’m particularly concerned with right now – just one more reason for caution.

So that’s all the news…at least for now.  Looks like I may actually get to meet him as early as May.  I was going up to Boston anyway to hang w/S and the girls over that weekend so H might come and take me out for dinner.  I’ll be sure to keep you guys posted.

Oh the post title?  Yeah, that was just a reminder to myself to remain cautious, but not be timid.  Cross the road, just make sure you look both ways.

XOXO

Janelle’s thoughts on this were the most encouraging. I think she said that, in all the time she’s known me, she’s never seen me have this good of a relationship with a guy I wasn’t dating. We’re just friends…and good friends at that, at least I think we are. I feel incredibly comfortable with him, and I think he feels the same with me. We’re alike enough to have things to talk about, but different enough to be interesting. He makes me laugh – and vice versa (always good to find someone who appreciates my sometimes-insane sense of humor). I feel like I could say just about anything to him, and again vice versa (I think).

The agony is two-fold.

On the one hand, as I said, we most likely have no future. I also have horrible luck with men. The ones I like usually don’t like me back – or if they do, chances are there’s something terribly wrong with them that only time will reveal. The ones that do like me are usually desperados who mistake my being nice for romantic interest (the LARPer springs to mind). There is a part of me that REALLY wants to know whether there is any interest on his side or not…although I’m not sure which response would be worse.

Allow me to explain.

If the answer is that he likes me too, well then I’m faced with what to do with that when getting involved with him would be a potentially slippery slope into a place I don’t know if I really want to be. At the same time, this would be a nice ego boost – everyone wants to be wanted, after all.

If the answer is that no, he isn’t interested in me as anything more than a friend, then I think I would be more hurt than I have been in a long, long time. I mean, what could be worse than someone who knows you incredibly well then decides that they don’t have any interest in who you really are. It’s one thing to have someone reject you who doesn’t really know you. It’s another matter altogether to be rejected by someone who does. Call me crazy, but THAT is not something I particularly want to face.

Where do I go from here? I have no idea. I love what Jel had to say when we spoke last night – she’s so encouraging. But at the end of the day, caring about someone only seems to amplify feelings of loneliness and my desire to share my life and experiences with someone which I’m otherwise pretty much able to ignore.

Talk about a rock & a hard place.

So…now what?

But the real reason I’ve been spurred to write this morning is due to a story I just saw on Good Morning America.

I’m not normally a morning show watcher (GMA or any others), but they caught my interest this morning when they previewed a piece on Twitter they were going to do. Being a big fan of Twitter, I naturally was interested to hear what they were going to say (they think Twitter’s great, by the way).

But then Twitter wasn’t all that attracted my attention. They went on to discuss a dating compatibility tool that uses – get this – DNA.

That’s right my fellow singletons – for just $99 you can give GenePartner a swab of DNA from your cheek and have them run their tests to provide you with your given genetic compatibility with others looking for that “special someone”.

Hm.

GMA went and followed a couple on their first date where they had them do their DNA testing before having dinner. The results were then revealed on GMA this morning with the couple sitting in the studio. This particular couple came out with a 90% match which only seemed to solidify what they had already discovered from their date. So they already knew they liked each other. If this couple had been doing this on their own, this means that they’d have spent $99 to find out what they already knew.

A few things about this make me uneasy, but I’ll just share a couple of them.

First, what if it had gone the other way? What if they’d be out on the date, liked each other, but then the DNA results came back to say that they weren’t genetically compatible. That alone may not have been enough for them call it quits right away, but I can’t help but feel like knowing that in the back of their minds wouldn’t undermine their possible relationship. Think about it – what if you were married, engaged, or even seriously dating someone and you and your partner decided to do this DNA compatibility testing for kicks and it came back that you weren’t genetically compatible. How much would that suck?

Another thing that troubles me about this is it further shows what I see as a burgeoning trend among our single society to run after so-called scientific methods of finding your “perfect match.” While I’m far more inclined to listen to what a psychologist would say about the kind of man who would be good for me, I still would rather leave it up to my friends, family, and God to bring me the right guy across my path.

