I responded to an ad in the Reader. I don't remember what it said, but it indicated that the writer was a single mother who was 26 years old. I left a message and I got a call back the next day. Her name was Itaz We had a pleasant conversation and she wanted to meet me that day after she got off work. She worked at a property management company not too far away from my workplace. She said she got off at 5:30pm and asked me to show up at that time.
She described herself pretty well. She had curly blonde hair and was a little overweight. I found her attractive and she reminded me a little of Jolz (but not so much that it was weird.)
When I arrived at her office, she was sitting behind the desk and some guy was talking to her. This guy appeared to be in his 40s and was wearing a t-shirt and a baseball cap. I sat down. She nodded toward me. The guy kept talking to her. I first, I thought maybe he was a co-worker, but someone who worked there would have stopped the chit-chat as soon as I walked in. I could be a potential tenant or someone there to pay the rent. The best I could figure, this guy worked for another company elsewhere in the office building and just came by because he had nothing better to do after he'd gotten off work.
And he wasn't talking about anything in particular. He was acting like he thought he was being funny and entertaining. Itaz would get up and start putting stuff away and he kept talking. Itaz would look at me from time to time, her eyes saying, "I know, I know." Even worse is that he would act like he'd run out of things to say, and then he's start up again.
Finally, after about 15 minutes of this, he said goodbye and turned around. He saw me and said, "Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't know you were waiting." I know I just grunted at him. Itaz said we could go ahead and leave. We'd just go somewhere to eat in my car and then I could bring her back to the office so she could drive home. I remember being so mad about what had just happened that I didn't even want to know who that guy was. I'll tell you this much: It did seem like he was doing that deliberately. I think she may have mentioned something to him about a date and he decided to do his best to c-block me. It almost worked. While I was sitting there, I was thinking about getting up and leaving, but I didn't want to look like a jerk.
While we were driving, she asked where we were going. I said, "Fuddrucker's," which I knew was nearby. She snickered really loudly at that. "What? What's so funny?" "Oh, nothing." (I'll bet you anything that guy predicted beforehand I would take her to Fuddrucker's. But really, it was the only decent place around.)
We had a pleasant dinner and conversation. She talked about her daughter a lot, but didn't really say much about the father. I was actually getting a good feeling from this as I drove her back to her vehicle, which was a pickup.
We continued to talk a few times after that. I kept trying to make plans with her during those calls, but everything was so tentative. I didn't like that she had made that dinner date so quickly, but couldn't commit to anything in the near future.
Then something happened and her daughter had to go to the hospital. She said she needed to devote time to her, but she wanted me to call her again in a couple of weeks. I didn't have a problem with that. I just waited for that time to pass.
You pretty much guess what happened after I did call. She said she had gotten involved with some guy who lived nearby. I was bewildered! How does someone go from not wanting a relationship (for legitimate reasons) to deciding to be with someone just because they're there? She didn't even give me a chance to be that guy.
It made me wish I had just gotten up and left when she couldn't tell that guy to shut up or make any attempt to attend to me. I would have at least left with my dignity. It felt like the only guy who was important to her was whoever happened to be close to her at any given moment.
I didn't know it at the time, but this would be the last time I would meet someone through the personal ads. I'll be taking a look back at this period in my life in tomorrow's post.
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