A few months ago, a very
handsome young man continuously looked at my OkCupid profile without
writing me. Under his profile name read M/32/Available (which in the
world of online dating usually means someone is in an "open
relationship). He had a snarky adorable smile with lovely little
dimples and stylish dark blond hair. Upon reading his profile, I
learned that he had a girlfriend, but was in an open relationship with
her. He wrote that if you are looking for "fun dates, and even more for
post-dates," to write him a message.
This is not what I'm looking for at all, but I sent him a flirty message anyway.
"I notice you've been looking at my profile," I wrote. "It's a nice profile, it deserves to be looked at," he responded.
This
began a long thread of hundreds of back and forth messages. The
communication was open and he presented as caring, intelligent, fun and
flirty. He had a PhD in something I hardly understood and he had a lot
of fascinating things to say.
His story went like
this: He had a girlfriend that he deeply loved, but his sex drive is
much higher than hers. It was her idea to open up their relationship
for casual sex with others, so that he can be fulfilled sexually and
still stay with her. In a month he was going to travel to another
country for a month, then return for a few months, then study in another
country for a year. He and his girlfriend had already decided to break
up before he left to study abroad, however they would stay together for
the next few months before he leaves.
I knew this was
a messy situation to get involved in. But as it sometimes happen for
me, I began doing a little fantasizing. Maybe I would meet this
handsome, well educated man and we would begin some kind of strange and
compelling romance. Maybe he would come home in a year and we'd both
magically be single and have a relationship.
However
the rational side knew that even meeting him was a silly idea. If we
hooked up casually and I liked him, he has a girlfriend now and that
would just be bad new bears for me. I kept him at a distance but
continued some virtual flirting.
After a month he
left for his trip. I was going out with a few people at the time and
not really thinking about him. But a month later I was looking
through old messages and saw one from him. I looked at his profile, and
instead of saying "Available," it now read "Single."
I
sent him a little message, "I see that you are single now." He
responded that he had just returned from his trip, was still with his
girlfriend but they had decided for sure to break up when he leaves to go study. He told me
that he had great sex with his girlfriend when he returned from his
trip, but his sex drive was so high that he was left unsatisfied.
At
this point our flirting became more intense. I felt free to be more
wild with him, knowing he was leaving soon, knowing his girlfriend was
fine with him being with other women, knowing I most likely wouldn't get
attached with this framework in place. Sexy talk turned to sexy
pictures turned to him saying he really wanted to meet me. (Note: his
sexy pictures were only body shots. I asked numerous times for face
shots but he magically ignored my requests.)
I began to think that I
wanted to meet him. My curiosity and excitement of the taboo of it all
began to take over. He called me one night when I came home from being
out with friends at 2:30am... We talked for 2 hours. He was smart,
interesting, a great listener. I felt comfortable with him and was
really enjoying our connection. He told me that he couldn't stop thinking
about me, that for the last few days he was constantly checking his
email to see if I wrote him, looking at his phone to see if I've sent
him any sexy pictures. We made tentative plans to meet a few days
later, but I expressed my concerns. "I'm worried I will like you if we
meet, and then it will become a tricky situation. This whole thing is
strange and complex, but I'm also intrigued and really enjoy
communicating with you."
"Well," he sighed, "I am
going to throw another monkey wrench into this equation. You know the
profile you wrote me on? Well that's not really my profile."
"What do you mean?" I asked, feeling my heart beating faster by the moment.
"I
met this guy when I was traveling through Eastern Europe. He told me
that he was looking to move to America and asked if I thought American
girls would find him attractive. I told him I would put up an online
dating profile with his photos to see if girls would write to him.
That's the profile you wrote me on. I never write to people from it,
but you wrote me first so I responded."
"So that's not you? The pictures you've sent me haven't been you? What else isn't true?" I asked, feeling totally freaked out.
"No, that's not my face. All the body photos I sent you are me however."
"Well then why would you put on his profile the blurb about the open relationship? Is that even true?"
He
responded, "Everything I've told you is true, except that's not my
face. I used to have the blurb about the open relationship on my real
profile, until a family friend visited it. I really didn't want
that information getting back to my parents, so I took it off, stopped
signing onto that profile and added it to the fake one. I can send you a
picture of my face if you like."
"Sure, I'd like to see what you really look like," I responded.
He
sent me a picture. I wasn't attracted to the guy at all. I told him
that I found him cute just to be polite and talked to him for another 20 minutes
then told him I had to go to sleep. It was nearly 5am.
That
night I couldn't sleep, feeling strangely violated but also silly for
getting involved in a situation like this. My rule of thumb has always
been to meet people sooner than later to avoid something like this
happening. He had duped me but once again I allowed it to happen.
The
next day he wrote me like nothing had happened. I told him I needed
some time to think about all that had gone down. Eventually he checked
in and I told him the truth, that I wasn't attracted to him like I was
to the pictures he put up of his "friend." He said he understood and wished me good
luck in the dating world.
Of course I'm left with a
creeped out feeling... But I'm also left with some questions about
attraction... In terms of the mind, heart, soul and then of course, the
body. Now let's say he didn't have a girlfriend, and we were just
writing, having great conversation and chemistry. I'm thinking he's
this hunky dude, and then he turns out to be not such a hottie. What an
awkward position I was put in, actually questioning my own
superficiality. But I think that's important to do, to question what
attraction is and can we love the insides in a romantic situation so
much that the outsides cease to matter?
To end this
whale of a tale in a humorous and ponderous manner, I will quote the
great Adam Carolla, who is an avid Catfish watcher.
"As you know I watch this show Catfish on MTV and... I've seen most
of the episodes, and it's one of those, you know exactly how it's gonna
end. Cuz nobody looks like their online picture and everyone's got a
fake name. It's a couple of things. I've always broken it down to,
Catfish is, if I had to just describe it in under 150 words, it's uh,
"She's my soulmate, she's the love of my life. What? She's fat? Fuck
that bitch!" That's how the whole thing goes down. It starts with
soulmate, it goes to oh, she's 30 lbs heavier than her picture, and,
moving on. That's how it works."
