Drive by dating.. Bits and pieces..

OK so I've had a few random occurances that don't really fit into a specific article or my perpetual entry of bad dates.. This is just the flotsam and jetsam floating in the dating pool..

I had the best email exchange, to date, on Yahoo just last night.. It was a georgous guy that I'd sent an email to that responded to let me know that he wasn't dating these days, he had too much going on with his adopted children, sick parent and teaching classes at a local university.. Why is it the good ones are always taken?? Or conversely he's a pathological liar and was just trying to make me feel better.. But hypothetically, he was hot, smart, educated, cares for his ailing parents and had 2 adopted kids?? Dammit.. He told me to keep looking b/c eventually, after kissing alot of frogs, I would find a real prince.. My reply??

Don't even get me started on my extensive experience in "frogs".. One of my best friends and I have a "non-lesbian life partnership" agreement (We're just giving up, buying a house together and becoming pseudo-nuns) that kicks in once we hit a predetermined number of bad dates.. Sad to say, we're rapidly approaching said number.. Did you know that 3 out of 4 people suffer from some form of mental disturbance? This statistic is only hard to believe if you aren't single and dating, otherwise you find yourself questioning if the 1 out of 4 people who is supposed to be normal really exists.. or if they were the authors of the study in the first place ;)

To which he "LOL-ed" and replied he was very sorry he wasn't currently dating but if circumstances changed, could he give me a call b/c I had a great sense of humor and a beautiful smile?? Does that sound familiar to anyone? "If I get my issues worked out, can I call you??".. What am I, the first relationship stop for people coming out of major life changes? On the dating superhighway is there an exit ramp for Rebound Girlfriends with my name on it?? WTF? Whatever the case, it was a genuinely decent exchange and gave me a bit of hope that not all men on Yahoo are psychopathic reprobates..

You had to know that the gods would have to bitch-slap my fragile hope with something that makes me question my will to date and reinforces my belief that I do in fact have some rare chemical imbalance that generates a phermone that is detectable only to freaks of nature, parole violators and the mentally disturbed.. and that said phermone is effectively channelled via the internet..

Yet another Yahoo candidate (I'm just a walking advertisement for Yahoo, huh? Except that all my experiences with Yahoo have sucked ass).. Let's call this one "I'm Nuts and Maybe A danger To Everyone I meet".. Initially, INMATE seemed normal, but then, don't they all.. We clarified that he did actually look like his pictures, had a 3 year old son and was not a Jehovah's Witness and proceeded from there, affirming that my screening process has got room for improvement.. We never actually met, which is why this doesn't qualify as a bad date but it probably could count at least as a half a date, given the circumstances..

So after chatting a bit he discloses that his former business partner was recently convicted and sentenced to 9 years in prison for violation of SPAM-ing laws but that he had left the business prior to the illegal activities.. He said he felt he had to mention it b/c his name was associated with the criminal charges, even though he was never involved in them.. I did a little research and yep, his name was all over the news associated with this trial.. I'm not a complete fucking idiot (Oh wait, yes I am..) but the info I found seemed to support his story that he was not actually involved in the criminal trial, just that he was a former partner in the business.. Of course, the slight skepticism that remained should have been exascerbated into full fleged "abandon ship" panic by the fact that he seemed to have no current discernable job and indicated his income came from "investors from up North" and that he worked primarily in real estate "shelters" and "non-traditional investment opportunities ". Most of his income was generated through "undocumented commission".. Uhh, wasn't that dialog cut from the Soprano's?? I chose not to ask for more details..

Despite the red flags, alarm bells and the sound of the siren they use for impending nuclear power plant disasters, I agreed to meet him for a date the next week as I was going out of town for the weekend (why I would agree to this is covered at the end of this article).. I called Sunday when I got back and left a quick message, just saying hi and to call me back.. About an hour later I get a call back.. From his mother.. She wanted to know if I knew her son.. "Uhhh, sort of? Why??".. Apparently he disappeared a few days before and she saw my name on his caller ID and wanted to know if I had any contact with him.. I said nope, none since last week and I had never met him in person, didn't know anything about him, knew nothing about his business activities or what he even looked like (just in case we were dealing with a wire-tap, I don't want to be the subject of a mob hit).. I did ask if his 3 year old son was ok, if he was missing as well.. She said oh no, she had been watching him all weekend.. I said if I heard from him, I would be sure to ask him to call home.. After we hung up, I changed his number in my caller ID from his name to "DNA" as in Do Not Answer!!..

I have not heard back from my Sunday email to date so I am not sure if he ever turned up.. I have a morbid curiosity and wish I knew but I'm not curious enough (or morbid enough) to actually ever make contact with this guy ever again.. The part where he was gone for 3 days without calling to check on his kid (no parent does that) has caused me to draw the conclusion that he either is fleeing an indictment or ran afoul of the mob.. Neither of which screams Happily Ever After..

You might be asking yourself, why I would bother with continuing the online dating, regular dating or even taking the chance of leaving my house every day for that matter, when every date, nay, every single interaction with the opposite sex is such a disaster.. Simply put, I'm hoping to actually capitalize on my misfortune and love of writing by scoring a book deal at some point and the more hell I go through, the closer I get to my goal.. When I was happily involved with P, I never had anything to write about.. The way things are going these days, I suspect my book could rival the legnth of War and Peace by the time I settle into another relationship..

Hell, if INMATE is any indication, I'll probably finish the book by the end of the summer..