Fish Tale - pt. 1

In the beginning, there was the word.

Actually, it was a bunch of words strung together in the form of a Myspace message. I don't even remember what was said anymore... some networking question about what else I did besides editing from someone who wanted to connect with Atlanta industry people before moving here. I do remember thinking that his message seemed a little full of himself, but I tend to overlook such things. I glanced at his profile and saw that he was a motion graphics artist and spotted a bunch of somewhat cool stills. I didn't go check out his website, because I was trapped in dial-up hell at that time... having lost my DSL modem to a recent lightning storm.

I wrote back something about having taken motion graphics as a class before, but that I was mainly an editor and didn't work with anything nearly as sexy as what he did.

Granted, I was talking about motion graphics and it being flashy. Of course, he instantly took that to mean that I was saying he was sexy... which I wasn't. He was a bit cartoony... not unattractive, just definitely not what anyone would label as "sexy" by a long shot.

I also added some question asking about why it said he was in "LA/Miami/ATL" and if he accomplished that by having clones. Then I admitted to being jealous of his ability to clone himself and asked if he had a lab somewhere for that. I suppose he took that as flirting as well... "Hmm, she thinks I'm sexy and wants more of me!" I dunno... he tried to explain it a few months later, but I was laughing too hard to really hear what he said.

With that, our email exchanges were off and running... bombarding each other with messages and jokes and silly Photoshopped image comments for all to see. I didn't mind, because it was a safe distraction... he was long-distance, afterall. On the second day of messages, he was telling me he was totally smitten, he was canceling a date he had with some chick in Miami (where he still lived), and had moved me to his "top friend" spot. I was flattered, but also a bit concerned about his judgment... I mean, I hadn't even met the guy yet. I told him that I couldn't move him to the top spot, because that was reserved for Cully... but truth be told, I had decided not to date anyone for a long time, after a serial train wreck of a summer.

By the fourth day of this, he was asking if he could call... and by the end of that phone call, he was offering me a job at his company along with free training. After a few more calls, however, he was already having mood swings and showing signs of Jekyll and Hyde behavior... he claimed that it was because his first wedding anniversary post-divorce was impending and tried to blame the rabid squirrel behavior on the timing. I accepted it, but was wary.

By the eighth day, after I'd created and posted a Photoshop montage-comic to his comments, he called me to say that he really only needed an assistant in his life and not a girlfriend, so he wanted to cool off our phone calls.

I was confused, since I never agreed to be his "girlfriend" as yet, and especially since I hadn't even met the man. I suspected that he had changed his mind about me simply because he decided that he wanted to go on that date he'd originally planned, and he was trying to clear his conscience.

When I jokingly called him on it a few days later, he got pissed at me, slung some bizarre accusation or other at me, leaving me perplexed and attempting to over-explain my humor. That only gave him cause to sling yet another accusation at me about me being some sort of "Eeyore" or something... stating that although it was his favorite Pooh character, if he knew one in real life, he'd want to slap him and tell him to get over himself.

I was simultaneously pissed and amused at his accusations, especially because that's how I'd felt about him and wondered if someone in his life had gotten tired of his moodiness recently and used that exact line on him. I stopped talking to him for a bit to give him some space, while I decided if I wanted to continue being friends with the man. Mostly, however, I was dealing with some important events in my life: my father coming to visit and dropping some major emotional bombs, then my boys' birthday party... you know, typical week in my atypical life. Frankly, with all that going on, I really didn't have time for any other emotional roller coaster rides.

I did notice in my absence, however, that the girl he'd gone on that date with had been peppering his profile with new comments, and he did the same to hers. As a matter of fact, he'd actually been on a second and a third date in that short amount of time, and then suddenly he deleted his profile entirely from Myspace.

Noticing that he'd disappeared from my top friends list, I called him to find out what happened. It turns out that on his third date with this girl - whom he was still claiming wasn't a date but had previously admitted he found drop-dead gorgeous - he went to sit down on her couch while she "changed into something more comfortable" and he split the ass of his pants. Embarrassed by the realization that he was too fat and too dorky to ever consider being with such a stunningly hip girl, he freaked and dashed out of her apartment, returned home as quickly as he could and immediately deleted his profile, hoping the rest of the world would forget he existed.

Yeah, I know... that's what I said. "Uh, wait... what? You freaked out that you split your pants, so you deleted your Myspace page?"

