Thursday, February 18, 2010

MUST LOVE DOGS

Have you seen the movie Must Love Dogs? I vaguely remember seeing it... I don't remember many of the details of the movie, except I remember thinking "I am living this".

Within the first year of being widowed I was visiting my sisters and it was determined that they would enroll me in an online dating service. I believe the goal was to find a hunky man who just happened to live within a few short miles of my sisters. For, then I would certainly want to move to the west!

My oldest sister set up my profile. I don't remember all that it said, but I do remember it promising burned toast for laughs. At least she didn't try to over-sell me. She paid the $30.00 fee and my sisters found the chore of finding Mr. Right for me to be very enjoyable. My father thought it was the best $30.00 we ever spent in terms of the quantity of entertainment it was providing. I had planned on being in the west for two weeks. Within a few days of my arrival they had found a particular gentleman to stalk. Yes, stalk. We are a scary group. He looked cute enough to intrigue me...so I sent him some messages. Once we had his name - we went to google... trying to find out everything and anything there is to know. I have one sister who is particularly good at stalking men. I will have to share her talent in more depth at a later time. Once we had a general idea of who he was, and we had yet to find any newspaper articles indicting him for any crimes... he began getting messages from my sisters under my account. Don't worry - they identified themselves as being someone other than I when sending the messages. He partook of our game and played well except for the few occasions he found his own real life to be more important than prompt replies the the messages that were being sent.

Time was ticking. The days for me to be in the west were coming to an end and I had not even come close to falling for this guy. Of course, I had not even met this guy. It had been determined his living location was within the allowable distance from my sisters. A move had to be made. He was baited... we waited.... and all cheered when he took the bait and invited me to lunch.

We met at a lunch location of the Mexican variety. He was tall... dark haired... we were off to a pretty good start. As the conversation began I found him to have a terrific sense of humor. I made a few quiet jokes that he did not react to... I presumed he obviously had not heard me. After he held the talking floor for a time he commented "I sometimes get sick of dating, because I feel like it's all about me when I tell my life story". I replied "I can understand. If it would make you feel more comfortable, I am OK with this being all about ME". OK. I thought that was funny. He didn't react. He continued the conversation.

The conversation wasn't bad - but I quickly noticed that every time I made a joke, he did not react. That's it. You HAVE to find me a little bit funny it you want me to spend any time with you.

We made it to the parking lot a couple hours later. He reached in and received my cheek as a landing place for his proposed buss.

I returned home to the anxious crowd looking for details. My details were very direct. He didn't find me funny. It was suggested that perhaps I was not funny. But, I felt he could have at least been cordial enough to pretend I was funny!

They fed me lines like "He was too distracted by your beauty to notice your jokes". If only He's Just Not That Into You had already come out... then I could have been spared these lies.

I was somehow coerced into a second date. Breakfast at a pancake establishment shortly before leaving town. This interaction was shorter as he had to be to work by a set time. I was fine with that. Although, he did seem more relaxed, more interested, and laughed more.

I never did figure out which of my sisters warned him previous to this second encounter.

Alas, it was not meant to be. I flew home and returned to my normal life (which did not include the on-line dating scene). He continued on, and I was told he married not too long after. And in all the craziness of this world he ended up moving to the same town as my sister and was a teacher to one of her sons. The sad part? My nephew was keen enough on my love life to recognize the pieces of this puzzle and put it all together!

2 comments:

  1. I believe that VideoKid (names have been changed to protect the innocent) was not ready to give up on the possibility of you being Mrs. VideoKid for several months after your encounter. He was a cutie and remember his voicemail on his cell phone? And we called it over and over just to listen to it 'cause it was so funny? And then one time he answered (probably thinking whoever it was that was calling him must have an emergency to call five times in 2 minutes) and we all screamed?

    Please can we sign you up for LDS Singles again? It was SO much fun!

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  2. Do you people see this? Really, Deb you need to watch "He's Just Not That Into You" and give up the lines....

    I forgot all about the voicemail on his phone...very entertaining. This would of course be another reason I used the term 'stalk' when referring to us. I had to call him back to back repeatedly so everyone could hear what his voicemail said. On the other side - one who does not know better - would think I was truly psychotic!

    Of course, do those who are crazy know they are crazy?

    No - no more online dating.

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