Silent Understanding

I am the queen of remembering people.
In fact, I'm a Super Recognizer, which is someone with an amazing ability to recognize faces.

I learned a long time ago that not everyone has this ability. I use to recognize someone and I'd say, "Hey! Remember like 4 years ago you were in Nauvoo on family vacation, and your family went to the Fudge Factory?! I was working that day!" Or "Remember that class of 175 students you were in last semester, you sat in the 3rd row and had a purple checkered book-bag? I was in that class too!" People don't remember stuff like that, and to have someone basically say "I was watching you!!!!" is unsettling for them.

I've learned to not say anything to someone I recognize until they say something to me. If I'm with a group of friends I'll say, "See that guy in the green shirt? He was in the Allyn House last year and bought a bookmark!"
I was working on Saturday and a man walked into the store who I knew I had seen before.  My mind started making connections, placing his face into different scenarios in my head trying to figure out where I'd seen him before. Then it hit me; I'd seen and read his online dating profile. What's more, he had emailed me a couple of times.

It's been a good three months since the last email, but I felt really weird. I kept trying to hide my face so that on the off chance he DID recognize me, we didn't have to have that awkward, "Hey!" conversation.
As far as I know he never made the connection. After about twenty minutes of wandering around the store with his friends, he left without buying anything. For which I was actually grateful, because then I didn't have to 1 on 1 interact with him.
I'm surprised I haven't seen more people wondering around Nauvoo from online. It's an LDS dating site, and Nauvoo is a LDS tourist destination.
I hope that if I see someone whose profile I've seen and they reocginze me too, we'd just do that casual head-nod/smile that says, "Yeah...I know you're a .com dater, and you know I'm a .com dater, but we don't have to talk about it!"

Take A Leap

A million points to whoever can name where this image comes from. And just like the the Swiss army, the points don't matter! Also...a million points if you can name where that "line" came from!

.com dating is scary.

I've mentioned in previous blogs how hard it is to trust what you are reading in people's profiles, and what you are being told by the people who talk to you.

How do you ever really know that what they are saying it real?

How do you ever really know what their intentions are?

I don't even think those "worries" are exclusive to .com dating. You never really "know" people. People you thought would never be capable of doing something, do the very thing you think them incapable of. How do you trust people?!

I'm not a weirdo who thinks no one can be trusted. I KNOW some people in the .com universe are honest. I know this because I'm one of those people, and others have to exist. Plus I've seen real live .com dating success stories.  Still, I'm very very very skeptical of the strangers I meet online.

I was contacted by a guy recently who was very forward. Not inappropriately forward. Just very much like, "This is what I'm thinking...how do YOU feel about it?"
I've had other guys be forward, but this guy's (we'll call him, Nonso) forward was different.

After a few days of talking to Nonso, I confessed to him that .com dating is kind of creepy, and scared me for the above stated reason: You just never really know who these people are.
I said to him, "You don't know me, and I don't know you!"

He then called me out.

He said for someone who professes to be a Christian, trusting God 100%, I don't have any faith.

He said, "If you really want to know if my intentions are pure, ask God, because He DOES know me."

I was...surprised.

Nonso is 100% right.
I spend all this time worrying about who these people are, and the answer is SO simple.
But sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to grasp.

Men vs. Women

Ain't that the truth!