I was nervous about putting myself back out in the dating world after my young husband died. I don’t even know what I was thinking, to be honest, other than I was just really nervous that there wasn’t ever going to be anybody out there for me again. There was almost this unexplainable pull to find out. I can’t really explain it, I just needed to know that I wasn’t going to live the next forty years by myself holed up in my house collecting cats. So, I did the only reasonable thing a 40ish year old widow can think of. I signed up for dating sites.
Sounds ridiculous, I know. But I wasn’t interested in dating anybody from work, and my kids were too old to meet a dashing, young widow at some PTA event at their school. While I enjoy a good “girls’ night out,” I am clearly not spending my weekends at the bar and never had a huge love affair with the gym. I had a great circle of friends, all married, living their best lives, none of whom had a single, respectable bachelor waiting in the queue.
So, I filled out the profile. I don’t exactly remember what I said, but I do remember getting his email. He wrote that he liked my picture. He wrote that I was “pretty cute.” In fact, his exact words were, “you’re pretty cute.” He spelled “you’re” correctly, and at that point in my dating adventure, it was a big, fat win. It was then that I semi realized that my expectations had plummeted, but remember, I was still broken from my husband’s death, so good grammar was at least a step in the right direction. And, it was enough to entice me to answer him.
We emailed back and forth. Just a few times. He told me it was impossible to count to a million. I quipped that I would try. He asked about my kids. I gave him the rundown. And before he even knew my name, he wanted me to know this:
“I would never challenge you to count to a million even by 100's. Who has time for that? I'm pretty simple on the outside but a deep thinker on the inside. I often pause before I speak because I want to choose my words very carefully. I'm a T-shirt and jeans kind of guy, but I'm a professional at the office. I look pretty good in a suit and tie.”
I pause when I read that now. I didn’t see it then. I was so blind. God, I was so blind. But I see it differently now. I see it so clearly. That “deep thinker on the inside” thing he’s talking about? It wasn’t that he was a philosopher. It was a curse. He was so obsessed with thinking. He was totally consumed with overthinking. Because of it, he had an issue with paranoia. He tried to keep that hidden, but there were times when it was simply impossible. And while he was a master at keeping steady, he just could not be in control all of the time. Nobody can. But him losing control was subtle and when it was most noticeable was when he would pause to speak, like he mentioned above. It was because he was void of emotion. Void of a conscience. Void of just about everything. So, he would have to search for it. He says it. He had to choose words. Choose them. Because nothing was natural for him. Nothing was pure. Nothing was even real. Nothing except his arrogance and lies which is well played in the last two sentences.
During the two years I dated him:
I never saw him in a suit and tie.
He was screwing his 22-year-old assistant.
At the office.
While he was a professional.
The stars and moon aligned and then the world pretty much fell off its axis
His profile used the last name “Hughes.” It wasn’t. It was Christian. It didn’t seem important at the time, but it was. And his first name wasn’t “JR” like he had it listed. It was actually Joe. It’s not that it’s a big deal not to use your real name on those sites. I get it. It can be weird. Plus, you never know who might hit you up. That’s an internet term, you know. “HMU.” It means, “hit me up.” I learned that somewhere. You have no idea how much you have to learn as a 43-year-old widow. And those lessons come fast. Trust me. Like shots fired.
Anyway, we decided to meet on a Friday night. It was the middle of summer and still very warm in the evenings. I was hesitant to go out in public, to be honest. It was the first time I was venturing out and I guess I just wanted to keep my private life private. I offered to meet him at his house. I know. I can hear the collective gasps now and people screaming about how unsafe that is, but it wasn’t the first stupid decision I would make where Joe was concerned, so you might as well get used to holding your hand to your mouth and shaking your head while reading this or just throw the book away. In fact, as I was driving to his house that night, there was a major accident that made me have to detour and, subsequently, get lost for a few minutes. Remember those yellow flags we talked about? Yeah, well, I should have stayed on that detour and never found my way to him.
But, I did. And I’ll be honest, when I first laid eyes on him, I wasn’t overly impressed. He wasn’t very tall. He had a “dad bod” yet he wasn’t a dad. He wore an army green T-shirt that had obviously been stretched one too many times and camouflage shorts. And a baseball cap. Yes, he almost always wore a hat. He was always covering something up.
I stood at the door until he walked towards me. I remember the words. I remember them so clearly.
“There she is.”
And then he did it.
He smiled.
And when he did, something in me broke. Everything inside of me twisted and I knew I would never be the same. Because that smile – oh, that beautiful, mesmerizing smile – was all it would take to convince me from then on that every lie was a truth and every word meant something.
He offered me a drink. I took it. I drank just enough to steady my nerves and looked around, secretly thanking the universe he had dogs so we would have something to talk about during those first awkward moments. Labs. A black one and a yellow one. Apparently, the ex-wife got the chocolate one in the divorce, which was probably good since he could barely care for the two he had. He showed me around his farmhouse, mentioning how he was renting it and loved the fact that he had lots of land to run the dogs or shoot his bow.
“You’re a hunter?”
“Yes.”
I knew very little about what that meant or how much it would come into play in our relationship because he actually had a problem with the fact that I didn’t like game meat. We actually broke up over it once. For like a day, but still. He had this caveman type issue that he needed to go out and hunt and gather and provide food for me. And if I wouldn’t eat it, then he was a failure in some way. I never quite understood why providing tacos or pizza wasn’t the same thing.
But that night, he didn’t make dinner. Just drinks. I think meeting him like this was awkward for him and he didn’t quite know what to do, because about a year into our relationship I found his secret profile on another dating site that said he preferred “pre-date coffee” before an actual dinner. We’ll come back to that later but, yes, it appears he never really stopped dating. It was probably the only thing he was really good at. Because no matter how much he really wanted to feed me, he never did get himself an elk.
He was a great conversationalist, though. Very funny. Witty. And the more the wine flowed, the more attractive he became. It was then that I noticed his eyes – the way they were slightly hooded and deep blue. It was then that I noticed how his laugh was more intoxicating than the drink. It was then that I noticed how he adjusted his hat and how dark his hair was underneath it.