The first date I went on about a month and a half ago was with a guy that I'd like to kindly refer to as "Jimmy from Alabama."
Now Jimmy and I didn't have a long, drawn-out relationship. We literally met online one late Thursday night, chatted on the telephone that same night for about an hour, and a little the next night, and made a date for Sunday evening.
If you know me well, you'd know that I am the type of girl that can point out a red flag when she sees one. You'd also know that on more than one occasion, I've proceeded straight through those very red flags when curiosity has taken over.
Red Flag #1: So, on Sunday afternoon a few hours before the date, Jimmy and I are chatting on the phone. I've got a long drive in front of me and he's calling to confirm that the date is still on and to tell me the name of the restaurant he's chosen for us. Naturally, in the course of our typical get-to-know you questions, I ask if he's got a roommate or if he lives alone. He tells me that its an "interesting and long" story. I tell him, that I've got the time.
He proceeds to explain that when he moved to Texas in the Spring, his ex-girlfriend wanted to move down with him. He says that he figured that she could help out with the rent and other bills and decided that the move-in would be a good idea.
I ask, "So you've got a cute two bedroom, split floor plan apartment so that you never see her and forget that your ex is living with you, right??"....I'll let you guess his response.
Red Flag #2: Dinner is at 6 and I call him around 5 to double-confirm our date. It's still on. I get pretty and head for the door. As I approach, my cell phone rings. "Jimmy" pops up on a caller ID, along with a second phone number that I do not recognize. Jimmy hangs up suddenly, and the mystery caller is waiting on hold. I answer, hesitantly, and I hear a woman's voice which says, "Hey, Jimmy asked me to call you. He's going to be running a little late."
Me: "Who is this?"
Mystery Caller: "This is Andrea, who is this?....umm, I mean, is this Elena?"
Me: *hangs up*
Dialing Jimmy's number
Me: Hey Jimmy...
Jimmy: Hey there, whats up? I'm about half-way there!
Me:...who's Andrea?
Jimmy: Oh, that's my ex-girlfriend, why do you ask? Wait, how did you know her name?
Me: Well, Andrea just called and told me that you asked her to call to say that you were running late.
Jimmy: I'm not running late! I'm almost there!
Me: Did you ask her to call me?
Jimmy: No, of course not! I mean, I told her that I was going on a date, but I didn't give her your number or anything.
Me: Really? Well, then how does this girl have my number?
Jimmy: I don't know! Maybe she looked at our joint phone account online [Red Flag #3] and found your number?
Me: I don't know what to say.
Jimmy: Listen, I realize that I've put you in an incredibly awkward situation. If you don't want to go out tonight, I'll understand..
Me: Ugh! I don't know. On one hand, I just spent an hour getting ready and I'd been really excited to meet you. On the other hand, I'm not interested in the drama. I'm not that type of person and I'm just weirded out right now.
Jimmy: I can at least promise you that she won't do anything crazy to you, but the choice is still yours.
Me: Ok, I guess I'm on my way, but I'll be a bit late now.
So, I drive towards the restaurant and try to call two of my girls friends whom I'd talked to the date about. I was counting on one of them to talk me out of going. But, alas, neither friend answered. I proceeded onward.
As I approached the restaurant, I heard my phone chime to alert me of this text message:
"Its okay that you hung up on me. But, I was just passing along a phone message. I hope that you two have a really great time tonight!
I walk into the restaurant, cell-phone in hand, and spot a guy who can only be Jimmy, sitting near the door and fiddling with his phone. He is attractive in a nerdy sort of way and he looks up and smiles when he spots me. At this point, I'm feeling a combination of annoyance and anger over the crazy girl, and I think I literally opened with, "Umm, so Andrea just texted me..."
He greets me, looking uncomfortable, and the hostess leads us to our table. Small talk ensues. I'll admit that I was pretty closed as we started talking, still feeling puzzled and annoyed, but the more we talked, the more I warmed up and started to let my guard down. By the end of the meal, I was smiling and laughing so, when he asked me if I'd be up for going to a movie, I easily said, "Yes."
He followed me in his car to the theater, and as I parked and started walking up to the building, my cell phone starts blowing up. I received 4 phone calls all in a row from...guess who? Andrea! Needless to say, I am pissed at this point!
He walked up to greet me and I immediately stopped him and said, "What is going on? Are you married? Engaged? Do you have a baby with her? Why is this crazy girl contacting me??"
So, Jimmy starts stammering and trying to explain. His Southern accent is in full effect. He tells me that he lived with Andrea in AL before moved down to Houston. She wanted to come to live with him, even though they were having major relationship issues. He agreed to let her come, but claims that he warned her that he wasn't going to work on the relationship. Although, he did admit that he thinks those were her intentions.
From there we talked a lot about this seemingly disturbed girl, about what it would take for him to transfer his lease to another apartment, etc. He told me that she's apparently psycho-called one of his female friends before, after stealing his phone...so I'm not the first. Great.
Needless to say, we missed the movie, but we eneded up heading to a fast-food, sit-down place for root beer floats and more talking. He kept repeating, "I feel like I'll never see you again after everything that's happened tonight." I told him that, no matter what, I thought he needed to get is life in order (i.e. ditch the crazy ex) if he ever wanted to ask me out again. Crazy Andrea texted me a few more times at the end of the night, but I thankfully haven't heard from her since that night.
I called it off about a week later since I'm fairly certain that he's not going to get his stuff in order anytime soon. He seemed to understand, but then called me back about 30 minutes later to ask if we could try things again if he finally got his life sorted out. I told him maybe. I'm glad the crazy has been put to bed for now.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment