“I would never do that,” my single friend Diana says every time I tell her about a match.com date. This restaurant owner meets people from all over the world and has never met a stranger. But sign up for a dating site?
“I’d be scared to death to go out with someone I don’t know,” she adds.
I understand her fear.
It takes time to get comfortable with the idea of meeting a stranger. That’s why I require a phone call and a full name and phone number before a face-to-face in a public place. The amount of information you can pull from an internet search on just a small bit of data is astounding.
Some dating apps even allow video chats that are arranged via the site so that you don’t have to share personal information before you’re ready.
I tell friends who are wary to google themselves first and see what websites come up to use as a guide. There may be some piece of info that isn’t correct, but you can still discern the big picture about someone’s life: Addresses current and past, phone numbers, relatives, political and charitable donations, education, workplaces, social media and so on. This information is free, but if you’re willing to pay a small fee, you can dig deeper into divorce and arrest records.
If I can’t find one scrap of information on the web about a potential date, I won’t go out with the guy. And of the 29 men I vetted and met, none have bamboozled me or asked me for money.
But I did have a close call a couple of years ago. I’ll call him mr. mental.
He reached out on match and invited me for coffee. After reading his profile and studying his photos, I decided he might be a fun date. When I emailed back via match, he started pushing for an immediate meeting, that afternoon or the following morning.
First red flag.
He said why wait since “we look like we make such a great couple.” Mind you, he’s only seen my photos on match. I told him I never meet anyone in person until I have a phone number. He readily offered it, and I did a reverse search to get his full name.
Boom. The results kept loading on my computer screen until two decades of this guy’s life were laid out before me: The loss of his job at a major network for workplace irregularities, harassment charges filed by his ex-wife, an ongoing custody battle with her over their kids and violation of a protective order filed by their nanny. There was even an article in his hometown newspaper announcing his move to California. The paper noted that he’d inundated town officials with hundreds of Freedom of Information requests, and there was hope that would now come to a halt.
This guy was so grandiose, he acted in his own defense when charges against him resulted in a court case.
There was plenty more, but that was plenty for me. I emailed him there would be no meeting, that his past doesn’t mesh with my values and that I was blocking him on match.
Whew, I missed the bullet on that one, I thought.
Weeks later I was having drinks with a gal pal I hadn’t seen in a while. She asked about my dating life since she’s also single, and I filled her in, including my brush with mr. mental.
“Oh my god,” she said. “You’re the coffee date who cancelled!”
And with that she told me her own brush with the guy who would have been my worst nightmare.
She was with friends at a local wine bar, and he walked up and introduced himself. He’s over six-feet tall and fit, with silver, neatly trimmed hair, and with the confidence of a guy who’d be comfortable in a board room.
They had a pleasant conversation, and he explained he’d just been dumped for a coffee date planned for the next morning. “I’m glad my calendar’s free now that I’ve met you,” he told her.
They exchanged numbers and when it was time to leave, he asked to go with her. She said she didn’t know him well enough to invite him over and left him at the bar. By the time she’d washed her face and crawled into bed, her phone buzzed. When she answered, it was him wanting to know where she was.
“I told you, I was going home.”
He invited her to be his date for several upcoming dinners and cocktail parties, then followed it with this: “Can I come over and join you in bed?” He wanted to know what she was wearing.
She felt her heart pound with fear and told him he was way out of line. He called her a bitch. She felt like she’d been slapped and immediately hit the red button on her phone. Before she could block his number, he texted her a very up-close selfie of his erect penis.
“I wasn’t impressed,” she noted.
She reported him to match.com and prayed she’d never run into him again. “I know he’s the kind of guy who would have stalked me forever,” she said. According to the numerous court filings by his ex-wife, that’s a sure bet.
Thank goodness we both were careful not to give this guy too much information from the get-go. I felt an uneasy twinge in my gut when he pushed for an immediate date. It felt aggressive.
I will never forget the sinking feeling I had when I opened my ex-husband’s computer and saw what could not be un-seen. Even after 30 years of a marriage that was satisfactory in many ways, I knew that the hundreds of lewd photos and pornographic websites couldn’t be explained away.
My gut knew it, too, and to this day, I let it have the last word. It’s my best counsel with every important decision I’ve made and in every dating situation I’ve encountered since my divorce.
And when I look back to my lowest point at the end of my marriage, my gut confirms what I now know.
Life handed me a big, ol’ silver lining.