And maybe that’s the difference. Maybe in the absence of a belief and trust in God to hook me up with the man I should be with, scientific methods work as a substitute. They certainly seem far more concrete than what many see as an ambiguous God who surely has far more important matters to attend to than finding me a date for the weekend, right? Or maybe some of the motivation stems from the GenX-ers fear of divorce. We are the first real generation of divorce, after all… Perhaps as a result of that, we’re searching for new ways of making sure the one we pick is the right one for us – after all, who really goes into a relationship wanting to divorce? Perhaps those from broken homes think that they can avoid this fate if they have enough unbiased, third-party input into selecting their mate. I’m totally speculating here, but there might be something to that…

I’m not trying to say that some of these scientific approaches couldn’t help…God is the master scientist, after all. At the very least these types of tests and things can probably teach you something about yourself that you may not have already known which is certainly valuable.

eharmony, for example, has an interesting personality test that it uses to find your matches for you. So while eHarmony failed to match me up successfully with anyone in the 6 years (and hundreds of dollars) I spent with them, I still found the personality test output interesting. And, while some of the matches they sent me were dogs, there were some good guys as well. Of course the ones I liked never called me back… If we’d had a DNA test in hand that said we were genetically compatible, would that have changed anything? I doubt it. We had eHarmony’s endorsement that we were compatible from a personality standpoint and clearly that wasn’t enough.

The fact is, you either feel it or you don’t and no amount of scientific testing or results can change that. All it can really do is potentially affirm a choice you’ve already made, but I don’t think it can make you try against your gut reaction. I speak from experience on this one.

So maybe this makes me naive, but after all the online dating I’ve done over the past decade, I’ve come to the conclusion that at the end of the day, I would rather put my faith and trust in the God of the universe to take care of my needs – emotional or otherwise.

Anyway, “Ralph” (as I refer to him when writing publicly-accessible blog entries) has been…shall we say…challenging to get rid of.  After dating him for nearly 2 years in Alaska, he had wanted to continue seeing me, but also wanted to see this other girl that he’d met at some bar.  Naturally that was going to fly with me so we broke up.  He married the other chick, they had a kid, and then proceeded to get divorced all within just a few years.  I had continued to hear from Ralph periodically after our break-up (we had, after all, remained “friends”) until just before they separated.  I had been back to Alaska for a visit and had told him in no uncertain terms that I did NOT want to hear from him again.  My request essentially went unacknowledged as I continued to receive regular emails from him.

About a year ago, I wrote back.  I had let 5 years go by without so much as a “howdy-do” from me, yet Ralph had been undeterred.  My thinking was that perhaps it was the challenge of it all for him.  Maybe if I just responded and didn’t give him much more than the time of day, he’d get bored and disappear.  That didn’t work either.

Now one might wonder why I didn’t just block his emails.  Well, a couple of issues with that.  First off, I did block his emails at first, but he would change email addresses periodically so they would continue to slip through.  Then, in an attempt to run away from spam, I changed my primary email address and made sure he never had that.  He also had my work email which had been the same for the last 10 years and there wasn’t much I could do about that – we didn’t have any blocking capabilities there, and I obviously couldn’t change my work email.

But then came the merger.  When my division merged with the new company, my work email changed.  However, the deal was that they would forward anything that came into our previous work email addresses through December 2007.  During that time was when I heard from Ralph again (an email was forwarded through).  This was when I had responded, but I responded through my old personal email account so that he wouldn’t find out what my new work email was – the last thing I wanted him to know was that I had changed companies.  After December, our emails stopped being forwarded, but sending an email to my old work account would return and “undeliverable” response with a message indicating what my new address was.  This month, they turned that feature off as well.

Finally, the time had come and I saw my chance to escape.

Keeping Ralph emailing only to my personal account seemed like the safer thing to do to ensure that he would never find out more about me than I wanted him to know.  To that end, for a year I managed to keep him from ever sending a message to my work.  Now that the forwarding and messaging was no longer being done through our work servers, I went in and closed my old personal email account.

If Ralph emails me at the old address, he’ll get an “undeliverable”.  If he then tries my work address, he’ll get an “undeliverable”.  I’ve cut off his only two known ways of contacting me.  He doesn’t know where I work.  He doesn’t know where I live.  He doesn’t even know what I do.  Granted, he is in law enforcement, so I suppose if he wanted to find another way to hunt me down, he technically could.  I did buy a house, after all, which means my name is listed in public record databases, etc. but I still don’t think it would be that easy.  I’m also on Facebook, but my profile is protected and I don’t think he’s on there anyhow. I look for him periodically, but have only found his brother to-date.

