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!

Make Your Own Kind Of Music

That quote/phrase/saying, (whatever you want to call it) sums up my feelings exactly.

I was taught by my wonderful mother that I have worth, and I shouldn't base my success as a woman on if I have a boyfriend/husband. As a result of her constantly reminding me to love ME, I feel like I DO love me. I am a confident, independent woman.  I don't "need" someone to complete me, because I AM complete. If I had a husband he wouldn't be completing me, he'd be an addition to my complete-self.
Metaphor Warning: It's like singing a solo compared to singing a duet. Both can be beautiful, both can be awful; but one isn't better than the other just because there is an additional voice. Does that make sense?
But...just like the picture above says, there is something so appealing about having that "someone".

Which is why I ".com date". Because even though I'm happy singing my own song, it doesn't HURT to want someone to sing with.

Right?

Curiosity Killed The Catfish

Ever heard of Catfishing?

It's something we online daters have keep an eye out for.
According to urbandictionary.com, catfishing is:
The phenomenon of internet predators that fabricate online identities and entire social circles to trick people into emotional/romantic relationships.

Well ladies and gentlemen, I caught myself a catfish! And by caught, I don't mean I was in an emotional/romantic relationship with a fake person. I mean I caught a person red-handed, pretending to be someone they aren't. We'll call him.....Darius, because guess what...THAT ISN'T HIS REAL NAME!

About two months ago I went through this kick where I'd look at the man catalog and message a person a day. Darius was one of the people that I messaged, even though his profile was very lack-luster. The thing that made me message him was that one of his two pictures was of his buff arms. It would be an understatement to say that I LOVE buff arms.

I had forgotten that I messaged him until a week ago when he replied to my message and said, "Hey u! Sorry it took me a minute to reply. How r u?"
Red Flag Moment: Please spell out simple words like, "you" and, "are".
After a snarky response of, "A minute....a month...whose really keeping track?", we emailed back and fourth for a few hours. Then he sent me his cell-phone number and asked me to text him.
We text for a couple of days, which basically means I grilled him with a ton of questions, because my curiosity knows no bounds. Still though, you have to take their answers with a grain of salt, because they could say anything, and I wouldn't know the difference.
TANGENT: There is a very fine line between cautious curiosity & creeper. I feel like when you're online "dating"  you are constantly having to toe that line. Because I'm always worried that the person on the other side of the screen isn't really who they say they are, I am always in "Find out about them" mode. Which often means googling the tiny bits of info they give me and hoping they return a result. The perverted Jew-to my utter surprise-was exactly who he said he was...I looked him up. That's when you start to feel creepy. Because now...instead of going through the "get to know you" process WITH someone, you already know things about them. BUT you only feel bad if they turn out to really be who they say they are. But you can never tell, until you do that "research".
We went a couple of days without corresponding at all, which was fine with me. I decided that if he wanted to contact me he could, but I wasn't going to be the one making the effort.
Last night he text me, and after getting into our conversation, I decided to do some of my "cautious curiosity research".
Taking the info provided by the dating site, and the info he told me about where he worked, and what his name is; I did a google search. His job seemed to me like something that would have a news article or two written about it. What I was hoping to find was something that would verify what he was telling me.
The whole time I'm doing this "research", I was still texting him, and asking him questions; getting more details that I can enter into my search.
In doing my research I found out he isn't who he says he is. The names, and dates, and stories he told don't correspond with the info I found online.
The pictures I found of him from the news articles look like the two pictures from his profile, expect the profile pictures are like 10 years old.

 I'm pretty proud of myself for being such a sleuth! I can't imagine our "friendship" would have gone any further anyway...but now I can totally call him out on being a catfish!
I want to say to him "So If you're Darius....who is (insert his REAL name here)."

Age Is Just A Number

I have always had a love for old men.  They are adorable to me. I used to joke that I wanted to have an old man "zoo" so I could just observe them at my leisure. (I know it's weird...I'M weird).

On a completely unrelated note...haha....I've always pictured myself "ending up with" a guy who is older than me. I think every girl does. From the time I was little I always thought my husband had to be older.

