Why Online Dating Scares Me
I hear people talk about how easy it is to hook up on Myspace and on sites like True.com and I’m pretty surprised. As I’ve stated before, I’ve had a bad experience with it. I was dared by an old friend of mine to open up an account on True.com some months ago and well I took the bait on the assumption that I would get paid for any irrevocable mental damage I would incur. Twenty-four hours later I had some women interested in my young self. I’m nineteen and I’m a fairly decent looking fellow. Discount a few things like my smoking habit and the amount of cursing I do when I speak and I’m a pretty appealing fellow in the right light I suppose.
This woman in question was about twenty-four years old. Five years makes a hell of a lot of difference, especially if I’m the younger one. This woman, and I don’t use the phrase lightly, had a child that was about two years old. The father from what I came to understand from what she told me was a deadbeat that pretty much knocked her up and jumped ship after he found out she was pregnant. Don’t get me wrong, I can understand emotional baggage and the like. I have a fair amount of mental scars myself. Emotional baggage that has been given physical form like a child is a whole different game though. There are numerous factors to consider like getting a sitter and making sure the child gets in bed at a reasonable hour.
I decide to go ahead and make a date. What’s the worst that can happen after all? I send her an e-mail and then obtain her phone number. I call late afternoon when I’m sure the kid isn’t sleeping and she’s out of work. We arrange plans and decide to meet for dinner somewhere around town. I’m a nice guy in the respect that I will doll up for something like a first proper date. I will wear a suit and go the full mile outside of a tie. Ties are for job interviews and funerals in my honest opinion so I stray as often as I possibly can from wearing them, another story though. A few days pass and the date finally comes up and I show up a few minutes prior. I’m waiting out front, catching a cigarette before she shows up because I have no clue whether or not she’s okay with that kind of thing. As I’m crushing it out on the heel of my loafer I meet my online hookup for the first time. She’s a pretty girl, the onset of five years difference makes for a world of change. Her features are slightly more mature than mine but it isn’t a big deal.
Date goes swimmingly and she doesn’t focus too much on herself, instead we steer the direction of the conversation on myself. I don’t mind too much, I can talk about some stuff about myself and keep going without boring someone to death. We eat and then leave. We’re walking around in the park and she goes for a kiss. Naturally I oblige. First base gets rounded while she’s in this sleek little dress and I’m in a suit. We go back to her place while her kid is at her sister’s home. Put two and two together and yes I had sex with a woman a half decade older than I am. I end up spending the night because things get wrapped up around three in the morning and I’m too tired to go home. I sleep with her and we agree to go get her kid in the morning.
Morning comes, and I’m groggy and tired. My body is still a tad drained from the activities of the night before. We go and get her kid, and the child is adorable. As I’m eating lunch with her and the child later on, she gets up and leaves the room. I give her child a quarter for being so damn cute and leave, because I can’t honestly handle something so clingy so early on. I inevitably discover that perhaps the majority of women looking for love online are like this. Well, I’m not game for that. I lost a fair amount on the date and my buddy shelled out about sixty recouping me my expenses. I close the account and go about my merry way.
I suppose it’s cold that I left an emotional woman behind with this child of hers. But honestly would you stick around for something after one night? If she starts getting clingy that’s often times a sign that you need to get the hell out of dodge. I have buddies that swear by dating on Myspace and the like and get bewildered when the girls go crazy for some reason. If they’re looking for something online, chances are the reason it isn’t working out in real-life is because they are as crazy as can be. I usually have morals at the end of any story I tell that ends up in me looking like a bad guy. No real moral aside from don’t do things online with people. It takes a fair amount of gumption to admit you’re crazy and find a like minded crazy person in real-life, there’s no shame in that either. By all means go for it in that case. But please for the love of God don’t deceive easily perturbed folks like myself when you whip out that clinging nature or the depths of your insanity. Chances are we’re going to get away fast.
Don’t sign up for online dating folks, you’re going to end up meeting someone that’s nice on the surface with deeply rooted problems that you honestly don’t need. If you feel you owe it to the world to fix them, by all means go for it. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.