So this time I may actually have done it.  I may actually have gotten rid of him!  This has been a long time coming…  I’m a little afraid of him tracking me down anyway, but maybe you guys could just pray a circle of protection around me so that, even if he looks, he won’t be able to find me.  Please understand that it’s not as though I hate him or think he’s dangerous in any way.  I don’t.  Nor do I wish him ill.  It’s just at this point I’m so sick and tired of him that I really REALLY want him gone from my life.

My hope and prayer is that he finally is.

As many of you know, I have been on eHarmony off and on (more on than off) for the past 5 years. Since the site has yielded no more than a few decent dates and absolutely zero long-term relationships in that period of time, I decided about 2 months ago to call it quits on eHarmony altogether. I steered clear of anything date-related (online or otherwise) for about a month before signing up with Match.com in a fit of optimism.

And why not? You might say. Just because eHarmony was a pit with no possibilities, Match might be different. And hey, anything that Dr. Phil attaches his name to can’t be all bad, right? Hm.

It didn’t take long for me to start receiving messages and getting notifications from Match whenever I was “winked” at…and can someone tell me, what the heck is “winking” about anyway? What is the point of sending a virtual “wink” when hardly anyone even does that in real life anymore? Who are these winkers, and why do they feel compelled to “wink” instead of sending a real message?

Anyway, a couple of weeks and dozens of winks later, I had come across a guy who didn’t seem half-bad. He was from Philly, a Christian, and intelligent. We spoke on the phone a couple of times and arranged that we would get together for coffee and then see where the day would lead.

Saturday I got to the Starbucks a little early and waited for him to show. He was right on time so therefore off to a good start in my book. He was a little shorter than myself, but I tried not to let that bother me. I also had to make a point not to concern myself with physical characteristics that I might not find so appealing, per se. This is a danger I often find with meeting people in person who I’ve previously only “met” online – it’s difficult sometimes to reconcile the real thing with the image you’ve designed in your head. Photos don’t even help with this sometimes – people might be incredibly photogenic and so the real thing doesn’t live up to the picture… And on the other side of that spectrum live people who are not photogenic at all, but are gorgeous in real life. In any case, I’m typically able to overcome this upon meeting an online-originating date within the first few minutes.

As for him, I’m not sure what the problem was. I don’t know if he found my nail polish color offensive, or maybe the style shirt I had on bothered him in some way, or perhaps I had something grotesque sticking out of my teeth that sneered at him when I spoke, but whatever it was, he lasted for about an hour before announcing that he had a “headache” and felt that he needed to “just go home”.

A headache?! Was this guy serious?! I mean c’mon! The LEAST he could do was be a little more creative and say he had a brain tumor or something, but a headache? You’ve got to be kidding me. “It’s just as well,” I felt like saying to him, “I’ve gotta get home and wash my hair anyway.”

To be fair, I didn’t disbelieve him right away (although I did think it was kind of strange). Afterall, I myself suffer from the occasional migraine. If he really did have a bad headache that was interfering with his ability to have a good time, then by all means, he should have gone home and far be it from me to stand in his way. However, WERE that the case, I also would have expected that I would hear from him when his head was feeling better – or at least within the next day or so – to apologize and maybe set up some sort rain check since we had barely been out for 60 minutes. But my phone hasn’t rung once. Nor have I had anything come in through email. Nada.

And so I’m left to believe that this seemingly-nice guy was really anything but, and I am again questioning the purpose of continuing to subject myself to this kind of torture through places such as eHarmony & Match – I’m also now feeling like I just traded one hopeless site for another. What really gets me is the fact that not only do I have to endure pathetic guys in their 30’s or above who are quite clearly still single for a reason, but I’m actually PAYING to do this!

So I guess if you look at it that way, maybe it is really I who is pathetic…? Something to consider.

In any case, since sending this message I have not heard hide nor magical hare from him. Let’s hope it’s permanent!

