The Fastest Knight Ever

I would like to start this by stating that I blame this Knight on my sitting around watching Celebrity Rehab.  

One night when I had very little to do, (this never happens) so I decided I would sack out and watch some crap TV.  As I sailed through the channels, I came to Bravo, which I feel always has some offering of interesting lifestyle stories. (That was the most politically correct way I could phrase that.) 

As I began to investigate the show I realized I recognized one of the women on the program. I couldn't quite place her face, but I recalled her as one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen when I was younger.  I was now hooked.  I wanted to find out what show this was and why she was on it.  

As I listened intently, I gathered that she was 1. On Celebrity Rehab, 2. had some sort of addiction and 3. it had something to do with her crumby choices in men that she was so horribly amiss. 

As I watched her story unfold she told a sorrowful tale of having it all; beauty, brains and fame, but never enjoying it all because of her addictions and her challenges with men.  

"Jesus Christ," I thought! This woman had it all. She supposed to be the champion of single girls everywhere.  Amber Smith, as she came to be,  had been a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, named one of the top 50 sexiest women in the world by Maxim Magazine, and made her mark on the world of film and TV with her fame before she was 25. Here she was broken and desperate to be someone else on a TV show for those who were so troubled with life.  How could this have happened? 

She told tales of terrible relationships that were doomed from the start, men who mistreated her and her ever depleting self esteem from all these experiences.  All of this accounted for the fact that now that she was 36 was still desperate for love and trying to pull her life together.  

All I could think to myself was "MY GOD. She's a beautiful woman, clearly bright, articulate,  with the world at her feet, and she can't find a fulfilling relationship? WTF?" 

The hope I had for my dating adventures was waning by the second.  If this chick can't find love, well, there's no hope for me. I'm a mere mortal. 

A wave of despair shot like lightening through my body as I laid there on there on the couch.   It was like that moment when you realize that some day, you are going to die. I was nearly paralyzed with fear. This was not how I had intended to experience my Sunday night off.

Right around this moment my phone went off with a text message.  I eyeballed the phone to see who was reaching out to me at this moment of despair.  Had one of my amazing girlfriends felt a pang of heartache across the miles? Did they know that this was my moment of need and comforting? Nope.   No such luck. As I looked at the phone I realized that it wasn't one of them.  The name on the phone rang up "Terribly Tony."

Tony was a guy that had emailed me multiple times on the dating site.  He had decent pictures, what seemed to be a stable 9 - 5 job in sales and an average description on his "About" section.  I don't know what it was that caused me to stop texting back to Tony at some point. I think I just really wasn't feeling this dude.  In addition there had been a number of other Knights around this time that were monopolizing my nights out.  For whatever reason, after our few text messages and emails back and forth, I kind of dropped off the face of the Earth to this guy. And I was OK with this.

I give him credit for periodically text messaging me, and sticking with trying to see me, but truthfully, there must have been some reason why I wasn't responding to his messages.  Just couldn't put my finger on it. . .

So here he was, texting me at my moment of weakness.  I had saved him as "Terrible Tony" so I would alert myself to the fact that, hanging out with him, could, in fact, prove to be terrible.

"Hey, what are you up to?" Terrible Tony flashed on my text message.

I sat there for a minute.  I couldn't tell him that I was sitting here on my uncomfortable couch, contemplating my single hood with a sense of horror and despair. That after watching a thirty minute reality TV show about my "Miss. I Wish I Was Her" had now plunged me head long into an emotional quandary of epic proportions. 

"Nothing," was all I could muster.  Lest I spare him from the truth.  

"I was in the Morristown area and thought maybe you might want to meet up for a drink," he inquired.  

My mind raced. Maybe this was just the distraction that I needed to get myself out of my own head and away from this God damned TV show. 

"Sure," I responded, but not really sure why. 

"Oh great," he replied, "Where would you like to grab a drink?"

"How about the Blackthorn?" 

He said that he could be there in 20 minutes. I told him I would be there in 30. 

