Before I take you on this journey with me, dear readers, I want you to make a promise to me: I want you to promise that you will read through the entire post before commenting.
There is a lot going on in this post and almost none of it is good. It should be pretty entertaining though (at my expense, no doubt).
Enjoy!
I met him on OkCupid. I had emailed him about two weeks before I made the decision to be more or less done with OkCupid. This was right about the same time that I decided to not write about ALL of my Date Reports and to perhaps be a bit more veiled in sharing with men that I’m dating about the blog.
Our first date we on a Thursday night. I met him in Little Five Points at The Porter. I was a little weirded out by the fact that he had his camera draped over his shoulder like a purse, but whatever. He’s a photographer, right? I threw him a bone.
He was perfectly nice on the date. Engaging, interesting, polite, complimentary. He was attractive, but in a nontraditional sense. And no, that doesn’t mean he was ugly! It was a very lovely little date, brief though, because I had worked late and had to work early the next morning. He paid for dinner and encouraged me to order the very expensive Belgian beer that the server suggested.
At one point, he stopped me while I was chomping on a burger the size of my head to say, “You are really naturally beautiful. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you. What were you saying?”
Good stuff, you guys. I wasn’t HOOKED, per se, but I was looking forward to another date with him.
Our second date was the following weekend. He had been calling a good bit, maybe too much, but I was still enjoying his daily updates. He and I would exchange text messages all day. For our second date, I met him at his house. He was making me dinner and we were watching a movie, one that I selected from his collection, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Dinner was lovely and the movie was good. We were sort of cuddling on the couch and made out a little.
Now, this is where it all starts to go wrong. I know that there are a lot of things that are just a matter of preference — there isn’t a wrong or a right way to do something. Know what I mean? But his kissing… It was wrong you guys. Not all of it, but he did this thing were he sort of… sucked my bottom lip into his mouth and just like… held it there. For an extended series of uncomfortable seconds. He did it several times and each time, I would suck my own lip back into my mouth with a loud sort of SMACK sound. I tried to give him cues with my own kissing… And with my facial expression (it was something like, “Dude. STOP that.”) Eventually, I just decided it wasn’t worth bringing up. Not yet. I didn’t really know him well enough to know how he would react to being called out on his sub-par spit swapping.
The rest of that date was lovely. It really was. And I’m thinking… Ok. So he can’t kiss. People can learn how to kiss right? It’s not that I had intentions of changing him, but if you’re dating someone who is inexperienced, eventually, they gain experience and things get better, right? I was hoping for that anyway.
Then, the texting got… Weird.
I got one that said, “I cherish you.”
Weird. But on a scale of 1-10, we’re dealing with a level two here.
Then, one where he quoted Sinatra lyrics, “Yes, you’re lovely.”
And these were randomly sprinkled throughout the day. They weren’t prompted… They weren’t in any sort of context. And dude, c’mon. Dial down the romance a bit, eh? We.just.met.
Because of my schedule, I only get one night a week and every other weekend as “me” time. I choose not to get a babysitter on the nights that I have my son at home because a) babysitters aren’t cheap and b) I just think it’s better for my son if I am home when he is home.
He expressed disappointment that, because my one night a week was being taken up by Grey’s Anatomy night with my best friend, he would have to wait two weeks until he could see me again. I understand that it can be frustrating. With a single mother, you can’t really follow the same sort of scheduling pattern that you follow with a childless woman.
I ended up meeting him for lunch on a weekday, as a compromise. It would be a short date, but I was interested in seeing if he was actually weird or if I was reading into him too much.
We met in midtown at Ted’s Montana Grill on a Wednesday. I beat him there and when he arrived and greeted me like a husband greets his wife of 15 years. All too familiar. Keep in mind, this is our third date, the first one being a short dinner date and the second one being a date filled with weird physical lip sucking. But lunch was really fine. He walked me to my car, embraced and split.
I got a text message from him that afternoon that said, “I want to turn into a metal monster and pierce you with a drill penis killing you and having to assimilate with me so we can be one.”
WHAT THE FUCK? Apparently, after I flipped out on him, he explained that it was some sort of plot from a Japanese horror flick from the 1980s. That didn’t really smooth it over in my mind because we had not been talking about Japanese cinema, robots, or really drill penises of any sort of material.
So strange.
Thursday evening, he went to a concert — Juliette Lewis at the Drunken Unicorn. He had invited me, but it was ladies night as Grey’s Anatomy was starting a new season. I got my friend’s house and turned my ringer off.
When I left her house at 11:45 that night, I had missed seven text messages from him, all sent within the span of about two hours.
The first strange text that night was, “I hope you don’t mind. Juliette Lewis will be humming on my balls later tonight.”
Uh. Ok.
Then, “I want to lick your teat.” Followed by a quick revision, “Twat.” Apparently, his iphone spell check had not recognized the word Twat. Perhaps that’s because it might be the ugliest word in the history of the universe.
DUDE. I want to lick your twat?! Who the fuck says that? EVER??
I texted him back, “How much have you had to drink?”
His reply? “Your mom.” Classy.
I was not amused. If he had not already been kind of strange and weird, I would have brushed it off as drunk texting or inappropriate humor. But this was just too much.
With everything else, I was just done. There was no amount of understanding that could further extend to this bumbling wreck of a man.
