I had an experience a while back that incorporated my belief that men lie habitually on the internet dating sites, along with my belief that long distance dating is a really bad idea.
The man was everything I was looking for- he wrote well with no grammatical errors, was educated, fit, financially secure and tall and attractive. And, he had blue eyes, one of my particular distractions- really, if a man has blue eyes, he can pretty much be an illiterate troll and the chances are excellent that I'll never even notice. We all have a weakness, I guess that's mine- or at least, one of them. Anyway, he was about ten years older than the dream man I had envisioned, but he had this full head of beautiful white hair and those blue eyes. And he was really smart. So I decided to meet him, in spite of the fact that he lived a couple of hours away. I am the queen of justification; I figured, well, if something comes of the meeting, I work full time, I'm busy during the week, we can see each other during the weekend. My daughter was horrified. "Mom!" she said. "You can't be serious! You're really going to date.... Santa?????" I laughed her off. I am an adult, more experienced, more worldly than a teenage girl. What the hell does she know, anyway?
Out of the mouths of babes.
So he agreed to come to my town. This was before my 15-minute-time-limit-rule of initial meetings, so we agreed to have dinner. It was a beautiful afternoon, warm and sunny, and I sat in the sun, waiting for him at the designated meeting place. A short man walked by, checked me out. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, but dismissed him. Short, nowhere near six feet tall. Kind of old. Dark hair. I was looking for white hair. But- wait- the man was swinging back around, coming over with a big smile on his elderly face. "Allyson!" he said. "Is it you? Are you Allyson?" In the afternoon sun, his badly dyed hair shone red and cheesy in the glinting sunlight. Every wrinkle of his geriatric face was starkly illuminated by the radiant afternoon. Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, "What did you do to your hair?"
I've always been brilliant when caught off guard.
Looking back, I probably would have met him anyway, even if he had been truthful about his height and age. I'm not ageist, but I was expecting a man five years younger- that's how old he said he was. And the hair dye? Please. Nothing more vile than a bad dye job. I did end up dating this guy for a while, because he was smart and funny and interesting, and hair dye eventually grows out, but it turned out that the hair dye and his actual biological age were only two lies out of many more. And some of the lies were serious. Again, if we had lived closer to each other, those lies would have come out much sooner than they did.
Live and learn. Leave Santa to Mrs. Claus.
Just this once- my daughter was right.
The man was everything I was looking for- he wrote well with no grammatical errors, was educated, fit, financially secure and tall and attractive. And, he had blue eyes, one of my particular distractions- really, if a man has blue eyes, he can pretty much be an illiterate troll and the chances are excellent that I'll never even notice. We all have a weakness, I guess that's mine- or at least, one of them. Anyway, he was about ten years older than the dream man I had envisioned, but he had this full head of beautiful white hair and those blue eyes. And he was really smart. So I decided to meet him, in spite of the fact that he lived a couple of hours away. I am the queen of justification; I figured, well, if something comes of the meeting, I work full time, I'm busy during the week, we can see each other during the weekend. My daughter was horrified. "Mom!" she said. "You can't be serious! You're really going to date.... Santa?????" I laughed her off. I am an adult, more experienced, more worldly than a teenage girl. What the hell does she know, anyway?
Out of the mouths of babes.
So he agreed to come to my town. This was before my 15-minute-time-limit-rule of initial meetings, so we agreed to have dinner. It was a beautiful afternoon, warm and sunny, and I sat in the sun, waiting for him at the designated meeting place. A short man walked by, checked me out. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, but dismissed him. Short, nowhere near six feet tall. Kind of old. Dark hair. I was looking for white hair. But- wait- the man was swinging back around, coming over with a big smile on his elderly face. "Allyson!" he said. "Is it you? Are you Allyson?" In the afternoon sun, his badly dyed hair shone red and cheesy in the glinting sunlight. Every wrinkle of his geriatric face was starkly illuminated by the radiant afternoon. Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, "What did you do to your hair?"
I've always been brilliant when caught off guard.
Looking back, I probably would have met him anyway, even if he had been truthful about his height and age. I'm not ageist, but I was expecting a man five years younger- that's how old he said he was. And the hair dye? Please. Nothing more vile than a bad dye job. I did end up dating this guy for a while, because he was smart and funny and interesting, and hair dye eventually grows out, but it turned out that the hair dye and his actual biological age were only two lies out of many more. And some of the lies were serious. Again, if we had lived closer to each other, those lies would have come out much sooner than they did.
Live and learn. Leave Santa to Mrs. Claus.
Just this once- my daughter was right.
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