my only Match mistake

As I said in my January 28th review of Match.com, I met some really nice guys through that site. In fact, looking back over the past year, I realize that the few relationships I had that went anywhere at all, however briefly, were with guys I met on Match.

My only truly bad experience was late last spring/early summer, when a guy from Match whom I’ll call the Total Flake e-mailed me. He lived on Long Island and claimed to be a professional astrologer (that should’ve been my first warning sign). We had only exchanged a couple of e-mails when he asked if we could talk by phone, which I (mistakenly) thought boded well -- I figured it meant he wouldn’t just e-mail me for weeks and never suggest getting together. So we talked one night, and it turned out he’d met his previous girlfriend on Match six or seven years earlier, and they had lived together for five years when he’d lived in Arizona, but they had broken up a few months earlier. She was the first and only woman he’d ever met on Match.

Anyway, the Total Flake and I had a fine talk, and he said he’d give me a call again later in the week…which turned out to be the next night. And the night after that, and the night after that, etc. I got to know the Total Flake well during so many calls. He told me how he’d traveled through Central and South America, had become fluent in Spanish, and that South Americans were so much more receptive to astrology than North Americans.

“So you actually make your living as an astrologer?” I finally asked him point-blank. He back-pedaled a bit (second warning sign) and said, well, he would eventually, but he was also living with his mother on Long Island and managing his late father’s investments. Uh-huh.

Then he explained that he had a lot of severe sinus issues, and he’d even had surgery at one point, but it had gone so badly it had made him worse, and sometimes he had to sleep sitting up and let his nose drain out. Nice, huh? I’m all for honesty, but let me get to know you better before you dump your baggage on me, please!

I was able to find out so much about him because he ended up calling me every night for nearly TWO WEEKS. It made me wonder. I’d been on Match for six months at that point, so I knew that you could connect well with someone on the phone but end up having nothing to say to them in person, and vice versa. Why was he investing all this time in me when we might not even like each other once we met in person?

The other thing that gave me pause was that he was always on Match – and I mean literally ALWAYS. Whenever you log on, you can see which of your matches are “on-line now!” or when they were last on the site. Whenever I logged on, no matter what time of the day or night, it always said he was “on-line now!” It seemed like he was on the site 24/7.

One Thursday evening, during what must have been our 13th phone call, the Total Flake finally, at long last, suggested meeting in person. I said sure, and he said he could come into the city on Saturday and we could meet somewhere around Grand Central. “I’ll give you a call tomorrow night and we’ll pick a time and a place,” he promised.

The next night was Friday. I didn’t have any plans, so I came home from work, had dinner, and was puttering around when I suddenly realized it was 10:00 PM, and for the first time in two weeks, the Total Flake hadn’t called. I got on-line and noted that, as always, he was on Match. I called him, and his machine picked up. I left him a message saying I was just calling to touch base about when and where we were meeting tomorrow. Then I immediately checked Match, and saw he had logged off. Five minutes later, I checked again – and he was back on!

He never called me that night. In fact, he never called me again. On Saturday afternoon I checked my e-mail, and he had written to me that morning. I deleted the e-mail in a fit of rage soon afterward, but as I recall, he’d written something like, “Hi, Dating Guru, I’m afraid I won’t be able to meet up with you today. Things that have been said during our conversations have led me to believe we would have little chance of being friends, let alone more.”

??? Why on earth did he waste his time talking to me every night for two weeks if we had “little chance” of even being friends, “let alone more”? Ever since then, I’ve tried to cut out the awkward-phone-call stage with these on-line guys. Send me a few e-mails, then let’s get together and see how things go in person. My time is valuable to me, and I never want to waste it in that way again.

I believe I know the Total Flake’s horoscope for the future -- and it says, “You will remain single for all time." Ugh!