The "Catfish" Knight

catfish: A catfish is someone who pretends to be someone they're not using Facebook or other social media to create false identities, particularly to pursue deceptive online romances. - Urban dictionary

This date was at the infancy of my Knight endeavor. Keep in mind that at that point I was much more naive and really wanted to believe that what people wrote and portrayed about themselves was at least mostly true.  

Example: By this point I had to embraced that the height thing is just going to be a lie across the board 99% of the time. You live and learn, and wear flats.  

For a brief period when I first signed up for this online dating service I would sometimes click on their "Top Prospects" just to see if they, PoF, had actually picked people that I thought might be good partners.  More and more when I checked this link I was praying it was an algorithm rather than someone like Patty Stanger on the other side. If not, I had no idea how she was holding down a job, let alone famous for it. 

I sometimes marveled at the selection that these "Top Prospects" provided me. They seemed to be all over the map, but well, I was picking all over the map: dark haired middle aged Italian men, young brown haired military guys, tall red heads, older, shorter men. . .

Maybe the algorithm, in trying to provide me with a good selection of possible candidates, had too been confused by my recent selections. Even IT didn't know what I was looking for. 

I'm sure she would tell me my "picker was off".

With this in mind, I would sometimes, whilst it was a commercial break from one of my series, or on a lazy morning I would check to see who the great PoF Gods had picked for me.  I scrolled through profiles the way I scrolled through shoes while shopping online. I was fascinated with who the site had been chosen for me.  Each profile as different as a snowflake and consistently I was still confused as to why they were "My Top Prospects."

To give you an idea what I'm scrolling through, take a look at a professional  sports team roster.  Any major sport; It's kind of the same thing. What you see when you log on to this page is the beginning part of their "about me part" which should expand to a larger description, their picture, location and age. Just the facts and enough influence for you to make a "blink" decision.  The part where you had to fill out  your description in the "about me" part ranged from the very well written and complex novellas to those of a few words or just nothing at all. 

Clearly this tool wasn't working well for me. . .Or I thought. 

After reading stats for the first ten plus pages of my supposed All Star line up, I came across a profile of young man whose handle was just letters and numbers strung together with some reference to the military. Nothing fancy or like some of the "lookingfortheone,"  "hotforyou" or "onesexyLatinman"I had been seeing. 

Look men. You feel  you are pressured! Sheesh. Don't you wanna stop when you see a self-described "sexy latin man".  Yeah, no.  Me neither.

I'm sure this same shot has been used 1,000 times in Pof profiles.

This profile I had stumbled upon was pretty average.  He lived in the vicinity, was 28, 6' and had a picture himself. Clothed, I may add.  It was of him smiling while taking his own picture from over his head (as opposed to the gratuitous in mirror, naked from the waist up, in a towel shots you see so often on here). 

The picture of him was taken the same way you would a selfie you were going to send to a friend or family member said, "sweet" instead of creepy. 

I clicked on the profile. His job that was listed as military and you could see that there was a crew cut and the stereotypical white wife beater you see so many military men wearing in their pictures on here. He had listed that he had been serving his country, and went into a bit of detail about it,  had recently returned and was brief in his description of himself. Under his relationship status he had interested in "dating".

Hmmm. 

Couldn't really glean much from the profile. He was a man who was proud to have served his country, seemed like he was relatively happy from his pictures posted and was pretty attractive.  Hey what the hell. Maybe for once this Top Prospect thing has the right idea. 

On a lark I decided I would send him a brief message. Nothing too crazy.  Maybe just a quick note so he knew I had seen him and was interested. I authored a brief note and thanked him for his service. I had put at the end that if he was interested in reaching out, to feel welcome to. 

I logged off then for the night and finished watching The Walking Dead. 

I think I logged on the next morning wondering if there was going to be a response. I felt like I was waiting to get picked for dodgeball. That same excited and sick anticipation you feel when you're not sure someone else's decision is going to determine if you are going to feel it in the head or the gut.