As soon as everything was set and in place, I wondered why I had even agreed to this.  I quickly dashed over to my computer to log onto the dating site to take a quick refresher course on this guy. I eyeballed the pictures and the profile.  There was something just off about this dude I couldn't put my finger on.  I just really wasn't into him: at all. Now what.  

I thought about not going. My distraction now turned into this crumby sense of "let's get this over with." Crap. This was gonna be over before it even began. At least it was another date towards the 30 for the blog? 

Great. Now my writing is determining who I go on dates with. Awesome. 

I arrived at the Blackthorn at my estimated time. The bar was a total oasis. There were probably three people sitting there so I immediately recognized my Knight.  He too immediately recognized me and stood up.  

Now I was really sorry that I had agreed to this. I was stuck having to go through with this. Dang.

As he came over to introduce himself, I shook his hand.  He and I then sat down at the bar where he was already drinking a Bud.  The bartender came by to ask if I wanted a drink so  I told him that I would take a glass of water. 

The Knight looked like his pictures; blond haired with intense blue eyes. I thought perhaps it was just an intense blue in color, but now that I was up close and personal with this guy, they seemed to me more crazy than beautiful.  

He was shorter than his stated height, but then again, that seems to be everyone on that stupid site. He was in a red plaid shirt, jeans and running sneakers.  

"What the hell was it with the dudes on this site and red plaid shirts?" I thought to myself.

My Knight and I sat down and immediately it started.  The Spanish Inquisition had now kicked off.  Over the next five minutes this man asked me about twenty questions in rapid succession.  I couldn't tell if he was nervous, or had a job as an interrogator he just couldn't check at the end of the day.  

By question five I found myself lying because I really didn't want this guy knowing ANYTHING about me.  In order to break the barrage of questions I figured I would ask him about his job. He then went into a whole diatribe about his work in sales for something like Amway, and began to inquire about my knowledge of  vitamin supplements. 

Huh? Was this a date or a sales pitch? 

As he went on and on about he importance of supplements and how it had been life changing for him, I was now having a dialogue inside my head.  

"Why am I sitting here, " I thought to myself.  "The little voice inside you said that this guy wasn't someone worth meeting, and there you go, ignoring it YET AGAIN. Serves you right."

I was now pissed at myself.  I had let my own fears of loneliness, worry and an apolacyptic, loveless existence get the best of me. Why? Because I had watched some stupid TV show.  

I snapped back to reality to find my Knight still droning on about his workouts, supplement regime and who knows what else. 

I think that he turned to ask me a question. Another question. . .

As if I had become possessed by someone with sense, words fell out of my mouth without really much thought. 

"Hey, I'm exhausted from a long day and I thought that perhaps this was a good idea, but I don't really think that this is going to work." I began to stand up and get my handbag and coat together. 

This was totally unlike me.  I didn't provide any explanation.  I didn't feel bad.  I wasn't going to subject myself to another prolonged crumby date just because I felt it was the polite thing to do.  Perhaps my supermodel idol had stuck with dates like this and that is exactly what had plummeted her into the place she was now. 

I wasn't going to let that be me.  I was going to put the kabash on this right out the gate. Part of me actually liked the way this felt and I loved how easily the words rolled off my tongue. 

He looked a bit dazed and confused by the immediacy of my statement. I think that he was expecting me to answer another of his umpteenth questions.  He definitely wasn't expecting this.  He was sort of slack jawed sitting there starring at me.  

"Um, Ok," he stammered.

"I'm going to be going now. Thanks for coming out.  Good luck with everything."

I stood up and walked out the front door half wondering if I should be running to my car for fear of him chasing me down in angst and aggravation.  Nope.  No sign of him anywhere.

I then scoffed at myself and laughed for the egocentricity that it took to even think that. 

There was a certain sense of peace and calm I felt I had ascertained walking out of that date.  I had begun to have a sense of self, a sense of, "this isn't what I wanted, so why compromise."  It was like in that very moment I had rediscovered me and everything was going to be OK.

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!