The Saga Continues

Since I have always been a long distance runner, I figure that I have the stamina to put up with a lot. There is a saying, “Patience is a bi-product of tribulations”. Well, it’s true. Oh… and let me gently remind you to never pray for patience! Because, I did and obviously, God granted me my wish.

That said, I continued on my journey in the world of online dating. Night after night, I would bask in my monitor’s warm glow, looking with everlasting hope to meet someone NORMAL. Time after time, I would chat with someone whom I thought was normal at first and then it would all too quickly plummet into disaster. How quickly things go from good to bad to worse.

For example, let’s take Chaz. Okay, that’s not his real name, but remember, I am protecting these sorry saps. Anyway, I met Chaz and quickly took an interest in him because he loved fishing, being outdoors and children. He was in man,agement and looked completely normal. He was well spoken and proudly displayed pictures of him and his family fishing on his profile. He was 39 and had never been married, had no kids and no baggage to claim at check-out. If I’d been talking to Gigi back then, she’d have told me that there was a reason he was 39 and unmarried. In fact, my own father warned me about this. But of course, I didn’t listen. Chaz just hadn’t met the right woman. ME.

I liked him right from the start. That is, until one evening, when he decided that we should chat online. For starters, let me preface this by saying that all of these guys have one main thing in common, apart from being male. The commonality is that they are all weird. Chaz definitely could have been the ring leader in all of this. As we began to chat online that night, he asked me if I had a webcam. Girls, let me warn you that when guys ask this, it is not because they would like to see your pretty face. Now I didn’t have a webcam, but he did.

He insisted on turning it on, and within seconds he was naked. Naked as the day he was born, sitting right there on an old, green sofa. Behind him was a horrible oil painting of ducks being hunted by a golden retriever. However, all I could focus on was how his “thingy“ was making its full debut out on the couch, looking at me horribly with its evil eye (His thingy, not him!!). It was so huge it could have had its own zip code and area code. I screamed in horror and tried to look away…

However, the scene was much like a horrible car accident that you drive past and can’t help but look at. I knew I should look away, but I couldn’t. Next thing I knew, he was grinning like an idiot, and his hand was quickly moving south. At first, I was frozen. All I could do was stare, and I didn’t know what to do, so I did what any good, Catholic girl would do. I logged off the chat, shut my monitor off, and practically ran to my room to say a few Hail Mary’s.

Every night after that for weeks, he tried to get a hold of me. He’d apologize, telling me that he’d never done that before (Yeah right!), that he had no idea why he had done it, (Uh huh, tell me another one), and that he was so sorry that he had jeopardized something so beautiful (Where can I throw up?). Of course these asides are my thinking now that I’ve become more jaded. Back then I actually believed him. I realize now that we tend to forgive people too much, telling ourselves that they really can’t be that bad all the time.

We‘d been talking together for about a month, and I thought I‘d gotten to know him well. So being the forgiving person that I am, I decided to give him another chance. Chaz ended up sending endless bouquets of flowers and promised just friendship if that was all that I really wanted.

Now, as I think back in awe of this situation, I think, “How many times has this man done this?” He is a store manager after all. Has anyone that he has exposed himself to ever come into his store as a customer? Gosh, I realize that we live in a free country; however, when one is in such a position of authority, it is necessary to put a “cap” on crazy things like that in your personal life, isn’t it?

For years, I have been accused of being “too nice”. In this instance, I forgave Chaz and we actually ended up hanging out a few times, but only as friends. Well, only as friends in my eyes, because Chaz ended up falling so in love with me, that he became like a bad tumor that wouldn’t go away. Every five minutes of the day, it seemed he would text and ask things like: “What are you doing right now? What are you thinking, Helen?” Usually women thrive on this kind of attention. I might have also from someone else. Yet Chaz didn’t do it for me. This is yet another fucked up aspect of dating and love. The ones you want to give you attention, don’t. And the ones who do give you attention, are wasting it on you, or smothering you with it.

After several months of our friendship, I had to try and call it quits. I know that keeping this friendship alive sounds torturous, but because I’m optimistic and hopeful, I thought I had to make this work. I’d tell myself, “I can do this, I can find happiness with this man, who is head over heels in love with me.” But just like Gigi with her nice man Arthur, I just couldn’t do it. It was like drowning in a sea of chocolate. At first it tastes wonderful. But after a while, you have a serious stomach ache, so that you can’t even bear the thought of another bite. You can’t push it away from you fast enough, but it has melted all over you, and you can’t get it off no matter what you do. Chaz would have worn me as a skin suit if I’d let him. He would have donated his organs for me. And yet I didn’t want him. WHY NOT? I had to let go. My friends told me to let go. That it wasn’t going anywhere, and it would impede me from looking for someone better.