There was and email!!

I clicked on the message. 

He responded that he appreciated the recognition of his service and it seemed we had some things in common. He asked small talk questions about my weekend, and thanked me for reaching out.  He seemed remotely interested. 

We emailed back and forth and then text messaged leading up to our meeting. We decided that the following Sunday evening would work for everyone. 

That Sunday I finished dinner with my folks and dashed off mumbling something about getting ready for a date with "some military dude from that online thing", which I'm sure left them both perplexed and wondering why I couldn't just meet a nice man at church. 

I dashed home and threw on a white cotton long sleeved tee shirt I had gotten from a friend, a pair of jeans and a short pair of boots. We had decided to meet at the Blackthorn around 7.30.  I arrived at just about 7.25 and proceeded to the bar area. I walked around I surveyed the landscape: there were probably 10 people sitting at the bar. A couple that were retired. Nope. Not him. An older Asian man. Nope. Two girls in their late 20s. Nope. One guy with a wild head of hair hunched over his phone. Hmmmm. Nah. Prob not him. Four guys in their early 20s talking loudly watching some game on TV. OH, HELL NO. (In my best Anna Maria voice.)

Was the older Asian man posing as a young blond haired, blued eyed American kid online? Um, not likely??

Was it one of the dudes in the group. NOOOOO. This guy wouldn't have invited me to bro-out with him somewhere right? I hoped not.  I studied this group of boys. No one glanced at me, and none of them looked like they were expecting anything but their team to win, let alone awaiting a date. 

"This guy?" I thought to myself as I turned to look at the man with the crazy hair hunched over his cell phone.  

I turned and took a long hard, "I'm trying not to be creepy," look at him.  

Hmm. He was tall, probably over six foot. Check. He was wearing jeans and a large cotton tee shirt. That's not helping. Not like I had expected him to wear a wife beater to the date. . . 

Since he was so engaged with his phone I decided to text my Knight. I sent that I was here and where should I look for him.  I then saw the guy in front of me start typing. 

OK. Bingo. 

I walked over to him and identified myself.  As he looked up to greet me, yep, it was him. 

The picture he had posted online was clearly not recent. His once cropped hair was now this full, thick head of wild hair. It wasn't crazy as in, "I look like Jack Nicholson from One Flew Over the Cookoos Nest" crazy, but more like Russell Brand's controlled crazy.  

Surprise!

It must be said that the bushy head of hair fit his face and he was pulling it off in a rock star sort of way. I noticed that he also had gauges in his ears, and visible tattoos all over his arms. Not as straight laced as I thought he was gonna be after all.

I was trying to recall how much of what I saw in the picture. Maybe those towel dudes are posing that way so you know what you are expecting when you see them for the first time.  That must be it. 

I guess one of those pictures would have helped right around now. 

I parked myself in the seat across from him.

I couldn't help but study him. I wanted to see what else I missed or what else was in congruent with what my pre-conceived notion of who I was meeting. 

I studied his tattoos. He was a Boston fan, he seemed to like Phish and a saying tattooed on him that I would reference later if everything was going south with the date. I had options and that was what mattered. He already had a Heineken in front of him so I ordered a Strongbow. 

At this point I couldn't tell who looked more nervous. I was realizing that the shirt I was wearing was a hand me down and never been worn. As I sat down, my boobs all of a sudden became way more exposed than I expected.  I was beginning to look like a Russ Meyer movie.  Shit.  I was now trying to yank  my shirt further towards my neck while trying look like I was ready to engage in a conversation. This continual process was near exhausting and I finally gave up thinking, "awesome. I'm leading with my boobs now." 

I looked up at him.  He wasn't staring at my boobs. He kind-of looked like he was staring at me waiting for me to speak.  As I looked at him I thought how his eyes looked like the inside of blueberries.  He looked a bit tense but had a sweet face. He was a little scruffy but you could tell that it was the same person from the picture. He looked like perhaps it had been about a year or so ago. We made small talk about how it had been a long week.  He had been working all weekend and I had too so we both were a bit flat I think. 

