INTERNET DATES FROM HELL Page 2

  As I entered the coffee shop, the aroma of myriad coffee beans filled my nostrils. The sensory overload was rudely overpowered by the loud noise permeating the coffee shop. I couldn’t decide what was worse, the sound of the milk steamer or the useless chatter from a table of Goth teens sitting in the back. I chose the milk steamer, as I have been taught to forgive immaturity.

  Not knowing Internet dating etiquette, I decided not to sit and wait; I got in line and ordered a cappuccino. As I waited, I turned to face the door. Several men came in, and each time one entered, my heart stopped as I nervously wondered whether each one was Chris. After a few minutes, my cappuccino was ready. Just as I received my change from the cashier, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

  “Hey,” the person said. The voice was female. I numbly turned around.

  “Hi, I am Chris,” the woman said. Confused, I replied, “I don’t understand. I thought you were a guy!”

  “I am not a guy, but if I told you I was a woman, you wouldn’t have wanted to meet me.”

  “Well, you’re right. I’m not a lesbian and that’s your mistake.” I was so pissed that I inadvertently knocked my cappuccino all over the counter, and onto both of our shoes to boot! Realizing my stupidity, I scurried for the door while overhearing Chris yelling, “Don’t knock it unless you’ve tried it!”

  To think that I had stayed up late the night before plotting my next course of events and had lost sleep over this date! I felt like a fool. However, when one plays with fire, one gets burned. With Internet dating, the inexperienced cannot only get burned, but also scorched and charred, if not careful.

  This concludes our first lesson. Talk to the prospective date on the telephone at least once before going out on a date. If I had done so, I would have detected a subterfuge. I also think I should have asked for a photo taken without sunglasses. People who insist on wearing sunglasses in photos normally are hiding something. When I got home, I wanted to take my ad down and forget the whole damn online dating thing. And get rid of my outdated sunglasses. Yet, as fate would have it, when I opened my inbox, 132 new responses were present! I guess the head shot worked! From this point onward, my technique would be different…

  2

  Ask for a Recent Photo

  March 1997

  A month later I adopted a better procedure. Sifting through all the e-mails, I would first read the response and then download the photo. Based on chapter 1’s lesson, if a person wore shades in the photo, I would request another photo taken without sunglasses. A day later, I would contact the person by phone if he supplied his phone number. For safety’s sake, I would call him from a blocked number. It’s a good idea to leave only a few crumbs in the beginning of one’s dating trail.

  Some have even suggested using *67 to block one’s caller ID. In today’s world where identity theft is so prevalent, using this method may be advisable.

  If the person sounded eccentric or freaky, I would politely excuse myself from any further discussion. If the person was interesting to talk to, I would plan to meet him at a public place such as a diner or coffee shop close to my apartment, so I wouldn’t put myself in jeopardy. Being within a three-block radius of your home is a great idea for a first date.

  A stage actor named Paul contacted me. He described himself as a six foot one inch thirty-four-year-old living on the Upper West Side. He fit the requirements of my request. As did I, Paul enjoyed travel, biking, and museums. He included two photos of himself. The first photo, a black-and-white head shot, was reminiscent of a young Sylvester Stallone from the early Rocky films. This made me a tad apprehensive. I remembered the character as good-looking and dull-witted. The last thing I needed was another good-looking, dim-witted celebrity-like character. What’s worse than waking up after five years of marriage to a husband with the intellectual capacity of a twenty-year-old? (Although haven’t some of us met some very mature twenty-year-olds?)

  The second photo was a group shot consisting of a foursome outside the 19th hole at his country club. Standing third from the left with his arms around golfers’ number two and four, he seemed gregarious, athletic, and jovial, which intrigued me. What bothered me was I couldn’t discern the year the photograph was taken.

  I wrote back to Paul telling him that I liked his profile and thanked him for his photographs (learning from my first mistake, I began to insist on at least two photographs to confirm gender). I also requested his phone number. It didn’t take long for him to respond with an e-mail that included not only his cell phone number, but also his home and work numbers. I decided to call him at home in the early evening. After talking on the phone for more than an hour, I found out that the group golf photo was taken a few years back. Although the photo wasn’t recent, I went ahead and planned to meet him the next day at a diner across the street from my apartment.

  I got there early and took a seat in a booth facing the door so I could see him enter the diner before he would see me. I waited in anticipation for what seemed to be hours, but only five minutes had passed when a huge guy entered the diner, waved at me, and sat down next to me. “Hi, I’m Paul,” he said as he picked up the menu. He didn’t look anything like his photo. He must have weighed at least 280 pounds, and none of the additional weight was muscle! In the photo he was at least 80 pounds lighter! I didn’t want to say anything about his weight, of course, but I had to say something. He also looked at least fifteen years older than in the photos, which perturbed me more! If this is what Internet dating was—deception—I needed to decide whether this was for me.