———- Original message ———-
From: Deb
Date: Jun 20, 2007 1:55 PM
Subject: Re: Mail Not Delivered
To: Frank

Hi Frank. I am back in town, but only for a few days. As to your note, couple of things: I have absolutely no idea what LARP or RPG is. Going forward, it might behoov you to only use acronyms with people who you’re sure will understand them. Secondly, I thought I was pretty clear in my previous message, but I am not interested in dating you or feeling led to develop a friendship. I know you seem to think we have a lot in common, but I would disagree. For example, I’m not into most of the activities you mentioned above, at least the ones I understood. I also didn’t feel that we have that much we could discuss during, say, a walk in a park. Incidentally, I also disagree with your position on creation/evolution and young earth.

I wish you the best in all your endeavors and hope the Lord gives you someone that you can share your interests with.
Deb

I received another email from him yesterday – not exactly the way I wanted to kick-off my first week back from vacation, but oh well. Rather than specifically comment, I’ll let his message speak first for itself:

From: Frank
Date: Jun 19, 2007 11:04 AM
Subject: Re: Mail Not Delivered
To: Deb

Hi Deb,

This is Frank from the Niagara Falls trip again. You said you were going to be out of town for a few weeks. Well, I think a few weeks has passed, so I am sending a follow up email. Would you still like to see a production of Sight and Sound? There are other fun or interesting things I like to as well if you rather something else. I do historical re-enactment and LARP. I also do RPG and battle games such as war hammer. I like contra, square, and ball room dancing if you are into that. Of course there is always movies and walks through the state or local parks. I haven’t been to an amusement park for a while. I would like a chance to get together and get to know you as a friend and sister in the Lord better. Send me an email or call at H 215-885-2847 or C 610-406-7886.

XP~Frank

First off, I had absolutely NO idea what LARP or RPG stood for. I Googled them and found definitions on Wikipedia which only confirmed for me the extent of his utter geekness. Ahem.

LARP = Live Action Role Playing
RPG = Role Play Gaming

Need I say more?

I would, however, like to know what it is about me that seems to scream “COME GET YOUR CREEPY NERD LOVIN’ HERE!” Is there a sign on my back? A tattoo on my forehead? Do I emit some sort of sound that can only be heard by the bizarre of society? I have to know. Honestly, you guys know me the best – is there anything about me that would make someone look at me and say, “Gee, I bet she’d be into Live Action Role Playing.” Dear God, I hope not.

The most normal activities he listed in that email were movies, walks, and amusement parks and yet he listed them as if they were last resorts. While I WOULD technically be into doing those things, I certainly wouldn’t want to do them with him.

Well, at this point, I am just beyond freaked out by this guy. Debating whether I should write him back and literally tell him to buzz off, or if ignoring his email would be a more effective manner to communicate this.

Thoughts anyone?

I sensed almost immediately that I might be in for a trial of grace and patience. Within the first couple of hours on the bus to Canada, I had emailed Esther on my Blackberry and said that I feared this trip might have been a mistake. Naturally she encouraged me to not pass judgement too quickly and wait and see. I also had it in my head that perhaps I just needed to give them all a chance and perhaps it was a case of needing to get to know them better.

As it turned out, unfortunately my initial impression was correct.

These people were what my former NYC roommate, Kim, refers to as “Zoids” which is Kim-ese for “freakazoid”. Zoids are all around us, but definitely more highly concentrated in certain places. Christian Zoids (which is the category this group belonged to) are the worst. They are typically single Christians, they tend to lack social skills and have difficulty relating to others – especially people who are not also Christians. It really does sadden me when I meet these sorts of people because it causes me to wonder how we, as a church, have managed to so fail such a large demographic.

I believe there are less Christian Zoids to be found in places like NYC – I really didn’t come across too many of them there. However, out here in the wilds of the suburbs, they seem to just flourish.

The top Zoid on the trip that I met was this guy who I’ll call Frank. To be fair, I didn’t really know how big a Zoid he was until after the trip, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Allow me to set the stage:

I first spoke to Frank on Friday when a group of us had gone down to see the Falls after arriving. Frank had begun talking to me and then pretty much plastered himself to my side… I even went down into the majorly misty part of the walkway in an attempt to shake him to no avail.