He kept calling, kept texting. I was answering his calls less and less, ignore more texts. He seemed to be picking up on the distance I was creating and asked me if we could talk about whatever was bothering me. So we did. I explained to him that I did not have a twat. That the word twat might be the ugliest word for a vagina, next to roast beef curtain and baby spitter. It’s not something you say to a woman that you hope to be intimate with. I explained to him how the culmination of all of the creepy things that he said to me had my guard up because I was beginning to think he was a crazy person. I leveled with him, as gently as I could, but certainly firmly.
He apologized. Expressed to me that he just liked me. That he felt like I was a good catch. Blah blah blah. I was tired of talking to him — we spent two days on the phone discussing this whole situation and I didn’t feel like he was hearing me at all.
He mentioned that I was on his iphone now. I was curious what that meant and he explained that it was a picture of me winking. “When did you take it?” “Oh, I didn’t. It’s from your facebook page. I just liked it a lot and it was the right size and stuff, so I saved it. [in a lower voice that was trailing off] That’s creepy right?”
YES McFLY! It’s creepy!
So I ended the conversation by asking him to please just give me some space right now. “Let’s talk sometime towards the middle of next week, okay?”
This was Friday. As you all know, I had no internet at home over the last couple of weeks. He knew this, as well, and had even attempted to help me troubleshoot the issue. However, AFTER I asked him to give me some space, I had NINE emails from him.
Nine.
One for a coupon to get a mani/pedi which was strange considering we had never talked about the condition of my toenails or fingernails. A level two weird factor. Or maybe it was a passive aggressive move on his part? If so, a level seven asshole factor, for sure.
A few pictures from the concert he had attended the week before and some clips of live music at the park that he ate lunch in. Not weird at all.
Pictures from a vacation that he took a couple of years ago. Sort of weird considering we had never really discussed this vacation — again with the whole no-frame-of-reference for the context of what he was sharing with me. A level one weird factor.
One with a conversation that he was eavesdropping on while on his lunch break in the park. A level five weird factor.
Then… Then he sent me this.
This is quite possibly the strangest thing I have ever received. Oh, and it’s scary. Did I mention that? And creepy. But it’s also hysterical, in a very unintentional way. Bless his heart.
His email said, “I dedicate this to my new close friend, you.”
Um. Ok.
Did you catch that? That’s “Please Don’t Go Girl” by the New Kids On The Block. He did a little thing there with the scary whispering and the lyric changing (“I will always love you” –> “I will always like you”) that simultaneously made the skin on my face turn a very ill shade of white and made this deep, earthy, guttural laughter reverberate out from my gut in such a fashion as to shake the house. I have not laughed this hard since…
…
God. I really can’t recall a time that I have laughed this hard.
For that, I thank him. I mean… GOOD GOD. What was he thinking?!
Was this the internet equivalent of Lloyd Dobbler standing in my driveway with his ghetto blaster above his head, Peter Gabriel working his way through my window panes?
Oh? No. See. No. Because Dianne Cort had a ROMANCE with Lloyd Dobbler that lasted all.summer.long. Not just two and a half dates. Plus, Lloyd Dobbler wasn’t weird, he was quirky, but he was perfectly reasonable and respectable. Oh, and? THEY WERE IN HIGH SCHOOL!
This situation was something else altogether.
After he sent me that song, I just… I have been ignoring his calls and texts. I know it’s not the most MATURE thing to do, but dammit — DUDE CREEPED ME THE FUCK OUT! If he really IS a crazy person, engaging with him would be heavily advised against by local law enforcement, right??
When I deleted him from my facebook page, he sent me a text that afternoon, “I can’t find you on facebook!” I replied, “I took you off my facebook this morning.”
His completely sane and reasonable answer to that? “Oh ok.” Then he proceeded to send me multiple texts with the lyrics from the theme to Good Times.
DUDE. Synapses. Not. Connecting. Electrical. Brain. Activity. Off. The. Charts.
He’s called a couple of times trying to make plans to go out with me since then. First it was going to be a jazz club and dinner, then the drive in, then the State Fair, then a local music festival… Then he suggested we go to Jacksonville, Florida or Nashville, TN and stay in a hostel for the weekend. (DUDE.)
You want to take me into another state? Like… across state lines?
No, no, no, no, no, no.
He followed it up with a last ditch text on Friday evening, “So I guess you still need your space? 
” I couldn’t bear it any longer. I mean, I feel sorry for this dude that he doesn’t understand how creepy he is. I sent him a reply saying, “You have creeped me out beyond repair. The New Kids song sent me over the edge. Too much. Please don’t contact me again.”
Sweet, balanced individual that he is, he called me right the fuck back. Left me a message explaining that he wasn’t going to apologize for being nice. Blah de blah blah, he wishes me the best, blah de blah blah. He was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t.
Honestly, I’m the one that feels damned. Buh. I wonder if my dating life is karmically related to my work here on Date Wrecks. You know? The universe is sending me a giant “Fuck You, Jami!”
If you made it this far, I’d like to give you a prize, but really… Wasn’t hearing that song of his enough??
And before you guys start getting all “mom” on me, no he doesn’t know where I live, no I’m not fearful for my life, no I do not think he’s dangerous.
Just creepy. Creepy as fuck.