  “Your eyes are even bluer in person,” Paul shared. Just when I had generated enough courage to say something, a tired waitress interrupted the moment as she came to our table and said, “What will you have?” I imagined telling the waitress that I wanted the fastest way out of the diner, but instead I ordered a Diet Coke. Paul ordered a cheeseburger deluxe with a side order of onion rings and a chocolate milk shake. I was sure his present weight was a direct result of frequently ordering healthy meals like this! I thought to myself, “Boy, this date will turn out to be over an hour long.” Paul didn’t even notice that I only ordered a Diet Coke; he was too busy drooling over the food photos on the menu.

  I casually remarked, “I didn’t recognize you, Paul. Were the photos that you sent me recent?”

  Paul immediately responded, “No, they were taken years ago. I look different now because I had to gain a lot of weight for a role I had to play as a Vietnam vet.”

  “Oh, what was the name of the play?” I inquired. He then told me that he did not remember the play’s name. Of course, I knew the whole story was a crock of bull.

  I don’t believe that I am overly shallow. However, if I’m not attracted to the candidate, we might as well not even meet. I tried to give Paul the benefit of the doubt, asking him about any other roles that warranted a drastic weight increase or decrease to fulfill. To this day I’ll never know if he heard my question or not, for no sooner did I ask him than he responded, “Would you reach over and grab that ketchup bottle from the other table? I think ours is empty.”

  After the date I went home very disappointed and found solace in binging on Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream while opening my e-mail. I counted my responses over the first week. I had received a total of 840 responses and had met two deceitful people—but as I was learning the ways of Internet dating, I realized that there was much more to the equation.

  3

  Don’t Meet Your Date in a Foreign Country

  March 1997

  A few weeks later, I again perused the subject lines in the sea of e-mails. Here are a few examples: “You Are Hot!,” “Nice Knockers,” “Hey Babe!,” and “Are you a natural blonde?” Just to get a laugh, I opened a few. The rest I deleted right away. I included a sampling of some of the more outrageous responses in Part IV (just in case you need a laugh, too).

  While scrolling through my e-mail, I discov
ered one with this subject line: “Englishman in New York.” I was compelled to closely examine this response. This respondent claimed to be Simon, although after my first experience with Chris (from chapter 1), I was a little leery regarding “name sincerity.” Since the response appeared charming and witty, I responded.

  His profile read as follows: “I am a 6’1”, thirty-eight-year-old, buff, blond, blue-eyed writer…residing in a quaint cottage in a hamlet within Kent, England.” His occupation (although quite obtuse at first glance) was a writer (of what, I still do not know to this day). Although this intrigued me, for I consider myself somewhat well-read and a fair-to-middling writer, I was skeptical because he never mentioned the nature of his writing. Novels? Biographies? Children’s books? Self-help books? Comic books?

  As a hopeless romantic, I was intrigued by foreign lands and foreign literature. This seemed perfect! However, perfect is a relative term. But I am a sucker for the exotic. Once again, more celestial than earthbound, I neglected to consider the main ingredient—distance! To the Brits, four thousand miles is a “skip over the pond”; however, to us mortal Americans, that is a five-to six-hour plane ride across a turbulent Atlantic Ocean. Not to mention the $2,000 plane fare. Since he gave me a toll-free phone number, I was curious; I decided to call the next morning.

  His English accent pulled all the right strings and seduced me. Stating he was only two hours away via the Concorde, he said he would fly in a heartbeat to meet me at JFK. What would I have to lose? We spoke on the phone several times during the next couple of weeks, finalizing the plans for his trip to the United States. I was to meet him at the gate of the flight from Heathrow to JFK. If he was half as attractive as the photo indicated, then this would be a great experience!

  I finally discovered the essence of his writing talent during our telephone conversations. He claimed that he wrote political exposes regarding the White House and its internal affairs, as well as other political issues. Wow! A far cry from the comic books I feared he wrote. Although as a child I loved Archie, Veronica, and friends, unfortunately Jughead is the character I most resembled before this debacle ended. I didn’t really delve into exactly what he did; I just got caught up in this “James Bond” type and was hooked by talking to him.

  When I saw him in the crowd of passengers, he looked exceptional! Staring at his radiant smile, flowers in hand, I nearly fell over someone’s carry-on bag. After a polite peck on the cheek, which I felt proved his gentlemanly manner, we collected his bags. I drove him to the Marriott Marquis in Midtown as we exchanged small talk. After introducing him to a few friends, we headed to Central Park for a picnic. Since this was not his first time in the United States, or in Central Park, he knew exactly where to go—Sheep’s Meadow. I was impressed! I was so relieved that I had worn my light blue sundress that day, because it was perfect. Although I had an itinerary planned, he took the reins; this too impressed me, for that’s exactly what I needed at that time of my life—someone to take control.

  By the end of the weekend, his control was dominating. At the airport, Simon bought a first-class round-trip ticket to London for me to use a couple of weeks later. Talk about hook, line, and sinker. I was netted and gaffed before I knew it.

