This is not a positive post, per se, despite my previous proclamation, but it is a post about not doing something negative, which is a positive thing, right?
Dr. Dave contacted me on a free (i.e., low quality) dating website when I lived in Denver. He was divorced (yeah, right), lived in southern California, and was going to be in town on business and liked fat chicks. In the two months or so before his visit, he was very eager - daily emails, lots of phone calls (most with happy endings), even a one-sided video chat (I did not have a very modern computer at the time). I knew there was no future in it, but after his visit he cut me off completely, which hurt, because of the amount of energy he had put into courting me (wasted, because he had me at "I like fat chicks"). I did a little catfishing (and this was before there was a word for it) but never revealed it was me - “Cheryl” just stopped replying to his emails until he lost interest (probably because he had met “Gina” who too eventually stopped contacting him!). Anyway…
Alan I met on Craig’s List (don’t bother with the lectures, I (rarely) go on there anymore) shortly after I moved to Las Vegas. He too lived in southern California (same town as Dr. Dave, actually!) and was married (at least he had the balls not to lie about that) and also liked fat chicks (only blonde ones though - he liked his brunettes thin). We hung out a lot and it is he, in fact, who is responsible for my having sex in a Strip hotel for the very first time! But when the relationship, such as it was, started to go south, the catfishing was pretty intense. “Ashley”, a petite, brown-haired pharmaceutical sales rep, told him a week before they were due to meet that she had gotten back together with her ex-boyfriend. “Sarah” stood him up, at a restaurant he had previously taken me to. Her one-word reply to the email he sent afterwards, asking if he had gotten the time and place right, was “Yes.” And then she cancelled that email account. But “Emily” oh, I think he fell hard for her. Coincidentally, she had such similar tastes as he did (seriously, would that not be a red flag to you? A complete stranger just happens to like the same obscure genre of music you’re into? And who happens to be trying to cut meat out of her diet when you happen to be a vegetarian?). Anyway…
I read somewhere that if you have just two fairly substantial pieces of information about someone it is possible in this day and age to find them. Surprisingly, they had both given me their real first names (well, first Alan went by David. That one really upset Emily because she told him growing up she had had a huge crush on David Cassidy. He sounded positively distraught in his subsequent email when he told her his real name was Alan (told you she got to him)). Dr. Dave, I knew his medical specialty and town and the initial of his last name (can’t remember how I knew that or why I did not know his full last name). A few clicks and – whoomp, there it is! – his full name and place of work. Alan, it was a little harder, but a perusal of a certain East Coast university’s student newspaper’s website, which just happened to list alums who served on the paper, only two of whom happened to be named Alan (ruled out the first one when I saw his Facebook page), resulted in me tracking down his full name and company address. Anyway…
So over the past few years they’ve gotten holiday cards with no return address on the envelope and a note, handwritten but not signed. The cards have had postmarks of Florida and southern California (not their home towns, however), thanks to friends who live there and who don’t mind enabling me and my shenanigans, and Las Vegas. Not Colorado, however, because I think that might be a big clue as to the sender’s identity. I am OK with Las Vegas because Dr. Dave was before I moved here and Alan had several conquests here. Part of me thinks they know it is me, but then I remember Alan was clueless when Emily mentioned she was a fan of some singer he happened to like too). Anyway…
So, in my quest to not add to the negativity that is in the world, I have decided to not send them cards this year. Baby steps, right? Or whatever I need to tell myself?!!!
