WARNING - LONG: A few years ago I had the following experience and it's been bothering me ever since. I met a woman on FB who was in a long term thing with someone but was also very intelligent, knowledgeable, and funny. She was also
extremely beautiful with classical Romanesque good looks. Though in her mid 30s, she looked 10 years younger and in a town full of chubby, tattooed single moms she was slender, child-free, and dressed in that sexy but classy (i.e. not slutty) style that one doesn't see much anymore. Think of the leading ladies in old movies.
For 2 and 1/2 years we sort of flirted and traded little jokes and "likes" on each other's posts. She was, at one time, probably one of my top 3 daily FB interactors. We liked the same art and music. She knew what Laibach was and thought they were cool and got that they weren't
really Nazis. She was into obscure sci-fi. I could talk to her about things like transhumanism and the Singularity without having to explain what the hell transhumanism and the Singularity were. I mean I know some nerdy chicks (I used to work as a programmer) but frankly they tend to be heavy-set lesbians. She also thought that all that futuristic stuff was cool (most of the women I meet think that stuff is "icky"). We connected on every level. She was the perfect match, so I thought - except for that little matter of a boyfriend. At some point she broke up with the guy but was immediately showing in her status that she was dating a new guy. This, however, lasted only a few months and by the holidays in late 2011 she was "single" on FB.
So as not to seem too much of a ghoul and also to take account of the fact that the status change may have been some sort of lovers' quarrel where FB was being used as part of the fight, I hung back for a few weeks. I knew not to wait too long though since she had TONS of horny single male FB friends who drooled over every selfie she posted and all of whom must have noticed her new "single" status with sticky, one-handed glee.
Finally, I decided to ask her to meet for coffee or drinks. She agreed and we met. The first thing that happened is that she looked up at me, smiled and made these sort of googly eyes and said "wow, you're much taller than I thought you were from online" (I'm only 6' but that's taller than average I suppose). Anyway, I thought to myself "wow, this is going much better than most of my dates do in the first 60 seconds - she's into tall guys". We sat in the bookstore cafe, drank coffee and talked about the same stuff we discussed online for about three hours. She seemed interested in finding out my exact age too (I don't post my birth year on FB, only the day) but, curiously, made a sort of end-run around this and started discussing the fact that she had stopped out of school for a while and went back at 26 part time. She had also made known that while working and going part-time it had taken her 8 years to graduate. Thus she was letting me know that she was 34 or 35. I had mentioned that I had returned to school recently as well and had taken 2 years to finish my degree (I went full time and didn't work). I knew what was coming and she asked "so how old were you when you went back?" 39. So she knows I'm about 42. Finally, we left the bookstore and wandered over to a pub for beers, talked some more and parted ways.
Within literally 30 minutes, she's back on the computer composing this long IM about how "I'm just not interested in dating anyone right now and I'm terrible at relationships, etc... but we can still hang out together as friends". Well, this pissed me off for several reasons. The most obvious is that I was being friend-zoned AGAIN. Less obvious was the fact that, even if true, her non-dating policy might have been more honestly presented
before I spent an evening and drove 40 miles round trip into town, struggled to park in her congested neighborhood and otherwise put myself out for what to me was a pretty fucking obvious date. In fact, in her IM, she even said that she was telling me all this "in the interest of honest communication". Seems to me the honest thing to have done would have been to tell me this shit up front. There were many things that should have told even the most thick headed woman that I was asking for a date. The timing being the most obvious. I had known her online for 2.5 years and showed no interest in meeting her until she was single. My status was also single. Yet, here she is, literally 30 minutes after getting back from a date telling her date that she isn't interested in dating anyone.
Finally, I was insulted. I felt she was telling me a rather obvious lie and did not respect my intellect. I mean, when dealing with one's intellectual equals, lets put some thought into our dissembling shall we? That last bit too - "anyone". Think about that. I KNEW and she knew that is was a date, that means I'm not "anyone". Maybe I'm a thing, a piece of furniture, a robot, a stuffed animal...
Anyway, I knew the score but played it cool and played along anyway. At the time I lived in an isolated suburban hellhole and had no IRL friends. She lived downtown in a dense, walkable neighborhood with tons of stuff to do. She had lots of FB friends and many that were female so I thought that maybe if I played her "let's go on platonic dates" game I might meet some of the 30-something hotties I saw in her photos with her(* see note below). I must admit that I was also a bit of a chump and held out hope that if I hung around enough she would see me for the great guy I was and... Well, the men on this forum know what
that's all about.
The story ended badly. Finally, one night in Sept 2012, I confronted her on FB, told her I believed her story about not wanting to date anyone about as much I believed my crazy friend who sees UFOs and Bigfoot and wondered why she couldn't have taken the honest route that a friend of hers did. I had dated her friend a year prior and she just told me that she didn't feel any chemistry with me. We remained
real friends. So anyway, after my final IM session with her I defriended her and she banned me. The creepy thing is that I finally moved out of slumburbia and into town and now live a few blocks from her. I see her occasionally at regular show we both like. She's always sitting with a table full of guys (no women) too.
* Note: the hotties in the pictures turned out to be people she knew a few years ago. She largely has only male friends now so hanging out with her platonically would have made me just another link in her ever-growing sausage chain anyway - see the immediate above
Thoughts? What was
her game? I have a hypothesis (which you can probably guess) but I won't put it out explicitly yet so as not to bias opinion. Oh, and yes I now live in town and meet women IRL. In fact I just told my few REAL FB friends that I'm sort of slowly easing the FB needle out of my arm and that if they really want to interact with me they should go out to the pub or the park or riding bikes or motorcycles with me.
CHAT