He mentioned being kind of nervous and I told him what an easy person I was to talk to. I giggled at the fact that I made him nervous and he seemed to relax a bit.  In order to make the conversation go towards something that made him comfortable I asked him about his service. I got the 30-thousand foot view of what he did and for who where, but after the basics, he told me that he didn't want to talk about it any more. 

I didn't understand. He had made his service such a big part of his profile and now didn't want to talk about it.  OK. I have no idea what people in a war go through, and I am no one to judge, it just really threw me for a loop.  

"Quick," I thought.  "Ask about the tattoos!" Tattoos are a saving grace on a date that is tanking. Ask about some one's tattoos and you're buying at least 3 min talk time per tattoo.  As he got to telling me about the ones we could see, you could see him start to relax more and more. He was kind of giving me a lesson in his history and it was interesting to listen to.  We then talked about music, concerts we had been to, traveling we had done or not done and how we liked what we did for work.  

Sorry. Wanted an excuse to have David Beckham in the blog.

I thought the conversation was finally going well. Nearly as quickly as it started to get good, he looked at his phone and declared that he had to wake up early, had had a long day and probably should head home. He had just finished his Heineken and I still had just a few sips of my beer left.  

Oh. OK. 

Guess it wasn't going well after all. 

Um, OK. "Sure," I said. "It's been a long day for me as well."

Well that was unexpected. I looked at my watch. It was nearly exactly an hour to the minute. 

I guess my hour was up?? I felt like I had been part of some private speed dating. 

He picked up the tab for us and said he had had a good time and we should do it again.

That is such a standard end of date answer I really had no idea if he was being honest or just felt it obligatory to say so. I was confused.

We walked outside and I think I teased him about his Patriots hat. We both wished each other well goodbye and promised to text to let the other know we got home safe. 

I wasn't expecting a text. I had absolutely no idea what to make of this date. He wasn't who I expected, but I was kind of happy with who it turned out to be. 

Surprisingly after I sent a text that I was home safely, I received a text back from him saying that he had a good time and hoped that he could see me the following week. 

Well, I figured, what the hell. I wanted to try to figure out who this mystery person really was so here was another opportunity to see! 

The "Inadvertent" Knight

So one of my blog dates cancels on me and it’s a Saturday night. I am kind of pissed because that was  my plan for a Saturday night off but, well, what can you do. People are unreliable and I think perhaps he did me a favor. (Future blog date: The Catfish Knight)

I decide that I am going to still have dinner out and watch a hockey game to make the most of this debacle.  I head over to Bonefish Grill with the desire to have a great piece of fish and a martini while I watch the Devils play.

I arrive just as the game is starting and surprisingly there are very few people at the bar. I make my way over to a seat and settle in. I ask the bartender for a Stoli dirty martini and I begin perusing the menu while I am trying to keep an eye on the game.

“This isn’t so bad,” I think to myself. I will have a peaceful, healthy dinner and get to watch my boys in red kick the Sabres asses.  Win win!

As I am perusing the menu a man sits down next to me.  He has dark hair, a mustache, olive colored skin and is probably in his late 40s.  He kind of reminds me of Eugene Levy.  I gotta let you know, I am not hot for Eugene Levy.

He asks if anyone is sitting next to me and I let him know that no one is.  He then sits down and begins chatting with the bartender. They know him at this bar, and he seems to be a regular. I am hoping he doesn’t want to talk to me. It’s a full moon out and I just have this theory that all the looney tunes come out on these nights (er go why I am out).  I just want to have my dinner, have my drink, watch the game and go home. Period.  The end.

And here it comes . . . Just when I think that I am going to get my wish, the full moon unleashes its fury.

 “A pretty girl like you shouldn’t have someone keeping them waiting, ” Eugene Levy look-alike tells me.

