I Thought I Met the Love of My Life When This Happened
Like most of my friends, I was pretty tired of the bar and club scene where every other guy was “to ready for a commitment” while I felt like I want to get to the next chapter of my life. So, I retired my stiletto high-heels and opened up a profile on a very popular dating website that shall remain unnamed.
Like most of my friends, the online dating scene was just as frustrating as the real live version of dating; games I didn’t know I had entered, unbacked declares, and ghosting all around. However, I kept trying to find that guy, the one who might not ride in on a white horse but will also spare me from the “little” white lies guys tell women to get them to agree to a date.
After about four months, 6 rotating dating outfits and countless dead-end dates I started talking to Sam. We didn’t have the most thrilling of first conversations, but I liked him enough to give it a shot.
So, dawned in my favorite dating outfit (number 3), I met Sam on an a-typical Monday night date. He came off as a lot less shy than he was on the site, which also got me to open up. We had two glasses of wine each, and without even noticing, I broke my “no more than two hours” for the first date rule.
I was walking on cloud nine after the perfect three-hour first date, and I was so eager for him to call me up to set a second date. He probably read my mind because as we were leaving the bar, high on wine and that warm fuzzy feeling of infatuation, he asked if he could see me the next day.
Rules be dammed! I agreed right away and we set a time. The next date was even better than the first, and it was followed by two weeks that seemed like a dream.
After the second weekend of us dating, I invited him for dinner and he gladly excepted. I had picked the best groceries from my favorite store, bought the delicious wine we had for our first date, and whipped out my “entering a relationship” dress.
The night of our special meal rolled around and Sam was running late. I thought that maybe he got held up at work so I texted him. When I was finished texting him, I noticed that Sam’s photo had disappeared from his WhatsApp profile and that the two little checks letting me know he got my texts never appeared.
I kept texting until I realized he had vanished. I was shocked, upset, and in disbelief. I kept going over our dates to look for signs he wasn’t interested in, but nothing came to mind. I went into denial mode and searched for his social media profiles to get in touch with him. There were plenty of “Sams” who shared his first name but not his last.
The sadness was then overrun by anger as I realized he probably lied to me about who he is. I dug even deeper and performed a reverse phone number search on GoLookUp. Over the tense moments where his report was loading, I had a million thoughts, and there it was – black in white – his marriage certificate. It turned out he gave me a false name, and I never saw him on the dating website we met after he vanished.
I was upset beyond words and I just could not figure out how he hid two weeks of intense and frequent dating from his wife. Once I learned his real name, I searched for his social media profiles and from what I gathered, his wife was off to her parents for two and half weeks, along with her and “Sam’s” kids.
I thought about telling her what type of person her husband is, I thought about confronting him, and I though a million other things.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t ready to take on the responsibility of possibly breaking up a family so I took a step back. Since this happened to me over the last summer, I met a great guy and was extra cautious with everyone I dated.
I no longer automatically trust what people in online dating websites write – I do my own research to find out what they might be hiding, and not surprisingly, Sam wasn’t the only married guy who was seeking extra-marital activities.
So, take it from me; while the butterflies from meeting someone you like have big wings, take a step back and look beyond the façade. It can save you.