In particular there was an event on Friday night that did not impress me. As a bunch of us were heading back to our flea-bag hotel, we were approached by a couple of Mormons. One was speaking to two of the women in our group, but they basically ignored him, so I started talking to him and asking questions (for those who may not recall, I had 2 Mormon roommates at one time so I was comfortable talking to them). After they left, one of the women turned around to me and said, “I admire you for being able to talk to them – I’m always afraid to because they’re always so prepared!” I thought (but didn’t say) “You know, they’re just people like you and me – what’s so scary about that?” But it was right then that Frank chimed in with his lunatic ravings (he had been talking to the other Mormon) and said, “Well, I just told him straight-up that he’s in a Christian cult and everything he believes is a lie.” He went on to say some of the other ways in which he had verbally accosted the poor guy. Needless to say, I was appalled – what was he thinking?? This is someone who claims to have gone to seminary…don’t they teach people how to evangelize in seminary?? I mean seriously! I did respond to this statement – not sure exactly what my words were, but they were something along the lines of, “Gee, do you think that was an effective way to win him over?” The whole thing just made me sad.

Saturday I had spent by myself except for dinner which Frank also attended, but we were sitting at different tables and I didn’t see him for the rest of that evening.

Sunday we were all together as a group again before heading back to Philly. We had gone to the Skylon Tower for brunch. Frank had somehow managed to get in line behind me and proceeded to totally invade my personal space until I was able to escape with a plate full of bacon and pancakes. After brunch, we all went up to the observation deck of the tower to take in the view. Alone for a moment, Frank managed to find me and came over to ask me out.

“So, Deb,” he said as he approached. “I was thinking, you know how I was telling you about the Sight & Sound theater in Lancaster?”
I immediately knew where this was headed and pretended to be preoccupied with setting up my 2000th shot of the falls. “Yeah,” I replied from behind my camera.
“Well, I’ve been looking for people who enjoy that kind of thing and I thought maybe if you were interested, you might like to see a show or two of theirs with me?”
“Oh…um…well, that might be fun,” I stammered (cringing) while trying to think of how I could basically tell him I was busy for the rest of my life without hurting his feelings. “Only thing is,” I continued, “I don’t know when you were thinking you might want to do something like that because I’m getting ready to go out of town for a few weeks on vacation and I have to work some weekends while I’m home, so I don’t think I can make any plans really until the fall.” There. I thought surely a normal guy would surely see a girl blowing him off for literally 4-5 months as a clear indicator that she’s not interested, right? I mean, isn’t that just common sense?

We talked a bit more and he forced me to take his business card and asked me what my email address was (which I dodged). He said he wanted to send me the Sight & Sound theatre info, etc. to which I replied that I was sure I could just Google it myself. He then said I could just email him and he’d have it. Perfect! I thought, Now I can just conveniently lose his business card (oops!) and will be out of this mess.

After that, I did my best to avoid him the rest of the day since as I knew he was interested (and I was most definitely not), I didn’t want to do anything that might further encourage. We spent the bulk of the day in the bus and he wasn’t sitting near me, so essentially my “avoiding him” boiled down to deciding to go to the bathroom before ordering food at Burger King when he again got into the long line behind me.

Apparently my blowing him off and avoiding him the rest of the day did not send quite the message I had intended. The trip coordinator also sent out a list of all of our names and email addresses which completely underminded my goal of keeping Frank from contacting me. I might also add that at Redeemer, they offer for people to opt-out of having their email disclosed to the rest of the group post-retreat/trip as a courtsey. I never felt the need to withhold mine, but this time I would have really appreciated that option. As you might have guessed, on Monday evening, I received the following email:

From: Frank
Date: May 21, 2007 7:12 PM
Subject: Sight and Sound and other things of interest
To: Deb

Hi Deb,

What an unusual email address. There must be a story behind it. Do
tell. I really enjoyed getting to know you earlier on in the trip and found myself rather liking you and attracted to you. I feel like I have quite a number of things in common with you- love of travel, the outdoors, writing(?), drama, and spiritual maturity. I would love to meet your puppy and I would still be interested in taking in some drama with you at Sight and Sound Theatre. However, I felt on the last day of the trip that you were avoiding me whereas you had been rather friendly beforehand. So I am getting mixed messages and not sure what to do. It is confusing to me.