Online you can limit your search down to the tiniest detail. My typical search is pretty broad. I usually search for a male, with a profile picture, who is 5'5 or taller, and is between the ages of 29-39.
I recently had a friend tell me, "Tacy, age is just a number!" We'd been talking about the dating potential around here. I said everyone was too young; he did not agree.
I guess I do agree to some extent, that age is just a number, but let me throw a couple real life situations out there, just to play devil's advocate.
On more than one occasion I have had "flirts" (which are vague, "cookie cutter"-site generated messages you can quickly send to someone whose profile you are viewing. Example: "I'm interested! Let's get to know each other!") or personal messages from men who are WAY older than me. As in 60+!
The first one I brushed off as an accident, saying "Meh-that's just a computer illiterate man who accidentally sent me a "flirt". But then the next day he sent me another one. And he's sent me yet another one.
I also had a guy, screen-named Gunslinger43, who saved me as a "favorite" and sent me a personal message telling me he was impressed by my profile, that he liked my pictures, and he wanted to "get to know me". He didn't have a picture posted, so I clicked on his profile to see what he was all about. The 43 in his screen name? That's the year he was born, haha. He's 71 years old! I ignored his message, and he sent me another one about a week later! The only reason I'd be half tempted to respond is if he was going to leave me a whole lot of money sometime soon (if you catch my drift), but his profile says he, "Lives a humble life". 

Maybe Gunslinger43 was sitting around with his friends and they said, "Gunslinger, age is just a number!"
Haha!

So THAT'S What Crow Tastes Like

1. . Fig. to display total humility, especially when shown to be wrong. Well, it looks like I was wrong, and I'm going to have to eat crow.

The morning after I wrote the post about R2 being a complete jerk, he contacted me and we made plans for him to come over to my sister's house for dinner and a movie.

Later that afternoon it started to rain, and because he drives a motorcycle he told me that if the rain kept up he wouldn't be able to make it. I told him if it came down to it, I could pick him up.

Just before dinner I text him my sister's address. Here is the conversation:
way out there?!
I guess so!
Idk if I want to drive out there, lol

I wasn't 100% sure if he was being sarcastic or just stupid...because I don't know him THAT well, so I said:
well that's lame!
Ten minutes later (because he hadn't said anything) I said:
So are you coming or not, R2?
It's like 30 minutes away :(
Wow.....for real?! I normally live 30 HOURS away!
Haha
NOT "haha", R2. you could have thought about the distance THIS MORNING, I mean....hello!? Jeesh
Sorry!!!! :(
whatever
you leave tomorrow morning?
at 4am
Then no correspondence for an hour and 15 minutes.  In that time I was drafting up a mean text message to send, expressing all the angry thoughts going through my head. As I was typing out my "you suck" text HE text ME and said:
I guess not then huh, :(
Guess not what?!
You aren't coming to pick me up
I don't even know where you live! I didn't even know you WANTED me to pick you up! Why would I pick you up? 
i messaged you at 6:40
the last thing I got from you was at 6:30 and you said "you leave tomorrow morning?"
ok, it was 6:41 not 6:40
:(
this sucks
Don't just send a sad face, R2! We're freakin adults! If you still want to hang out give me your address!

So he gave me his address.

Since he didn't show up for dinner everyone in the house (especially me) was FUMING because of his ridiculousness. When I announced that I needed to borrow a car to go meet up with him, my sister and brother-in-law thought I was insane.
But I HAD to meet him so I could know if he was as big an idiot as he was coming across as.

I'm SO glad I went over to his house!
I pulled in front of his house (behind his drenched motorcycle) and he was standing on the porch, smiling like a ninny and waving at me. Almost like when you get home and your puppy is really excited to see you.

Trying to describe him would take WAY too much time.
I'm 99.9% sure his mind didn't even register that canceling plans at the extreme last minute is....rude.

We talked on his porch for about an hour and a half. It was great to finally get to know him! Instead of trying to see what he is like through messages. And now he makes sense to me. I will never have to read another text and be like, "What does he mean by that?"

He is a great friend! A great TEXT friend...like I wanted all along!

Moral of the story: You NEVER know what someone is like until you talk to them face to face. And you should NEVER read anything into a text message.

While driving home I kept thinking how comical it was that I thought he was "stringing me along". I'm pretty sure there isn't a malicious bone in his body. In fact, the whole time I thought I was being snippy and argumentative in my texts he probably didn't even realize I was trying to be snippy and argumentative. Haha!


I'm hoping this is the last blog I write about R2. Because between eating the humble pie and the crow I'm getting pretty full.