Two summers ago, I was visiting with a high school friend in my home state of New Jersey. My divorce had just been finalized and I was working my way through being single for the first time in 30 years.
Kristina and I were at a local bar on the beach drinking dirty martinis and listening to some excellent live music. We were discussing relationships and marriages that ended and how they can change so drastically from what we ever imagined.
Suddenly, she grabs my phone and starts scrolling. “Enough. You need to put yourself out there.” She proceeds to open up my Facebook app and finds the little red heart symbol next to when it says ‘Dating’.
Being a photographer, Kristina started choosing the best pictures to add to my profile and wrote a short blurb on my bio. It was such a strange feeling – dating was so different the last time I was available. We met people in bars, at concerts, or through friends. You had to actually talk to people. Like face-to-face. This online dating situation felt like I was breaking some rules, so of course I was going to do it.
Right away, I got some ‘likes’ and even a few messages. We sat at the bar trying to come up with witty responses to reply to my potential suitors. I’ll admit, it was good for my ego which was at an all-time low. I was excited to have the attention and felt ready to step out into this new adventure.
At first, I was truly hopeful. My goal was to meet someone who was intelligent, had interesting things to say, expressed a positive attitude, and who liked doing at least some of the things I liked to do. Of course, I also wanted to find someone I was physically attracted to. There were thousands of people out there looking also. It was just going to be a matter of time.
Eighteen months later, I still haven’t gone out on any dates from the app. Let’s check some messages…
Guy 1: “So, what are you up to? I just got out of the shower and am air drying”
Guy 2: “Me an my girlfrien want meet you.”
Guy 3: “You look great. Want to meet up for dinner and have some fun sex afterwards?”
Some of the most interesting characters eventually get named. There’s Monkey Man, The Sensitive Schoolteacher, and Abe Lincoln Guy. Don’t worry. You will meet all of them eventually.
Finally, I started talking to a guy from a nearby town. After a few weeks of conversations on the dating app, we are making connections discussing general things like our work and what we do in our down time. We decide to exchange numbers and our talks become more frequent.
One day via text, I mentioned that I was working on writing for a blog, much of which is based on dating and single life experiences.
His response, “Can I be sexually blunt with a topic that you may or may not be intrigued with from an artist creator content blog or whatever creative content outlet you dream up? It’s super saucy if I must say and I’m being very openly vulnerable exposing this. But if I had to guess based on your creative side that I have gotten to know…this topic is not anything physically sexual toward you….Just an idea for an erotic creative outlet.”
I was hesitant to reply to this comment – I supposed the subject of sex was going to come up eventually, but this particular remark was throwing me off a bit. Was he talking about fan-fiction? Or something he has been wanting to write? I was truly confused.
I wrote, “There are a lot of blogs that use erotica for content. Mine is a little different, but I do talk about dating at this point of my life in a humorous way. I’m curious about your topic idea.”
“This one would be nonfiction lol and I think it would be a whole separate project in my mind…Where do your ethics lie when it comes to ethical non monogamy?” he asked.
In all honesty, I had to look this one up. I’ve seen the term ENM on some people’s dating profiles, but I’ve never researched it at all until that moment. I typed back, “I have no issue as long as all parties agree and are aware. I assume that’s where the ethics come in?”
“Yeah. So, I’m dating a hot wife…Google it…she is ultra wealthy, 10 years younger than me, wildly beautiful with her husband’s enthusiastic consent…the whole situation is like the most erotic soap opera you could ever imagine…And it’s happening in real time, no fiction. Not sure how you feel about that…But it’s almost like someone needs to document this lol”. Oh, he means like I should be the one documenting this bizarre case
Apparently ‘hotwifing’ is also a thing I never knew about. This is where a woman in a committed relationship, but who has intimate relations with other partners with her husband’s full knowledge and consent. The hotwife is often the center of the action – sometimes the husband orchestrates the dates, sometimes he listens to his wife describe the details of the date, sometimes he watches their sexual encounters.
Well, this was certainly not listed on this guy’s profile.
I had been folding laundry in my bedroom at the time and sat down on my bed in a daze to process this information. Questions flooded my mind. How long has he been doing this? Do they use protection? Why is he even talking to me if he’s in such an erotic and satisfying situation? Does he plan on having me join the husband so we can eat popcorn and watch the show? My response took a while to organize.
“It sounds like a really interesting subject, but my writing is quite different. I write about lots of subjects in dating (particularly online dating) and most of the essays are humorous. When I bounce back in time to explain how I got into this situation. I discuss my marriage and how an accident caused a TBI and ruined it all. I flip from funny to serious and it’s mostly from my perspective as a caretaker for 10 years. I don’t think my blog would fit the profile you are talking about.”
At this point, I’m thinking he will say ‘I’m only joking’.
Nope.
“I understand it’s a wild idea and sometimes I get overzealous with these grandiose ideas of stuff that is nearly impossible to pull off and how much work it would be to actually do it, right. I understand, it’s like from an excited brain space…I’m like hey here’s an idea we should do, then I’m like nah it’s more effort than I want to take on lol. I’m sure this takes me out of any chances at a date with you unless ENM is something you would explore in a relationship…but like I said, I got overzealous. I should have just kept it to myself lol.”
There it is -he wasn’t planning on telling me about this at all. Well, that could have been awkward.
The entire conversation – which continues for a few more hours – takes a very drastic turn after this particular topic and not because of his super-hot-ultra-rich-younger woman he has been telling me about for the last hour. That situationship never gets mentioned again. Once I decide to shut it all down, this one earns the name of Master Manipulator.
But you will have to come back again another day to learn what really pissed me off.
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