Love, Drama, and the Internet

Back at the beginning of 2010 I was a mess. I was struggling with an abusive relationship that I just couldn’t find the courage to leave and my future was looking very bleak, to say the least. After a few knives were thrown at my face I finally managed to wake up and smell the crazy.

Upon leaving the mentally unstable loony-bin I called “girlfriend”, I came to a startling realization – I didn’t know how to date. I have been away from the dating scene for so long I didn’t know how or where to begin. After a few unsuccessful attempts at meeting girls at bars, I decided I was essentially a caricature of the socially awkward penguin and that the dating scene just wasn’t for me.

I was working as a freelance writer at the time, so I was always around the computer. While browsing websites one day I noticed that my pop-up and ad blocker wasn’t turned on. I always run it. I mean, always. I don’t know what had happened. Possibly one of my cats managed to turn it off? It doesn’t matter. What matters is there were dating ads everywhere. From hookups to marriage, there were promises of successful relationships everywhere. Heck, I even saw a few ads of some very happy grandmothers getting it on. That’s when it dawned on me – maybe online dating was worth a shot?

After years of criticizing online dating I decided to try my hand at it. Much to my surprise, things turned around almost instantly. I was getting messages left and right. Granted, none of them were “Ms. Right” but I was still quite surprised at how much interest there was. I responded to everybody who seemed to know the differences between the abbreviations of “you are” and managed to make a couple good friends. It was truly a positive experience. But at the end of the day I was still single and I didn’t see myself being in a happy relationship with any of the girls I’ve talked to. My new found happiness was starting to wear off.

As the months went on I logged on considerably less and realized I was getting nowhere near the number of messages I used to. I went from more than ten messages a day to one a month, if lucky. It seemed like dating sites weren’t for me after all, so I gave up.

About a month after accepting my lonesome fate I got an email. It was one of those silly automated questionnaire emails the dating site sends out from time to time. Instead of just unsubscribing from the email list, I decided to take a more permanent route – I was going to delete my account.

As my finger hovered over the “Delete Account” button I noticed something I haven’t seen in a while – a new mail icon. “What do I do now?” I thought. I was torn between deleting the account and checking the message. Luckily I decided to check to my inbox. The message I had just received was one that would change my life forever.

The message was from a beautiful girl with snow-white hair and an extremely large camcorder glued to her head. Right off the bat I knew this girl was someone special. We started talking and we hit it off really well right from the start. She was smart, funny, attractive and then some! Everything a guy like me wants in a girl. Overtime we exchanged Facebooks and phone numbers and before we knew it we were dating. That’s when things really got interesting.

The day we started dating my crazy ex-girlfriend messaged me and started threatening me like she was known to do. I ignored her for a while but when she mentioned my new girlfriend I knew things were going to go downhill fast. She started a lie that to this day still shakes me to my very core – she said she was pregnant. It was a lie, of course, but I didn’t know how to explain such things to my new girlfriend.

I didn’t know how to go about this. I just found the girl of my dreams and I didn’t want to lose her. I decided I had no chose in the matter. I knew that if I didn’t tell the lie my ex would make things a lot worse so I told my girlfriend that my ex was pregnant. She was shocked to hear the news, but seemed to handle it well … at first. After a couple days the news sunk in and she left me. She wasn’t ready for that kind of responsibility and I was very understanding and supportive of her decision.

My ex won. She got exactly what she wanted – me miserable and alone. Much to her surprise, I didn’t come running back into her abusive arms. No, you see, the short time I spent with the new girl I managed to gain back my self-respect. I was sad that I had lost her, sure, but not sad enough to submit myself to more emotional and physical pain by getting back with the crazy girl. I think that’s why I wasn’t so mad at that girl for leaving me. Even though we were only together for a short time, she managed to change me for the better. I couldn’t hate here for that, right?

After a few weeks the girl of my dreams decided to give me another shot. But before she she did, she revealed to me a very strange secret she had been keeping from me. The girl I feel in love with wasn’t the girl she really was. Yeah, it was straight out of a cheesy mystery novel. Turns out her dating profile, Facebook, and phone number were fakes. She was creating a web series and her alter-ego needed to be believable. At first I felt somewhat betrayed, like our entire history was a lie. But I managed to get past it because I knew the feelings we had for each other were real. Turns out this girl is even cooler than I originally thought. She gave me her real phone number and Facebook that night.

Now that our relationship was back on track, I was somewhat reluctant to tell her that I’m not really going to be a dad. Once I felt we were strong enough to handle anything, I told her. She was relieved and upset at the same time. On one hand, no baby neither one of us are prepared for – on the other, I lied to her.

We had a big fight over that one but we didn’t break up. Every fight prior to this girl resulted in a breakup, so I was extremely relieved. She set down a single ground rule for me if we were going to make it past this lie – I was to never speak to my ex again. I gladly blocked my ex from every social networking site and deleted her phone number.

That photo is of us on our first date. It was taken about a month after all the drama concluded. That’s the second time we saw each other in person. Yes, all the drama took place online. We managed to get past it and live happily ever after. Online relationships and drama can be worth it. This girl made me a better person. She taught me that it’s best to leave the past behind and always look toward the future. Once you find the right person your future will always be bright.


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