"I'll grow on you." (Yeah, like genital warts.)

Too good to be true? You better believe it!

The above (pink) statement is gospel when it comes to dating, internet or otherwise. I had a recent encounter that was so bad, so stupidly bad, I’m having a hard time getting back on the horse. The taste it left in my mouth is beyond sour - !

Two weeks ago I canceled renewal to one of the sites I use, mostly because it was an overall failure at producing any viable “matches” for me. So, imagine my surprise, when the day after I canceled, I got a viable hit (I canceled but still had a week left on the original subscription). This person seemed like a good match, on paper. Retired military, works in a similar industry to mine - a little high on the age range - but things like his value system and interests seemed to out weigh that. The only thing not included was his picture. Now, I’ve never made that an issue in initial contact, because I refuse to ever meet anyone face-to-face w/o eventually obtaining a picture. So, we started corresponding, first through the on-line site and then through our respective personal email accounts. I asked him over-and-over for a picture. After the second photo request, he directed me to the internet, gave me his full name, and told me to ‘google’ him and I would find a couple of pictures taken in the course of his volunteer work. So, I did, and eventually found one photograph. It was indeed him, doing volunteer work….six years ago. The picture was a full body shot of him in a sitting position, in profile - not the most reveling image.

Here I will stop and ask the obvious: Was it a good enough picture for identification purposes? Maybe.

Was it a good enough and also recent enough picture for me to tell if there was an attraction? I wasn’t sure at the time, maybe 6 years ago (which is why I kept asking for pictures!!)!

He kept telling me he would go have a professional portrait taken (which wasn’t necessary for me, but he didn’t want to send anything he currently had). All the while we kept up the correspondence; sending 3, 4 emails a day, followed up by 2 hour phone conversations at night.

Wow! This was really looking promising! It had to be fate! We had so much in common. He was so kind and generous, a truly giving soul. About 4 or 5 days in we started talking about meeting. There was considerable distance between us, neither of us was local to the other, but it wasn’t an impossible obstacle either. (I still asked for pictures, even while making plans to meet.) Surely, if I have this much in common, this much “chemistry” with someone this soon - without having actually met them - I can get beyond the fact that they’re not handsome. I’ve been attracted to plenty of men w/ beautiful minds and so-so outer beauty. Why, when all else seems so right, wouldn’t this turn out any differently?

Hooo-boy! The things we’ll tell ourselves when we want something bad enough.

So, we decide upon a dinner date in a town that is definitely more in my backyard than his, but being a gentleman, he offers to make the longer commute. He makes reservations and we both exchange as how we are looking forward to meeting. Can’t wait! He tells me that he inquired about the professional portraits, but that by this time, they couldn’t be taken and received in time before we meet…. (Warning Will Robinson!! Warning!! Of course, not the first of many, many other alarms!!)

But by this time, we've exchanged too much information and I feel far too invested to even care about the photo any longer. (stupid, stupid-er, stupid-est!) Or so I think.

The day before 'date day,' we are talking on the phone – it has been approximately 1 week since this whole fiasco started – and he confides that he is already falling in love with me....... (A-WHOOOOGA, A-WHOOOOGA, A-WHOOOOGA, CLANG, CLANG, CLANG, WHOOOOOP, WHOOOOOP, WHOOOOP! RING-A-FUCKING-DING-A-LING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HELLO....!!!!!

Repeat above Hooo-boy!

I tell him he needs to back it up, that I don’t believe that’s appropriate at this juncture, period. He apologizes, agrees, and doesn’t mention it again…..until the next morning in an email (that I never read until this whole mess was behind me by 5 days.)..

About this time, dear reader, I’m sure you’re saying to yourself: “Honey, you are the BIGGEST fool I have ever heard of!” And you would be right, unfortunately.

Date day arrives and the game plan is that we will meet about 3 pm and take a stroll through town, perhaps stop at a bar and have a drink, and then proceed to dinner. I get a late start, so he is already waiting for me at the appointed place for meeting when I get there.

OMG.It.was.awful. Quite possibly the worst dating experience of my life.

I get out of the car and he’s right there at my door. I barely have the time to straighten up from the driver’s seat before he is hugging me and then kissing me on the mouth (no tongue, thank God!). I am immediately turned off! Even if he were not as unattractive as he is, I would be turned off! But, given that he is (to me) very unattractive…..

