Why do I seem to attract the damaged boys? In particular, I'm talking about the liars and freaks... especially the freaks who lie to get a girl to like them, but the truth always surfaces.
The good news is that I think I'm getting better and better at being a human lie detector.
The bad news is I'm still a great big freak magnet.
My biggest problem still stems from when I get a gut feeling about a guy, then I second-guess that feeling and think I'm just being paranoid or overly nitpicky... 9 times out of 10, I eventually discover that if I'd just listened to that gut feeling in the first place, I would have saved myself a lot of time, drama and/or grief.
Here's a very recent (as in: not quite dumped as yet) situation...
I met someone and he seemed very nice: lots in common, a little far away with a few too many health issues, but I can overlook those things when I really like someone, especially if they're a genuinely good soul.
The problem is that on our first date, I think I stumbled upon the discovery that he has a Sex, Lies, and Videotape fetish, of a sort... only rather than interviewing girls about their sexual experience, he secretly videotapes the girls he likes when he's making out with them (or more).
Here's how it went down and why it's been eating away at my gut ever since:
We were hanging out on the couch at his place for a couple of hours, watching a dvd, talking, a little bit of making out (nothing too serious), and more talking. In the middle of a sentence of I don't know what at this point, I paused as something shocking in the corner caught my eye... it was a small video camera sitting on a table, angled directly at me, and the record light was on!
I blurted out, "Holy... Is that camera on?!"
He quickly jumped up and stammered something about, "Oh, wow. I guess it is. Maybe the button accidentally got pressed when I set it here or when it was in my backpack earlier?" He turned it off and then walked it over to another part of his living room, where I don't really know if it remained off or not.
At that time, I felt weird about getting mad at him, not wanting to seem like I was jumping to conclusions, so I good-naturedly continued with, "Don't tell me you're one of those videotape fetishists. I have a friend who is into that..." and I wound up telling him about that person and how everyone had seen one of his "sex tapes" and how boring it was. But after I replayed some things in my head, it doesn't seem to bode well.
For instance:
1) He didn't deny that he might be one of those fetishists. As a matter of fact, he didn't say anything at all... he just stayed quiet, until I mentioned the boringness of the other guy's tape and his only comment at that point was, "Boring? Oh, that's the worst."
2) The camera uses miniDV tapes, which only hold an hour's worth of footage... after that, it would turn itself off, and the light on the front of the camera would also shut off as well. As I previously said, we'd been sitting there for a couple of hours at that point. That says to me that he probably turned it on when I'd last gotten up to use the bathroom.
3) He didn't let me see what was on the tape. I suggested we rewind it and look at what it "accidentally" captured, but he'd already put it away at that point.
4) A week earlier, he'd posted a blog about some new photos that he'd put up on his professional site for people to see of some bands. At the end of those photos were about 5 pictures of girls backsides, like they were taken on the sly (see below).
The good news is that I think I'm getting better and better at being a human lie detector.
The bad news is I'm still a great big freak magnet.
My biggest problem still stems from when I get a gut feeling about a guy, then I second-guess that feeling and think I'm just being paranoid or overly nitpicky... 9 times out of 10, I eventually discover that if I'd just listened to that gut feeling in the first place, I would have saved myself a lot of time, drama and/or grief.
Here's a very recent (as in: not quite dumped as yet) situation...
I met someone and he seemed very nice: lots in common, a little far away with a few too many health issues, but I can overlook those things when I really like someone, especially if they're a genuinely good soul.
The problem is that on our first date, I think I stumbled upon the discovery that he has a Sex, Lies, and Videotape fetish, of a sort... only rather than interviewing girls about their sexual experience, he secretly videotapes the girls he likes when he's making out with them (or more).
Here's how it went down and why it's been eating away at my gut ever since:
We were hanging out on the couch at his place for a couple of hours, watching a dvd, talking, a little bit of making out (nothing too serious), and more talking. In the middle of a sentence of I don't know what at this point, I paused as something shocking in the corner caught my eye... it was a small video camera sitting on a table, angled directly at me, and the record light was on!
I blurted out, "Holy... Is that camera on?!"