He also said that he was taking the next 3 days to pack up his things and move to Atlanta, two and a half weeks ahead of his original schedule... all because of this "horrifying" weekend he'd had. Gosh, in hindsight, if that wasn't predictive of what a relationship would be like with him (not to mention all the other flip-floppy behavior), then I don't know what was. He said he'd be calling me from the road... he didn't. He talked to the other chick and to his brother the whole drive instead.

(to the privileged few of you readers out there who saw the "Patience Grasshopper" blog back in March, this is the same chick that he was calling constantly throughout our relationship and who later emailed me that unprovoked bitchy message about how I had no right to let my insecurities interfere with her friendship with him... yet another mind-boggling moment in this Outer Limits relationship)

When he got to Atlanta, he wanted to take the first day to look for houses with his new roommate, then the second day he was going to teach a class he was unprepared to teach, then that night he wanted to meet me for sushi. Why I didn't think that was too much of a whirlwind for me, I'll never know. I think I was too confused to see straight.

When he walked up to me on the night of our first meeting, I thought he was even cartoonier in person... short, very round, totally shaved bald, picket-fence smile that was bigger than life, and a LOUD Bronx accent. He was a bit like a living, three-dimensional, Puerto Rican version of Homer Simpson. Did I mention he was loud? We met at Rusans, which is a very chaotic place on a Friday night, but he somehow managed to talk over all the din in there. And instead of writing his order, he drew pictures of what he wanted, along with a cartoon of himself looking very sated and happy. I had to tell the chefs what he meant, so we'd get our order right.

He then proceeded to whip something out of his wallet. It turned out to be a ragged, folded up piece of legal-size paper that apparently contained his whole business model. The strange schematic made absolutely no sense... just a bunch of bubbles and lines and arrows and boxes with strange captions in them, like "The Lab" and "The Egg" and "The Anvel" and all created in some lame Windows graph program, with hand-written scratchings and other arrows and things written in with more ideas. He almost never took a breath while he described it all in animated detail... hands flailing, eyes ablaze with keen enthusiasm. My head was spinning, but I was also drinking a large sake by myself, so I thought maybe I was just a little tipsy. He finally asked if it all made sense and I jokingly said, "Perfectly." I thought my sarcasm was quite clear, but he thought I was serious and went on to gush about how no one else has ever understood his plan before me. (Gee, really? No one? Shocking.)

At the end of the night, I drove myself home (in case anyone's wondering, I wasn't at all tipsy... we went to see a movie after dinner) and I hadn't gotten more than 5 minutes down the road before my phone rang. When I answered, all I heard was him yelling, "Now that I've met you, I have to date you! I know it'll be complicated by us working together, but I'll figure out a set of rules. It'll all work out, I know it will." He wasn't asking me, mind you... he was telling me. I suggested that we should go out the next day and maybe discuss it further, but he was adamant that he had to date me.

The next day, we did talk about it... for quite some length... and he hadn't changed his tune, nor was there anything I could say to convince him otherwise. I tried telling him that I had a strict policy about not dating married men - separated or not - to which he said he just knew he was divorced by default and the papers had been filed over 6 months earlier, he just hadn't received the papers yet. I told him that it was too soon for him, to which he replied it wasn't soon enough. I told him that maybe he'd like to take his time - month or two, perhaps - and get to know me as friends, before jumping into dating me... to which he replied, "No, I can't wait. I have to date you now. I don't have that kind of time. It has to be now."

I was a bit shocked and thought, "Wow, he must REALLY be horny, because this is the most brazen and direct approach I've ever seen." Little did I know, we were apparently talking about 2 different things. When he was talking about "dating me," I thought he meant a full relationship, including sex. However, I later found out that when he was talking about "dating me," he meant that he just wanted a pal to go to the movies and comic book store with and occasionally kiss or hold hands... that's it. He also later (much later on) told me that he only wanted to get me "off the market" so that no other man could date me, while he monopolized my time... even thought I'd told him that I had given up on dating anyone and was ready for one of my long stints of alone time.

After a couple hours of this overly expressive, highly enthusiastic man selling himself and why it would be a great idea to date him and about how all of his other ex-girlfriend in the past always thought he was the most fun guy ever, I finally caved in and agreed. I still didn't know that he didn't want to have sex, but that's a story for the next segment.

All of the above occurred in just 3 weeks time - September 8 to September 30. Seems like a lot longer, and when I later pointed this out to him on an actual calendar, he too was surprised and thought it had been much, much longer than that. It's actually making my head spin just thinking about it... but as you can see in comparison to my previous post, this man broke from my ideal in almost every way. Yet I still gave him a chance... why? I'll get to that theory later, but right now, I think I need a nap.