Ghosting. It’s awful. We’ve all fallen victim to it and it has to be the worst thing you can possibly do to a person you’re dating. I had a boyfriend that ghosted me once. This wasn’t someone I went on one or two dates with, which in my opinion is the absolute end of the line of acceptable ghost-worthy situations. He ghosted me after six “I love you” filled months. So after that experience I swore I would never do that to someone. Until I met Michael.
After the awful start I’d had so far with online dating, I was hoping that for once I could have a calm, peaceful, and enjoyable evening with someone normal. Unfortunately, this was not to be as Michael spent most of the date bragging to death about his sexual prowess to be even remotely interesting. But I digress.
Michael was quite a bit older than me. His profile said he was 50 – five years above my max age for older dudes. In my opinion, there is nothing inherently wrong with dating a man in his 50s. They’ve experience much more and they’ve usually matured enough that they’re finally tolerable members of the opposite sex. They’re basically like dogs with a lot more tricks up their sleeve.
Michael was a chef who Looked decent enough in his photos. Thanks to Adam, I learned that Match profile pictures can be deceiving and in Michael’s case, they were. He wasn’t necessarily unattractive. He was enormously tall and looked like he was probably handsome when he was younger. However, he looked suspiciously young for a 50-year old in several of the photos so my alert meter was hovering somewhere in the yellow zone, teetering close to orange.
During the first couple phone calls with Michael, I noticed one nagging problem: he was dull. Sense of humor? Nope. Condescending? Definitely. When he spoke of his ex-wife, he mentioned she had been 35 when he married her but she acted like she was about 32. Oh, pish posh. And really, who does a tremendous amount of maturing between 32 and 35? If he had said 22, he might have sounded way less arrogant. But as he eloquently worded it, I was “far and beyond acceptable” due to my 35 trips around the sun and he was fine with me being so young. Yeah, sure you are, Michael.
So despite all this, and partially because of my lack of any other promising prospects on Match at the time, I agreed to a date with him. When he came into the restaurant, it was almost comical. His height was so noticeable that he towered over me even as we sat at the table. How the hell does someone tower over people when they’re sitting down? That is not right.
As I suspected, his pictures were only a semi-accurate reflection of how he looked in real life. Close, but he clearly had some issues with his skin that were not there when he was in his 30s, and this went beyond normal aging. I knew from casual conversation that he did not drink or do any drugs because of issues he had with them when he was younger. It wasn’t until I showed a more current photo of him to a drug counselor friend that she said they were the hallmark scars of meth addiction. And that the scars didn’t look all that old either. Yikes.
So I can summarize the date fairly quickly. When I asked what he liked to do, Michael said he liked sex. First thing, I swear to God. Not hiking, or checking out a good movie – he liked to have sex. GET OUT, REALLY?? You are SO different from other guys! I wish this had been the only time he said it, but it was mentioned to me such an uncomfortable number of times over dinner that I was beginning to wonder if I was safe walking to my car alone later. Like, really, I don’t need to think of a sweaty, 50 year old behemoth of a man doing the dirty while I’m trying to eat my chicken tacos. Barf. Michael also preferred white women, and again sang my praises for meeting yet another one of his pre-requisites. He also preferred women who liked to have sex. Yeah, Michael, I get it. We all do.
As the date quickly took the express train into Blah Town and I decided that I was certainly not planning on seeing him again, we parted ways as I told him I was glad to have met him (lies) and had enjoyed the evening (more lies). He asked if I wanted to see him again, and I told him I would see what my schedule looked like and would let him know if I had a free night coming up (lies, lies, lies).
Now, before you lambaste me for not being direct and just telling him I wasn’t interested, let me shed some light on why people say something non-committal that vaguely hints at a possible second date without locking one down. Because it’s uncomfortable and rude. Maybe there are plenty of respectable gentlemen that can take rejection with grace, but when your last two dates include a man who forced you to make out with him while sick and another with an assault charge record…well, you get the picture. If you still disagree and believe that being direct is the best policy, then by all means don’t let me blow cold air up your skirt. I, for one, do not plan on touching that stove burner again though.
As it turned out, Michael didn’t just like sex and white women. He liked stalking, too. He called. He texted. He called again. And again. And then he emailed, following by another follow-up text and phone call. He located my Facebook page. He posted mean messages, and then sent apology texts but that he was hurt that I wasn’t responding and he was confused because he thought our date had been amazing. Eventually, the texts and calls died down, as I can only presume he moved on to his next victim.
Some friends suggested I report him to the dating site for harassment, which I eventually did when the Facebook stalking began. Others suggested more severe measures like the police, but I never felt the need to take that extreme of a step. But I did learn one valuable lesson from my date with an older man. One that I should have already known. When my single friends in their 40s and 50s talked about dating, they said their only gripe about dating was how difficult it was to find a man that was sane. I never fully understood this, because I always assumed older guys would be a refreshing blast of maturity, and with that, surely sanity would follow. Nay. Maturity, my friends, does not equal sanity. I hope wherever Michael is now, it isn’t on any other dating sites.