He quickly jumped up and stammered something about, "Oh, wow. I guess it is. Maybe the button accidentally got pressed when I set it here or when it was in my backpack earlier?" He turned it off and then walked it over to another part of his living room, where I don't really know if it remained off or not.
At that time, I felt weird about getting mad at him, not wanting to seem like I was jumping to conclusions, so I good-naturedly continued with, "Don't tell me you're one of those videotape fetishists. I have a friend who is into that..." and I wound up telling him about that person and how everyone had seen one of his "sex tapes" and how boring it was. But after I replayed some things in my head, it doesn't seem to bode well.
For instance:
1) He didn't deny that he might be one of those fetishists. As a matter of fact, he didn't say anything at all... he just stayed quiet, until I mentioned the boringness of the other guy's tape and his only comment at that point was, "Boring? Oh, that's the worst."
2) The camera uses miniDV tapes, which only hold an hour's worth of footage... after that, it would turn itself off, and the light on the front of the camera would also shut off as well. As I previously said, we'd been sitting there for a couple of hours at that point. That says to me that he probably turned it on when I'd last gotten up to use the bathroom.
3) He didn't let me see what was on the tape. I suggested we rewind it and look at what it "accidentally" captured, but he'd already put it away at that point.
4) A week earlier, he'd posted a blog about some new photos that he'd put up on his professional site for people to see of some bands. At the end of those photos were about 5 pictures of girls backsides, like they were taken on the sly (see below).
all rights reserved to the anonymous voyeur in question
When I commented to him that I thought the "stealth" photos were the funniest, he commented rather defensively:
Just for the record, those pictures that you speak of can stand on their own artistic merits:) In other words, the backsides are not necessarily the point of the photo. Sometimes, it's a good picture even if the subject seems predictable or trite. Of course, I could be wrong; after all, it's just my opinion.
In trying to sort this out, I recalled two things that this guy said previously... one in email to me and another in an old blog entry of his.
First, he'd asked me about developing 8MM movies at home. I told him that would be a real headache and why would anyone want to do that when labs will do it for you. (Why, indeed? Hmm.) To which he responded that he had just developed an interest in moving pictures (he's an amateur still photographer), but mostly of the "security cam, surveylance video varieties thus far." For some reason, that didn't send up any immediate red flags... but I can't shake that answer of his now.
The other thing he said that gives me pause comes from a blog entry he wrote last fall, entitled "TELLER OF USELESS, INSIGNIFICANT LIES":
I think it started when I was a small kid. The only one in the family with a calm, quiet demeanor. The completely quiet wheel that never squeaked. The middle child, lost in the mad scramble of being poor. Why not lie to the point of hyperbole, so everyone can tell? The small things leave people with a feeling that something is wrong, but nothing concrete... Why would he lie about *that*? What would there be to gain from it? The answer is attention. It's a now-unnecessary vestige from my past that has remained nonetheless. I haven't lied for gain. Mostly just for attention. Just like cutting, and cigarette burns, and all the rest of the manifestations. I'm going to go and try to NOT be full of shit from now on.
He posted that just a few weeks before a girl he was dating for some months broke things off with him. According to him, she'd made him give up all forms of his photography little by little during the course of their relationship. When I asked how that could happen, he claimed to be baffled by her control issues, and yet he tacitly agreed to them. To me, people who claim to be clueless about these things often tend to be in denial of (or consciously hiding) something much deeper to their own core. Perhaps the girl picked up on this sexual fetish of his, was frightened by it on some level, and wanted to keep it under control? Whatever the real reason, it is odd... and his lack of insight into it is even odder to me.
My other issue regarding the video camera incident is boundaries... he didn't ask if he could videotape me and then lied about it to cover his butt when I discovered it. That tells me that he doesn't respect anything but his own urges. Not cool.
As you can tell, I've pretty much made up my mind about this one... just too many peculiar and unsettling things for this girl. I'm sure there's an exhibitionist out there somewhere who'd be the right match for him, but I'm definitely not her (not counting those things I did on webcam once upon a time!).
For the record, I'll state that "odd" and "peculiar" are not in and of themselves such bad things in my book. I just know what my limits are. I respect boundaries ...*sigh*... if only everyone else did, too.
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ADDENDUM: As an example that my sense of humor remains firmly in tact, I'd like to add these links to two classic stories from THE ONION:
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