This story is a fantasy based on real people and actual events. The names have been changed to protect the not quite innocent and the blissfully oblivious.
As difficult as it may be to believe, the real story actually begins with the end of a relationship. But first, indulge me in a little back-story.
Fuck online dating sites. I hate them. They're useless. They're full of the undateable people, the ones you would walk by on the street and never give a second look to. Women like the crazy friend of the girl you're trying to date that you hope your buddy will distract for a while. Or the obnoxious snot that your high school science teacher always matched you up with as a lab partner and you hated them for it. Or the uptight one that was a friend of a friend that you used to sit at the same table with at lunch that you used to say nasty things to just to get a reaction out of them. Yeah, they're all there.
The websites themselves are all clusterfucks. You can spend hours browsing through the too heavy, the too short, the mentally deficient, and the batshit crazy. If you're lucky you'll find a profile of someone who seems attractive and normal, write them a witty message, and never hear back from them. As far as finding what you're looking for, you may as well go shopping for a prom dress in the dollar store. That's what it feels like most of the time. But please don't get offended by my dim view of dating sites. I'm all over them.
I mean, when you're a 40 year old single dad, a homebody with a small group of friends, what are your other options? Despite my struggles, I've heard plenty of success stories. So I figure if I'm lucky I might find someone I like, someone that doesn't make me cringe when I look at them, someone that I can stand being with, someone that may not be looking to chop me into little pieces and hide them in their freezer, someone that can help me overcome the crushing loneliness I feel when I don't have my daughter, and of course someone I can fuck when I'm horny, which even though I'm 40 is still pretty often. It doesn't really sound like too much to ask for, does it?
Anyway, let me get on with the story. I was divorced for two years when I met Wendy. Two years! That was two years of trolling around the dating sites. Two years of debating whether or not paying for one of the premium sites was a good idea (hint: no), or waiting for the "free communication weekends" to try to blow through the nonsensical steps on Dr. Neil Clark Warren's site and actually get into a conversation with someone, only to belatedly realize that she put down that she was a frequent smoker, even though I specifically filtered smokers out of my matches. Two years of hoping that the new message notification I just got on one of the free sites wasn't from a girl in the Philippines looking to be a mail order bride. Of rolling my eyes every time I got a notification from one of the other free sites that someone wants to meet me, because of the hundreds of notifications I'd gotten already, I hadn't seen one I'd actually consider meeting yet.
Sometime in the past year I stumbled across a new dating site. It was a site with a different concept than the others. It would send you a match every day. You could like or pass. If you hit like and she hit like, you were connected for 8 days. 8 days to chat and get to know each other. If you hit it off you could move on to talking on the phone or sexting or shopping for curtains or whatever floated your boat.
The biggest issue with the new site was that it had no sense of distance. I live in a small down close to Frederick, Maryland. The 'big cities' Baltimore and Washington were a long way off, yet 90% of my matches lived there. I wasn't a city person to begin with, so the thought of driving an hour or more through heavy traffic to meet a match was unappealing and impractical. I had a full time job and a custody schedule. A long distance relationship just wouldn't work, not at this point in my life. Sometimes I would like a particularly attractive or interesting match from one of the cities, just for kicks. Sometimes they'd like me back. We'd chat. They'd ask to meet. I'd politely decline. They wouldn't understand. I'd feel like an ass. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Online dating sucks.
Despite it all, I did occasionally manage to connect with women sometimes. Over the last two years I'd met several women. Many never got past the first date. We'd meet at a diner or a Starbucks. We'd sit and chat for an hour. Sometimes it was pleasant. Sometimes it was awkward. A few times the woman couldn't get away from me fast enough at the end. "Thanks for a nice time," they would say once we were outside, standing a safe distance apart. Then they would turn and practically run to their car. No handshake, no friendly hug and certainly no goodbye kiss. My friends couldn't understand how that could happen. I was 5'11, 165 pounds, with wavy brown hair and hazel eyes. I'm a good guy for the most part, funny and well-spoken, reasonably fit for my age. So why weren't women interested? I'd shrug my shoulders. It is what it is; I'd sigh, swallow my frustration, and move on.
If I made it to a second date there would be a different vibe. What happens now? I would think. Dating before I got married seemed much easier and I think it was because I had so much more free time then. Now I had to fit dates around my custody schedule, and usually the woman's custody schedule too. When your schedules only match up one day every two weeks there's an added pressure. Time was precious now. We had to make every moment count, and I could feel the subtle pressure. After most second dates I'd get a hug and maybe a quick kiss. I'd wander away wondering where all of the fast-moving women were. I never seemed to find them.
The few third dates I'd been on were even more awkward. I'd read enough about dating the past two years. Supposedly the third date is when a lot of people are ready to have sex. Not my dates, though. I may get a longer kiss, an awkward moment in semi-privacy while we clumsily make out for a few seconds. And that would be it. I hadn't made it past that third date yet. The three third dates I'd been on were all my last. A couple of days afterward I would invariably get a text that they think I'm a great guy but it just isn't working out. I could just about set my watch to it, and pretty much write the text for them. They'd like to be friends (nobody really means this), and that would be that. I'd be left wondering what I'm doing, or what I'm not doing, that was causing these relationships to end the way they were. But I'm digressing again.
So then one day my daily match was Wendy. She only lived a couple of towns over. She was a few years younger than I was. She was heavy but reasonably attractive. I liked her face. I clicked like. The next day I must have shown up as her daily match and she clicked like too. The app sent me a practically delirious notification. We were connected.
She immediately gave me her phone number. Whoa. That wasn't the protocol. The 8 days we got to chat on the app was for our safety as much as anything else. 8 days to make sure the other person wasn't crazy, or a Satanist, or didn't know when they should use their, they're, or there. Naturally I balked. I hate this app, she said. I hate it too, I said, but I prefer to get to know someone a little first. She relented, and we messaged back and forth for a day or so. Then she said, please, every time I open this app on my phone it crashes. Fine, I thought to myself, scrolling up through our messages to find her number. We'll text.
Wendy worked in day care, chasing around a bunch of unruly toddlers all day. It worked for her because she was able to be with her son. The money wasn't good, but her ex husband was good to her financially. It's good that you have a good relationship with your ex, I remember texting her. I didn't. I shared a couple of quick stories with her. You're not supposed to complain about your ex, but sometimes I just can't help myself. It's my life, and I can't hide it or pretend something different. She started texting me a series of "getting to know you" questions, what's your favorite this, your favorite that. There were dozens of them. She must have been cutting and pasting them from somewhere. Luckily it was a slow day at work for me. I answered her texts when nobody was looking. I idly wondered how much time she spent texting instead of watching the kids. We were two adults, goofing off at work. You'd think we'd have known better, but sometimes the excitement of getting to know someone makes you forget about everything else.
