I called Molz up a few days after we first met. One of the things she wanted to make clear to me was that she was not looking to get married to someone so that she could get a green card. She was already making progress on that front. Apparently, she'd had other guys extend an offer of a marriage of convenience and she needed me to know where she stood, immigration-wise.
I told her I had tickets to a couple of concerts I wanted her to see with me. (Even though I didn't have a girlfriend when they went on sale, I had bought the tickets in hopes of being able to land a date.) She said she would only go with me to one concert. In the meantime, I told her Abed and I were going to be doing a show at the Casbah. She said she wanted to come see us play. She gave me the address where she lived in Carlsbad. It was a gated community. She gave me the password to get in. I found the house. She answered the door and let me in. The house was rather large, but very sparsely furnished. There were a few pictures here and there, but it looked like someone had just barely started moving into the place.
We went to the Casbah. It was exciting to have someone come with me there to see me perform. Our set went very well. After we were done, I had to drive Molz back home. Before leaving, I introduced her to Ferd and Tadd, his significant other. (A few days later, I ran into Ferd and Tadd again. Somehow the conversation turned toward Molz. Tadd asked, "What is it with guys and Asian women? It seems like every guy I've ever met thinks Asian women are the most beautiful in the world! I guess I'm lucky that my boyfriend doesn't find them that attractive." This was a funny thing to say, considering Ferd was half-Japanese. But many years later, Ferd wound up with a Japanese woman.)
On the way to her house, Molz and I discussed my birthday, which was coming up. She said that we had to do something special for my birthday. THIS WAS GREAT! Things were definitely looking up. She actually wanted to spend time with me!
However, there were some weird things that happened in the meantime. For starters, she would sometimes e-mail me from a different e-mail address. If I replied to that e-mail, she would tell me not to send anything that e-mail address because it was an old one that she never used. But why did she e-mail me from there in the first place? Another time, we had exchanged e-mails discussing TV shows. We both liked "Felicity" and "Ally McBeal." I asked her what her what her favorite shows in Thailand were. Her response was, "None. They're all crap!" In another e-mail, I asked her if there was someplace nearby where she liked to eat Thai food. She said, "Why should I go somewhere to eat Thai food when I can make it at home myself?" It was almost like she was saying, "What are you, an idiot?" These responses struck me as odd and sounded almost American. I started wondering if she was actually sending all these e-mails or if someone else was behind some of them. (But I must admit that since then, I've seen the quality of television programs from Asian countries that do not have a top tier entertainment industry. They truly do look like "crap.")
Then she tried to call me when I wasn't at home. The number was not blocked on the caller ID. It showed her phone number, but a different last name. Abed saw the name and realized it was Indian. What was going on here? In an e-mail to her, I put the last name in the subject line. She wrote back, "How did you know that?" I said that it showed up on my caller ID. She didn't explain any further.
I started wondering if I was about to become victim to a "Spanish Prisoner" scam. I didn't know what to think. However, my birthday was still coming up and we still had plans. Garager (mentioned in the previous post) was going to be playing at a coffee house in Oceanside. I was going to come to Molz' house and she was going to make me a special birthday dinner. Then we were going to go to Garager's performance. The main thing I wanted to accomplish on this date was to hold Molz' hand. And maybe things might go a little further than that. I could only hope.
However, the day of my birthday, I suddenly came down with a cold. I had a runny nose all day. I still had to go to work. I was able to do my regular job as an LDA okay, but I had also volunteered for an hour and a half of overtime on the phone, so I still had to work that. I was miserable and knew I wasn't going to get any sleep before I had to leave to drive to Carlsbad during rush hour traffic. I made it to her house about five minutes before I was supposed to get there. I rang the doorbell and she answered. In a panic, she ran back into the kitchen. She said my early arrival delayed her ability to properly fry the sesame seeds she was making for the meal.
I was expecting vegetarian food. But she actually prepared a chicken breast for me to go with the vegetables. It tasted amazing. I was impressed with her cooking skills.
Because of my runny nose, I had to always keep a Kleenex box nearby. The bad thing about this is that it meant I couldn't try to hold her hand like I had originally planned. There would be no touching that night with me in that condition.
We went out to the coffeehouse where Garager was performing. As it turned out, the coffeehouse had a recording booth set up. What they would do was record the live performances and then sell CD copies of them. This was very exciting for me. I was going to get to be a part of a CD with Garager on it.
During the intermission, Molz went up to Garager and talked to her for a bit. In addition, Jazzer attended the performance. Garager had produced her most recent CD. I introduced Jazzer to Molz. Molz seemed to enjoy meeting people that I knew.
After the performance, I drove Molz home. I walked her to her door and said good night. I looked forward to seeing her again, when we would go to that concert together.
Even though I had a cold, was feeling miserable all day and I didn't get to hold hands with Molz, it was still the best birthday I'd had up to that point. Red flags were waving right in my face, but I felt like things were on the right path.
However, a few days later, Molz called me. She said she was sorry, but that she had met "the one" and she wouldn't be seeing me anymore. She was going to marry this other guy. He lived in India. Even though she had only met him online, she knew he was "the one" and was going to move over there to be with him. This meant that we weren't going to go to the concert. I was going to have to find another date. (Abed wound up going with me.)
I told her that I wished she could have felt that way about me. She said she still wanted me for a friend and that she would keep in contact with me. Interestingly enough, she wasn't kidding about this. She made her living selling a variety of items at street fairs. If she was coming to San Diego, she would actually call me and we would meet and hang out. At some point, she had gone to India and met the guy. Anytime I saw her after that, she had a Bindi on her forehead. She also showed me a few pictures of the two of them together. He was around 40 years old. I guess he had also been married before and had kids.
But I was never clear on what exactly was going on. The thought had cross my mind that she had always been married to this guy and was trying to pull a scam on me. Maybe she figured out that, despite the late-model car I drove, I didn't have any money. So once I was no longer a mark, why did she keep in contact with me? These were questions I would never get the answer to.
Eventually, I lost touch with her. I was able to find her through Google. She has a different last name from when I knew her, but it's not the same as the one that showed up on the caller ID that one time. There are a couple of websites that list her availability as an English to Thai translator. One has a photo of her. It looks like it was cropped from a picture that had her standing next to someone. She has a Bindi in the photo. But that profile hasn't been updated since 2007. However, another listing (with no photo) shows that it was updated almost a year ago. It shows that she currently lives in Thailand. AND it has her phone number! But there is NO WAY I'm going to call it.
But if I didn't have a thing for Asian women before, it was apparent that I definitely had one now. In fact, I decided that if I was going to get married, it would be to an Asian woman.
The bad thing was that, after Molz, I was very skeptical of the intentions of any Asian woman that would have anything to do with me. I still felt like any one of them was about to rope me into a scam. Because of this, I didn't attempt to exclusively date Asian women. I still had to keep my options open.
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