However, much to my dismay, Chaz was not having it. At first, he begged me for more chances, swearing that I would eventually fall in love with him if I only gave him time. This continued on and on, with him attempting to buy my affections. At first, it was just mountains of boxes of Godiva chocolates left on my car, but the grand finale turned out to be a lap top. Yep. I said a laptop. The very one I’m typing on right now. I’m not saying this to be smug. I’m trying to convey to you how overboard he went to try and win my affections. He even picked out my favorite color, green. As I sit here typing now, please send up some good karma into the atmosphere because he is the very reason I have a computer today.

Weeks went by and Chaz still wasn’t having my “break up” of our friendship. I tried everything, from attempting to look as dowdy as possible, to being so mean that I barely recognized myself. Every time I would try something, however, he would say, “Oh Helen, you are so cute!”

It took months of ignoring his phone calls, emails, texts, any other form of modern technology, and even of not answering the door to get him to understand that it was over. I’d see his car parked by my apartment block, and my heart would give a jump. Even now when I see a green Buick Skylark, I think how nice he was, but at the same time I cringe and pray that I won’t run into him. What would I say? I don’t want to give him any hope, but at the same time, I don’t want to be mean to him. Either way, I would have to say a quick hello and goodbye, and drive around to several different venues before going home, so that he wouldn’t know where I now live. Finally, poor Chaz was written out of my screen play, but his generosity and kindness will never be forgotten. Nor will I ever look at ducks or golden retrievers the same way again. Ugh.

Excited with the prospect of being freed from Chaz’s smothering affections and feeling like a genie that has been let out of its lamp after a thousand years of imprisonment, I was eager to get back online. That night, I received a message from Henry. Henry was a year younger than me, tall, dark and handsome, in shape and owned his own business. I believe Henry snuck in through the window of me un-checking the education box on my criteria page. He hadn’t gone to college, but he owned his own business and seemed motivated and successful. He loved kids and loved being around his niece and nephew. Henry was also what I thought to be normal and played the Christian card better than anyone I had ever “virtually” met.

I was impressed that he wasn’t afraid to tell me that he had had tribulations in life and that God had helped him out of them. When I asked him more specific questions regarding these tribulations, however, he glossed over them and quickly focused on me. Looking back, I now see the game that these men play when they will not tell me about themselves or their tribulations and focus solely on me. It is not because they are a selfless, caring person. It is because THEY ARE HIDING SOMETHING! But, because I am, and always have been an open person, I fall quickly into this trap like it is quicksand, and tell them everything about me. Before I know it, I have talked for the entirety of the conversation and know very little about them.

The story continues with me falling into this very trap with Henry. I told him my story and we had a very nice conversation, one that would lead to more. Again, because I was excited at the commonality between Henry and I, I seemed to have ignored the “red flags” that should have made me run in the opposite direction. Again, I didn’t, and after two weeks of talking and falling “in like” with him, I got it out of him. His secret. His reasons for being single. We all have them, don’t we?

First of all, it sort of slipped out when he was talking about getting a ride with his buddy to work. It sort of clicked in my head that perhaps he didn’t have either a car or a license or both, when he told me that he had figured the mileage from his place to mine was within bike riding distance. As the story began to unravel, I became more and more horrified. Not only did he have his license taken away for several accounts of drunk driving, he would not be getting it back for another year.

He gave me his Jesus talk and that the good Lord had steered him down the right path when another white elephant stepped into the room and curtsied. He told me that he had molested his brother when they were young because his next door neighbor had molested him. His exact words were spoken exasperatingly, as I told him that he seriously needed counseling (and I am not kidding) “My peter was only in his mouth for a second”. The conversation ended that night with me telling him that he was on the right path, and just to keep looking to Jesus.

Yikes. I realize that this may sound heartless, but I do have a young son whom I would never want to put in harm’s way. Imagine what could unfold from this situation and you could see the horrific possibilities that were unraveling in my mind, as I thought about inviting this man into my life. I just couldn’t do it. We are all put here on earth, I believe, to help people, but I was strongly convinced that day that he was not on my roster of people to help.

I continued to trot down the lane of disaster of online dating. Thank God I had only met a handful of these men in real life and had not seriously dated any of them thus far. They came and they went, telling their tales, singing their songs of being great people, etc. etc. as more and more horror passed by. I felt like I was interviewing candidates for a CEO position and all I could find was people who were eligible to work at McDonalds. But, being ever hopeful, I trotted on with hope in my heart and confusion obviously still in my mind.

To read Gigi’s Part III, see The Adventures of a Thoroughly Confused Gigi – Part III