There is only ‘anti-chemistry’ present for me; and I am mortified that I may have to charade through a date I want to run from (a term/action he would repeatedly tell me I might want to do – in that self-depreciating way – upon our meeting. Another possible warning ya’ think??? I obviously ride the short bus when it comes to matters of the heart, *sigh*.). He hands me a small bouquet of flowers for which I’m grateful for, for the sheer distraction they provide me, so I don’t have to look at him. I think he says something about how happy he is but my memory for what is said between us is a blur in the immediate seconds following the ‘greeting.’ I suggest that we begin to walk. He clasps my hand in his. - Help! - It isn’t until we have crossed the street and are walking down the sidewalk that I begin to try and figure out how I can possibly get out of this. We walk along hand-in-hand, my heart is racing with anxiety and unabashed dread. I have the distraction of the shops to window shop in. At some point he asks me what I’m thinking and I can only reply that I’m ‘taking it all in’ (the sites). After even more awkward silence and uncomfortable non-conversation, we stop in a local watering hole to get a glass of wine. We sit down at the bar and he immediately says:

“You don’t feel anything, do you?” “I can tell, you know.”

Gee, what gave me away first? My lack of attention towards you, or the fact that I couldn’t even look at you???

Now, I’m not a mean person, and I’m no fan of confrontation either, but he’s hit the nail on the head and I don’t want to deny it – hurtful or not. So, I say “No, I don’t.” I’m sorry.” It should’ve ended right there, right? I should’ve gotten up, said how profusely sorry I was that I felt zero spark/connection and walked to my car and left. But I didn’t. Not because I’m a glutton for punishment (although Freud might say that’s exactly what I am due to my feelings of guilt), but because I knew I was hurting the guy by my obvious, heart-on-my-sleeve, utter rejection of him. So I suffered through the next 4-hours in the name of “being nice.”

Four hours of him vacillating between trying to convince me “to give us a chance, that he'd grow on me" (blech!), to “Let’s just end this now, I’ll go. But, I still think we could have a fun time together” to him talking too loud at dinner about “what a catch he is and how wrong I am for not seeing that; but that I can't help what I don't feel and I shouldn't feel bad, because I didn’t do anything wrong” and then finally, crying at the table in the restaurant when it was evident (I had never waivered) that he was not going to 'grow on me' in any capacity. He couldn’t even let it go as we walked back to our cars, at one point turning dramatically to face me in the middle of the sidewalk (with people around us) grabbing me by my arms and demanding: “Please, Datergirl, give us a chance, I can make you happy.” (Not if I can’t bear the thought of you kissing me even if I were blind drunk and my beer goggles were dirty; no, I don’t think you can, actually.).

The date finally ended w/ him dissolving in to tears hugging me good-bye in the parking lot and saying: “I hope you find someone that will make you happy. I just wish that someone was meeeee.” I hurriedly got in my car and left. I was so overwhelmed and emotionally exhausted that I called my daughter as I was leaving town and immediately dissolved, myself, into tears! I ended up pulling to the curb until I could pull myself together enough to continue driving. Fucking Bastard!!!

I have never experienced such a roller coaster of ‘passive-aggressive’ emotional behavior as I did this night. I was so stupid to stay and endure it, I should’ve apologized – hell, he should’ve apologized and then some – and then left.

Hindsight = 20/20.

I have yet to shake the residue feelings of revulsion that I feel for the entire experience, including my culpability in it. I know I didn’t do anything wrong in any of my dealings w/ this guy, whereas, he was rather deceitful to me. Not providing a photograph of himself that wasn’t 6 years old; and assuring me he was emotionally stable and ready for involvement when clearly, he was not. I do regret that things got as far as they did and I didn’t absolutely demand a picture, that was my fault, but it’s not like I didn’t ask, over and over and over again. There is little doubt that it would’ve gotten as far as it did had I dug in my heels in and demanded a full-face photo, and I believe he knew that, clearly. It’s why he stalled and made excuses about his security at his job, not wanting to put his picture on the internet, yet he was already out there – blah, blah, blah.

With these few days distance from the experience, it is so clear to me that I was manipulated into a spot he didn't think I could retreat from. So many warnings I should've paid attention to, but clearly ignored. Although the 'falling in love' statement was the door cracking open (should've been the ice cracking below my feet as I tumbled into the icy abyss!) to the horrible reality of what I was walking into, I still walked through it. It’s not like anybody active in on-line dating is going to say: “Not very attractive OTH male with heavy emotional baggage, weight issues and english teeth ISO an exceptional (if somewhat blind) woman completely out of my league.”

This guy thought that I was insecure enough that if he told me certain things that I would be intimidated or cowed into a relationship with him. Ick. Not.

This was a heavy lesson for me. One I won't soon forget. I could put a list of absolutes on my profile to help filter out this type; but that would probably just lead to encouraging more of the same into responding to me. Perhaps I should take a break from online dating for a while; but yet I still have a kernal of optimism. I believe there is that connection to be made. Unfortunately, I'm afraid I'll be overly cautious right now and look like a freak myself.

Ugh. The perils.