  For the next two weeks, I couldn’t think of anything but Big Ben, Piccadilly Square, and fish and chips. I even went so far as to listen to old Elton John albums, just to get into the British mind-set. Even the Oxford English Dictionary looked good, for I needed to brush up on my British terminology. Did you know that the English call an eraser a “rubber” and a cigarette a “fag”? I didn’t. Nor did I know a bundle of sticks is a “faggot,” an apartment a “flat,” and a wastepaper basket a “dustbin.” Odd!

  Minutes before landing, I put on my spectator pumps once again, which matched my stylish sailor dress brilliantly. When I landed at Heathrow, Simon was at the gate, looking exceptional. How he got his teeth so white, I’ll never know. We loaded my luggage into the car and spent the remainder of the day in London. We even stopped to “take” high tea with scones and fresh cream. At that point I felt strangely like a Charlotte Bronte character, except that I had everything I wanted.

  But nothing could have prepared me for what came next. After a wonderful day we went back to his so-called “cottage,” which was actually an English Tudor mansion! I was so jet lagged that I went to sleep in one of his many bedrooms, which was actually an apartment containing a dressing room, a parlor, a lavatory, and a view of the veranda. I was thankful that he truly was the gentleman he portrayed.

  The next day we enjoyed muesli and cream and took a ride to Canterbury, where we experienced the beauty of the cathedral where Chaucer’s pilgrims journeyed, the burial site of Saint Thomas a Becket (the blissful martyr), poet’s corner, and a plethora of enchanting country roads and village shops. Before we knew it, even Simon admitted we were lost and I believed him. You might think this was the oldest trick in the book, like an American high school boy running out of gas to cop a feel or, as the British put it, steal a peck. Nevertheless, we were indeed lost! As we veered down one country road after another at a very comfortable speed of forty miles per hour, I never felt apprehensive or worried, because both Simon and the Jaguar were handling the situation brilliantly. The bucolic scenery was breathtaking.

  Finally, after forty-five minutes of enjoying the views, Simon recognized more of a road than the dirt paths we had been traveling on. As if Chaucer himself were personally guiding us, we found ourselves at the outskirts of London, at the threshold of The Tabard in Southwark. For some reason this ancient public house intimidated me. Simon’s explanation clarified why. I was where the pilgrims originally departed from in Chaucer’s great story. Amazed, I marveled at the excellent quality of the building’s restoration. I couldn’t wait to get inside, where I was transported back in time. It was no longer the twentieth century. Although the people were dressed in twentieth-century garb, eating and drinking in front of me, the surroundings took me closer to the fourteenth century. At the waitress’s insistence, we ordered bangers and mash and, for dessert, a slice of pork pie. Even though the English are known for bland food, I truly enjoyed these dishes. It may have been the company, the surroundings, or both, but I have never looked at sausage and potatoes the same since. After great post-meal revelry (guitars and English country folk ballads), we booked the last two rooms that The Tabard had available.

  After the customary English farewell, we thanked the host and headed north to York to meet Simon’s dad. At this point, Simon alerted me that the drive was about three and a half hours from Southwark to York, but he assured me that it would be worth it.

  As our drive commenced, Simon was right to ask whether I had slept well. I felt extreme fatigue without any reason. In the midst of one of his sentences, I think I fell asleep. Blame it on jet lag, the lush countryside, the antiquity of Southwark, or a combination of the three. I could’ve sworn he told me his father had left his mum for his kindergarten teacher. My slumber must’ve been only minutes long, because when I awoke he was still talking, not even realizing I had dozed off. The topic was still his family, so the jury was still out on whether he had said that or I had imagined it.

  Simon was right; it was three and a half hours to York. After approximately three hours, he told me it wouldn’t be much longer. We turned onto yet another country road, and he told me to look for an imposing eight-foot stone wall with a wooden shingle reading Kensington Manor. Finding it, he turned left through an enormous arched wrought-iron gate, which seemed to be hundreds of years old. The scroll on the shingle was calligraphic. It too was not of this century, or even of the last two. Even the wood itself seemed to have endured at least two hundred years of English rain and snow. As we drove between two gargantuan hedgerows, which seemed to run for miles, Simon’s jack-o’-lantern grin frightened me. Talk about a Bronte novel, this was far more ominous than anything Jane and Catherine, put together, had ever experienced. As t
he hedges disappeared, the house was remotely visible at the end of two rows of about a hundred yards of enormous Norway maples. I hesitantly looked to the right at Simon, hoping the grin was more Cheshire-cat at this point. I was relieved. His face was as normal as I knew it in the brief time we had spent together. I decided it was a good time to refresh my lipstick. Circling the enormous fountain and listening to the crush of

  English limestone under the Jag’s tires, my apprehension faded, and exhilaration returned.

  Staring at the enormity of the edifice, I didn’t realize that Simon had opened my door. How in the hell did he turn off the ignition, exit his side, circle the car, and open my door that quickly? Needless to say, there was something wrong here.