Tales from the Trenches Tuesday

And....we're back! I know, I know...I am sure some of you were wondering if I had all but abandoned my Tuesday postings. Things just got pretty busy right before Thanksgiving -- and still are with things going on at work and holiday time. But here I am, taking a break from all the craziness to come back here and post another miserable tale. It's a Christmas Miracle, right?!?!

Okay, so in that warm and fuzzy haze of hope so many of us experience at the start of a New Year, in early 2010 I decided to give match.com another go. But around the beginning of February I started emailing with one particular guy, we sort of hit things off right away, and I decided to see where that might go. So I really didn't get to use that much of the subscription. After things ended with him a few months later, I thought I would milk the last remaining weeks out of that membership. Sort of like the wild CVS spending spree I plan to go on this month with my buckets of FSA money I still have left for this year. It was during this truly craptastic period of "use it or lose it" match.com that I found FBand ICF.

But eventually I started corresponding with TYFSMFYC. After some email exchanges back and forth, we agreed to meet for dinner. For those of you in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic, you may recall the god-awful sweltering heat we endured this summer. Something like 30+ days of temps above 90 degrees. It was disgusting. It was oppressive. And most of all, it was damn challenging to dress appropriately for first meetings during that sort of weather. It was worse for him as he had to wear a suit to work, but we were at least able to have a laugh at how hot and uncomfortable we both were. And I actually ended up having a really nice time with TYFSMFYC that night -- the conversation flowed, lots of laughs, a true thumbs up.

Within an hour or so after parting ways, I received the following email:
At the risk of seeming too eager, I just wanted to say I had lots of fun! And you have a great sense of humor... even if your days are plagued by a crazy temp at work. Hopefully you'll want to meet up again.... I'll not wear a tie and neither of us will be sweaty. Have a goodnight and I hope to hear from you soon.

Kind of refreshing when someone doesn't play the "wait a few days to get back in touch" game right? So after about 2-3 days, I wrote him back. Hey, I said it was refreshing...I didn't say I was about to stop playing that game right off the bat!

We swapped a few emails back and forth...but had a lot of trouble scheduling another time to go out. Happens a lot in the summer (and around this holiday time of year too, actually) because so many people have vacations, too many weekend plans, and so forth. So I didn't really think anything of it.

Then he claimed not to get one or two emails from me..."Must have gone to Spam folder or something"...yeah, that's sounds kinda fishy, pal. I started to get a little leery of TYFSMFYC at this point. This leeriness was further solidified with this email:

I can explain my lack of Internet things. I would like to meet up again, maybe somewhere in Arlington? What about this Friday? Or maybe Saturday, but I may have work. Whatchya think?

Um...I am even further suspicious of you, that's what I think. "Lack of Internet things"?? Who the hell wrote this email, HAL 9000? (bonus points if you can spot that slightly-obscure reference)

But what the hell....who am I to judge, right? I mean, if you read this column regularly you know I have gone out on meetings with people a helluva lot worse.

I responded to TYFSMFYC saying I was actually free that Friday and within the hour he had responded back asking where I'd like him to meet me and at what time. Before I had a chance to respond, the next day I get this email from him:
Hey, I can't do Friday. I'm going to KY tomorrow to take care of some of the craziness from the last few weeks. I won't be back to DC for a few weeks. I have too much going on right now and just feel tired. I enjoyed meeting you but I'm going take a break from this for right now. I now this is insane and .... thanks for cutting me some slack.
Best wishes and good luck.

I mean how do you respond to that? For the record, I didn't respond at all but part of me wanted to simply respond to say:
"Thank You For Sparing Me From Your Craziness"

Clearly this guy didn't just have some baggage....he had a complete matching set of it. Sometimes it's nice when you can avert the crazy from the get-go without ever having to have it affect you, right?

And for the record...those emails were word for word, so all the awkward phrasing and word choices were TYFSMFYC's own and not manipulated for effect.