I nod and smile in his general direction, as if to say, “Please, I beg of you, leave me alone.”

He doesn’t get this.

He continues on.  “So is he running late?”

Fuck. I am really gonna have to talk to this man.

At this point I feel the chair on the other side of me get pulled out and someone sits down.  Please let this be Alexander Skarsgard sitting on the other side so I can just run off into the night with him.

So if anyone knows him, and can let him know I'm single, we can stop all this crazy blog. 

 It’s not.

It’s a single dude, also probably in his late 40s, wearing a leather jacket, a black shirt, black pants and has about as much hair as Nero. He looks like a Russian arms dealer (whatever your individual mental image of this may be; yes). He smiles and cocks an eyebrow at me as he sits down.

I am now stuck between the Devil and the deep blue sea.

I turn to Eugene Levy and tell him that I am just dining solo because my boyfriend couldn’t make it out tonight. This should buy me some silence from both parties, I think.

He orders something off menu and it sounds amazing. I try to inquire with the bartender what it is.  Instead he tells me it’s on the website but not on the menu. I am intrigued with this and begin feverishly combing the Internet for this offer. He’s now looking on his phone. Dammit.   

This has opened up the conversation floodgates.

Mr. Levy now wants to know why my boyfriend is not here, and how he could let me out alone on a Saturday night. I make the mistake of telling him my fictitious boyfriend is young and unaccountable. 

“How young,” he asks. 

I now need to pick an arbitrary number, but one that will deter him from thinking he has a shot.

“28,” I lie. Hey, he’s my fictitious boyfriend.

“So if he’s 28, how old are you?” he asks.

Jesus, is this man writing a book? What happened to not asking a woman her age??

“35,” I respond because well, I am, and proud of it.

“Oh you’re a cougar? Huh?”

We discuss cougars in the last blog post. 

WTF. This makes me mad. I am kind of getting sick of hearing this. I feel that it’s pretty rude. I wouldn’t think of telling him he’s having some sort of mid-life crisis if roles were reversed. I am dating down. Men have done this for centuries. What am I, some sort of trailblazer for those dating with a few years spread? So they are born in the 90s. Who cares?? My mother is older than my father. I have always dated younger men. It’s not like I’m hanging out at a high school football game taking home the quarterback. This incenses me. I feel liberated to now retaliate . . .

“Why am I a cougar? I’m not dating a child, and the age spread isn’t that great. You men do this all the time and there is no negative connotation, so why is it when I do it, I have a negative stigma attached to it.”  I’m nearly out of breath I am so wound up. 

If you don’t know why, read the previous blog.

I look over to the black leather jacket Nero guy and he’s snickering. He realizes that his competition is tanking and it seems like being a fly on the wall for this.   

Eugene then responded,  “Well you are a Cougar.”

“Dude,” I think to myself, “this is why you are alone at a bar on Saturday night.”

I am exasperated. I guess this dude gets that I am done with him probably because I have now nearly turned my back entirely to this man. I am now intently staring at the TV where the game is on, and I am trying to appear totally engaged and fixated on the Geico commercial. 

Keep in mind now, I have not even received my main at this point. I am still working my way through my salad, and because it’s a busy Saturday night, I know my entrée isn’t showing up anytime soon. F.

I try to throw myself into viewing the game. I am going to ignore more awkwardness if it kills me. 

I look to my left. The man in the leather jacket is there.   He is still awakrdly sitting there half watching the game, half watching his food. Not a good candidate for a chat. I am already neck deep in weirdness.

I fixate on the hockey game. The man next to me hasn’t responded since my Hiroshima Cougar attack.  My main arrives and I delve into my lobster and scallops.  I want to want my meal but I have been so God damned hot today I can hardly eat. 

The man next to me takes the butter warmer candle that comes with my meal and puts it between the two of us. I think that this is either a peace offering, or an attempt to make this more like a date. Either way, this is still neck deep in weirdness. 