In any case here is some info on S & S Theatre:
Sight and Sound Theatres
sight-sound.com
1-800-377-1277
PO Box 310, Strasburg, PA 17579

Here is Calvary Chapel of Phila infor:

Calvary Chapel of Phila
ccphilly.org
13500 Philmont Ave
Phila PA 19116

Single Group: 7 pm to 10 pm Tuesday nights- worship, message, small prayer groups, social time, and they do plan some special events Wed. Night Dinner and Service: Dinner in the Cougar Cafe from 5 pm to 7 pm and service from 7:30 to 8:30 or 9 pm in the main sanctuary Sunday Morning Services: Lots of them at different times going from like 8 am to 12 pm Sunday Evening Service: 7 pm to 8 or 8:30 pm in the main sanctuary

If you are a writer like me, this is the best place for workshops and connecting with critique groups, other writers, publishers, and editors:

Greater Phila Christian Writer’s Fellowship Conference
August 9th -11th at Phila Biblical Univ. in Langhorne Pa in lower Bucks
County
www.writehisanswer.com/Philadelphia
Marlene Bagnull, Litt D., Director
316 Blanchard Road
Drexel Hill, PA 19026-3507

I preached at Marlene’s church once. I go to GPCWFC almost every summer. One of the editors is a personal friend of mine from seminary. We critique together with a couple others. Want to join us? Do you write? I’ll edit your stuff if you will edit mine. I am writing a trilogy called Journey to Millennia: Book I Sign of the White Rider (The Great Commission), Book II Haven of the Messianic Temple Knights (The Great Tribulation), Book III The Second Coming of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords (The Great Kingdom). My Twinology is Consumation of Middle-Earth: Book I Visitation of Illuvatar, Book II Dagor-Dagorwrath. I’ve also written some plays, skits, short stories, and articles (like some Creation Science articles that were published out in California.)

Hope to hear from you-

XP~Frank

To which I replied:

From: Deb
Date: May 23, 2007 4:02 PM
Subject: Re: Sight and Sound and other things of interest
To: Frank

Hi Frank. Thanks for all the info – I’ll definitely check it out, although as I mentioned, I’m out of town a lot this summer and have to work some weekends when I’m home, so I doubt I’ll be getting out to the theatre or anywhere else for awhile.

As to the rest of your message, I’m flattered, but I’m also sorry if I gave you the wrong impression. I was only being friendly when we first met which is just how I am, and did not intend for it to imply anything else. I did get the sense on Sunday that perhaps I had come across the wrong way to you and so while I wasn’t trying to send you “mixed signals” (or avoid you), I was trying to get the signals straight. Just so you know, I do think you’re a nice guy, but that’s where it ends for me.

I wish you luck with your writing and the trilogy, etc. Speaking of, any chance I could send me one of your creation science articles? I’d be interested in reading them. Maybe I’ll see you at another event sometime.

Deb

At this point I was definitely thinking that he was something of a Zoid, but perhaps not to the degree that I do now. If I had even suspected, I never would have asked him for any of his articles (which I did primarily because Es asked me to). In any case, done bun can’t be undone and I received the response below (note the change in his display name):

From: Sean W W McKnight
Date: May 24, 2007 12:01 PM
Subject: astrophysics articles
To: Deb

Deb,

Thanks for being honest with me that you are just interested in me as a brother and friend, maybe, and that you are not physically attracted to me and interested in me as a boyfriend or relationship. I would be interested in you as a sister and friend if you are godly, sweet, considerate, flexible, and fun. I already revealed to you that I am physically attracted to you. However, as long as you don’t send me mixed messages and encourage me towards something that you really don’t want, I think it would be fine to do some fun or interesting things together once in a while. You’re probably about 40 minutes away from me. Since were just going to be friends we can just do things Dutch and I don’t have the burden of paying your way also and it is not expected for you to show strong physical affection towards me or strong relational and emotional commitment.

I had to use my old computer and dig out some old 3.5 inch magnetic disks to get the creation science articles I wrote back in the mid 90s for you. So you don’t get lost, they are one approach of four to reconciling super novas with a young earth. The basic premise is that Einstein was right and Hubble wrong. The universe is limited to one sprial galaxy.

Distant galaxies are nebula and gravitationally distorted star images or optical illusions. The size of the universe is much smaller than current coventional thought dictates. Also the universe is contracting, rather than expanding. I provide scientific evidence in support of this shrunken, contracting universe model that will eventually be sucked into a universal black hole in fervant heat at the end of world. Some of the pictures are not scanned in. I can send you hard copies with pictures through snail mail too, if you are interested.

