Saturday 15 October 2016

Fish and Chips



Ok, Cupid. I will give you a chance.

Famous last words.

Of all the apps OkCupid was the one that tickled my romantic fancy the most.  You create a profile, answer a bunch of questions and can see how much of a match you are with the guy that you might be interested. Amazing, right? Not so much.

After spending a good afternoon creating the most clever and charming profile ever written and answering questions that ranged from "What is your preferred cuddling position?" to "How do you feel about zoos?",  I decided to go live.

Ten minutes passed and nothing. An hour. Three hours. Was my profile not cute enough? Did I come across like a douche? A buzzing. My first message. From Russia! A guy that look neither like a man or a woman whose introductory line was "You are the sexiest man I have ever seen, lets get to know each other". DELETE.

My phone vibrates again to tell me I have another message. This one is from a very old man with an obvious lazy eye. From Chicago. He writes: "you are so sexy, if you are ever in Chicago give me a call". Mmm... No!

So far. I am international sensation.

One thing you need to know is that I am not the most patient person. So after three days and two random messages I was ready to give up. That was until a gorgeous salt and pepper blue eyed american messaged me.

"You seem like an awesome guy. Would love to get to know you. Text me at ***-**** ***"

I mean. Why not?  We are a 73% match and he lives in Buffalo, which is only an hour away. Now, I was not born yesterday. So, I was going to go into this one with a bit of cynicism. Not sharing too much. Nothing beyond, I like movies and books and all that stuff.

Lets just say. He was not one to share a lot. The son of a famous British architect. Owner of a wildlife documentary shooting company. Self described as shy and just out of the closet at thirty one.

First alarm bell. When I asked for more picture (common practice in the online dating business), he said he did not want to send more. Why? because, he does not want people to....ahem...play with themselves while looking at his picture. WTF?

Second alarm bell. He said he was shooting a documentary in Canada. About wolverines. When I asked where. Got no answer. A light googleing told me wolverines are not quite common in Canada.

Third alarm bell. The app said he was from Buffalo. He said he lived in New York. Brooklyn to be exact. When I asked what was his favourite restaurant. He said. "There are too many!"
Come on. Even I have a favourite restaurant in NYC and I live in Toronto.

Now, after three alarms I decided to continue the texting just for the fun of it. A good distraction. Fully knowing this was not going to go anywhere.

Fourth alarm. For a week. I got the same text at the exact same time saying "Hey handsome. how's your day?" When asked how was his or starting another line of conversation I would get "I am really stressed at work, can't talk". Quite a charmer, this blue eyed man.

Fifth alarm. He got clingy. Even though he had no idea who I was or knew nothing beyond my favourite movie and what book I was reading he started to say that he was falling for me. As if. I mean I am great and all, but come on. I live in another country and he lives in New York. New York!!!!!

Sixth alarm and the 911 call.  Tired of the clinginess and lack of sharing I told him. "Either you share something or I will stop answering the texts". Oh boy. What followed was a whole day of freak out texting about how a crew he had in Nigeria got robbed. (First time he mentioned about having a crew in Nigeria by the way) My answer. "Hope you had insurance" and "Call your embassy".

Ladies and Gentlemen. If you did not guess it before. I was being catfished. I kind of suspected all along but kept it going. After several texts he finally got to the point. He said he had no money and that the robbing in Nigeria will put him and his company in a precarious position (said the guy with a house in Brooklyn) and that he needed $380 dollars to bring his people back from Africa.

I laughed and texted back. "If you are going to put all this effort into trying to catfish me, at least ask for $1000... $380 Canadian are about $250 American by the way." Needless to say. What followed was a lot of expletives from his side and me patting myself in the back for having known what was happening the whole time.

The big lesson here is. If a really really hot guy from another country tells you are sexy, it is probably a catfisher. Also, check your phone plan. I thought I had international unlimited texting. I did not.
A hundred and fifty five dollars and a bruised ego later I can laugh about it.






1 comment:

  1. !!! This is the best online dating story I've heard in 2016.

    ReplyDelete