You too can have a date with a complete stranger at a bar. Just add a candle. 

“Here you go,” he smiles at me. “It’s like we’re on a date.”

WHAT THE CHRIST. CAN’T I JUST EAT MY MEAL IN PEACE?

I immediately put the butter back on the open flame and fain interest in dipping my scallops in the butter. I throw back a butter-covered scallop.  This is now not even turning out to be the healthy meal I so craved!

I’m now not even interested in the food. I just want to leave now. But there is only 8 minutes left in the 3^rd period. If I leave now, I will miss the end of this nail biting game.  If I stay, Eugene Levy may try to start feeding me my dinner.

I decide that I am willing to risk a few more minutes of this awkward dining experience to not miss the rest of the game. I still have a few sips of my martini left and I imagine that this is as bad as it’s going to get.

Oh no. It can always get worse. And it did.

At about this 8-minute mark other trouble was a brewing.

I had watched them come in and debate over where to sit. They were an older couple, probably retired. He was kinda of Irish drunk red, and she was beaming so they must have been coming from somewhere where alcohol had been served.

They sit down one seat over from Eugene. I can see them surveying the landscape. The look intentely at Eugene, then me and then Eugene again. They then look over at the Russian arms dealer. They seem to be huddled in conversation. I don’t really know or care what they are talking about, because I am trying to focus on the game.

The couple now emerges from their secret conversation and seems to be focusing their attention in my direction.  I quickly look back to the TV. 

“Look engrossed in the game.  Look engrossed in the game,” is all I can think to myself. 

No sooner to I turn my attention to this action packed game but I hear from a few chairs over; “How long have the two of you been dating.”

I feel like she is speaking to me, but why would she ask if we were dating. I make like haven’t heard the question.

Eugene however turns to her and responds that we are not dating.

“Why?” she asks.

Really lady?? This can’t be happening to me.

Roughly 5 minutes left in the game and I just wanna watch the end of the game.

“You make such a lovely couple,” she coos.

“You think so?” Eugene asks her. 

He then turns to me. “She thinks we make a good couple,” he tells me with pride.

Oh great Scott.

I make a weak smile at him and am now staring at the game like my life depends on it.

“Why don’t you ask her out?” says this woman in her lovely English accent.

"She has a boyfriend,” Eugene replies.

“And he’s 28 and she’s a cougar so she won’t want to go out with me.”

The Queen Mum then replies, “well she doesn’t know what she wants.”

Hello?? WTF. I am still sitting here.

“And you over there,” the English woman shouts to the Russian arms dealer. “You don’t want him to ask her out because you want a shot at her.”

He looks as confused as I do.  When did this turn into a soap opera. There is now 2 minutes in the game. I just want out of here.

I grab the bartender’s attention.

“I need a to-go box and the bill please,” I tell her. I have already slogged back the remainder of my martini. 

I get the bill and I notice it’s way more than I expected. Did they put an embargo on my Stoli? I read the itemized menu and notice that they have Eugene and I on the same tab.  Oh Jesus. Even the bartender thinks that we are together.

“Um, miss,” I call to her. “I think that his food was put on my bill by accident.”

“Oh, I thought  you two were together.”

HUH??????

I shake my head vehemently NO and quietly pay my bill while Eugene is deep in conversation with the Brit and the red dude. 

I gather my to-go and my purse and catch the last glimpse of the last seconds of the game.  I think I am getting away Scott-free.

Eugene immediately turns from talking to the couple who have alerted him that I am leaving. “Go get her,” I hear the crazy English lady cry out.

“Would you like to go get a drink?” he asks me as I am gathering my things.

I tell him I have plans and thank you for offering. I just want to get home, lock my door and wait for this crazy full moon to go away. 

I walk out and I can still hear the English woman carrying on about how “she’s young and she’ll learn soon enough.”

Yes lady. I have learned to stay home when there’s a full moon.