XP~Frank

You may need to go back up and read that last email again in order to get the FULL effect. Trust me, the true insanity that lies within doesn’t really reveal itself until the 2nd or 3rd read-through.

I responded because, well, what else could I do:

From: Deb
Date: May 24, 2007 1:58 PM
Subject: Re: astrophysics articles
To: Sean W W McKnight

Hi Frank. Thanks for the articles – I’ll take a look at them when I get some time.

See you around.

Deb

Surely this would be the end of him. But no. On Friday night another one came through asking if I’d like to accompany him to a Christian Single’s Memorial Day picnic on Monday afternoon. I wanted to reply that I’d sooner dig my eyes out with a butter knife, but instead I said, “Sorry, but I’ve got plans all weekend.”

At this point, I’m pretty creeped out among other things and have decided that if he writes and asks me to do something again I will reply that I just don’t think it’s a good idea for us to do anything together ever, although I’m having a difficult time figuring out how to say it nicely. Any and all suggestions are welcome!

Moral of the story: There are a lot of crazies out there and this is a PRIME example of why I’m still single. Do you see what I have to work with? I’d rather be single.

I know you’re all wondering how the event went, so without further ado…

I left work around 1:45, had my hair done up and was back at the house by 4 leaving me just enough time to change and get out the door by 4:30. I was to meet Alex and a bunch of other people in the Old Cafe at the Union League (Broad & Sansom – it’s that old funky building with the two rounded staircases in front).

I got there early, but that was fine. I settled in with a glass of wine and waited for everyone else to arrive. A friend of Alex’s named Lindsey (male) showed up first. Then Alex and his friend Sharon (who he was setting up with another friend of his) showed up followed by a friend of Sharon’s and another friend of Alex’s and the six of us headed up to the party.

Cocktails and hors’dourves lasted until 8 when then ushered us into the main banquet room for Scottish highland dancers, dinner (which sadly included haggis), and ballroom-style dancing.

As for Alex, well, let’s just say that I’ve managed to filter out one more guy from my future husband search. Don’t get me wrong – I liked him a lot…he’s a nice guy and fun, but there’s just zero attraction there – not to mention he dropped me on the dance floor…literally.

Here is a picture of us:

So I spent a portion of my drive home in tears over the fact that, even though I try to not get hopes up when meeting a new guy (eHarmony-originating or not) I still do. I guess I’m just an optimist at heart and want to believe that each new guy might be THE guy, and yet instead every new guy is another one who isn’t. I just keep thinking that this losing streak has got to break sometime – then again, it took the Red Sox over 80 years to win another World Series. On the positive side, they did win another one – on the negative side, I don’t have 86 years to spare waiting for my World Series…I’m already 33 afterall. Even Bridget Jones was with Mark Darcy by 33…but let me just say that if I knew that I would eventually end up with Colin Firth, I don’t think I’d mind waiting so much.

Anyway, it was a fun evening overall, and I may have at least made a friend or two. Actually the friend of Alex that he brought (Sharon Bain) goes to Tenth. She’s been there for awhile, so you may have come in contact with her when you guys were here. She and I exchanged numbers and may get together.

For now I’ll go and leave you with some pictures below.  One is a landscape shot of all of us dancing, one is of me & Alex, and then finally another of Alex & myself along with a couple from our table.

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This most recent incident was brought on by a conversation I was having with Colleen. We were discussing men for one reason or another on Saturday night. I forget exactly why ex’s came up, but they did and Colleen asked when the last time I heard from Ralph was. “Around Christmas,” I said, “so it’s been awhile, but watch – now that I’ve said that, I’ll bet I hear from him this week.” And, true to my prophecy, I received an email from him this morning at 2:39 A.M. Eastern time. Now granted, one of the things that I had occurred to me prior was that if my old work email (which has been forwarded since The Merger) had been cancelled, it would have returned his message as “undeliverable”. However the forwarding is apparently still turned on and so it came through.

I was telling Jo one of the other times that I heard from him that this was one of the (many) times I wish I was married and could just sic my husband on him. I think the fact that I’m not is one of the reason Ralph feels he can still try to contact me – there’s nothing about me that’s “off limits” in his mind. I hate that. And, to be honest, I really have a hard time NOT writing him back… Even though I know he’s a sleaze and not worth it, it’s still hard – he’s so nice when he writes and he tends to hit me at times when I’m feeling particularly lonely & vulnerable (it’s like he can sense it or something) and so I’m tempted to respond. I usually don’t… Summer of 2005 I did respond since it has been 3 years and he had not given up so I thought perhaps he needed to hear it from me again that I was serious when I told him not to contact me the last time. So we talked and I told him and I thought he had gotten the message. Obviously not.

The email from today nothing exciting – most of his messages aren’t despite his tendency towards over-use of exclamation marks:

hey!
am i allowed to write? I hope you are doing well!”

Riveting.

The one from Christmas was a little longer with a nice little “Thinking of you” and “God Bless” thrown in. It’s easier for me to ignore the shorter messages that don’t tug at some heartstring. Even so…it’s never been entirely EASY to ignore a free handout of something I so badly desire, if that makes sense. That’s why Proverbs 27:7 rings SO true to me, especially in this situation:

He who is full loathes honey,
but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet.

Amen.

So here I sit not I having been touched or hugged or kissed or felt loved or wanted or even desirable in…well…years. I don’t think about it all the time. I don’t even think about it most of the time. But I do think about it and long for it and miss it, so even though I know what Ralph’s offering is not what I want, at least not in the great scheme of things, it’s close enough that it looks attractive to me. I’m starving and it’s my “bitter [thing that] tastes sweet”.

Keep in mind that there is also some aspects of this that really piss me off.

First off, it annoys me that he is so disrespectful of my wishes. I asked that he back-off, and he never has.

Second, because I am ultimately trying to keep him out of my life, I feel that I must be careful of everything I do online. For example, I have a MySpace profile and it’s always made me a little nervous because I know he could find me on there if he really wanted to… So far he hasn’t, but it’s never out of my mind. I know I could make my profile private, but I don’t want to potentially miss getting connected with someone I’ve lost touch with because they couldn’t see my profile to know it was me.

Another good example would be this blog. I’ve gone back and forth on whether or not I should make this blog private. I’m not particularly concerned with my travel blog because there’s nothing so personal in there that I wouldn’t want other people to see, however this blog is much more so. When I first started writing, I was referring to Ralph by his real name, but I’ve changed my mind and decided to go “private” again.  Thankfully he hasn’t found me on Facebook or any other sites.

I’m sure this probably seems silly or a little extreme, but what choice do I have? I want to cut him off, but when you break it down, all of these things are ways that he could potentially remain connected. This is the way you have to think when you have a stalker…

In other news, I had a phone conversation last night with a guy from eHarmony. Yes, that’s right…I’m still doing it. Regardless of how many times I’ve fallen off and been kicked in the head by that horse, my eternally optimistic glass-half-full side keeps pushing me back into the saddle.

I don’t want to go into too much detail on this guy, but let’s just say that I liked him – at least to talk to. He was engaging, outgoing, smart, and surprisingly funny (I’m always shocked by how few guys are actually funny despite the fact that most of them think they are). We talked for a long time – I even missed 24 and will have to watch it later. Since I’m leaving this Friday for North Dakota, we decided to plan to get together after I get back. I’ll keep you all posted, but – for those who know my family, please don’t say anything to anyone in my bloodline south of the Mason-Dixon… I’ve learned that it’s best to not mention this sort of thing to anyone down there so as to avoid the barrage of questions that people desperate to see their 30-something daughter / granddaughter / niece married tend to fire off.

For example, I’m still getting hit with questions about the fix-up my grandmother attempted to arrange with myself and the son of a lawyer that was doing some work for her. I had met up with him for coffee when I was down over Christmas – it was a rushed and awkward meeting due partly to the fact I didn’t really have the time to begin with. I managed to squeeze it in the day before I was supposed to leave so that I wouldn’t have to be criticized later for not giving him a chance. Despite the fact that I haven’t heard from him since nor do I think either of us saw fireworks at the Starbucks that day, I’m still getting pushed to reach out to him.

All that is to say, I would just like to avoid another Southern Inquisition if possible. Hence, I promise to inform my family prior to my actual engagement to someone (if one were to be pending), but in the meantime I think it’s better if we just keep these things between you, me, and the lamppost.