My Online Dating Disaster: Prince Charming the Stalker

January 31, 2008     Posted in Reality


By Carly

He didn’t look like a stalker. He looked like a nice, well-mannered twentysomething with a fashion sense that lurched toward the emo.

He didn’t sound like a stalker, either. He sounded nice, and friendly, and totally easygoing.

But even as I walked into the coffee shop and saw the sleek blond hair, the stylish hipster belt, and the anti-used-car-salesman smile of a nice-looking 23-year-old, there was still a little part of me that feared I was meeting with a middle-aged alcoholic in (a really good) disguise.

He was polite, funny, interesting, and sweet. He knew that the idea of dating someone I had met online scared me, so he did everything he could think of to make me feel more at ease. He opened car doors for me, he knew how to cook, he wasn’t messy, and he kissed exactly like how the guys in my Prince Charming dreams always have.

Thanks to OKCupid, my life had become one big Kodak moment—one big temporary Kodak moment, that is. I was scheduled to leave in three weeks for a semester abroad in China, and I wasn’t about to turn down any guys who’d offer to take me out for dumplings and tea there just because of some contrived connection I had with a dude I’d met online at home.

I sat Danny down a week before I was scheduled to leave. “I have to be single when I go to China,” I said.

“I completely understand,” he answered. “That’s fine.”

I got on the plane feeling great. Then I found out that as soon as I’d left, Danny ran out and bought a wall calendar and a thick red marker. “What’d you do that for?” I asked.

“To mark off the days until you come back with X’s, of course,” he said. “I already made plans for the day you come back, too. I can pick you up at the airport and then you can come back to my place and sleep until you’re not jet lagged anymore. You can just stay there for as long as you want!”

“Uh,” I said.

It only got worse from there. As I’d predicted, I met someone else in China before too long (I might be fickle, but at least I know it), and I called Danny to tell him. His daily “I love you” messages waited for me each morning on OKCupid, and even though I barely replied, he still didn’t seem to understand that we weren’t dating. How ridiculous was it, I thought, that I had to call and break up with someone on the other side of the world who I wasn’t even going out with?

The phone conversation was ugly, and I listened to variations on “How could you DO this to me?” for upwards of two hours.

When I finally got back home, I had a cup of coffee with Danny. Then, a couple of days later, I received an email from him that basically said, “Please never speak to me again.”

Danny’s reason for wanting a lifetime ban on my company was, as I understood it, because he was so desperately in love that any thought of me sent him into a tizzy of unbearable memories from the scant three weeks during which we occasionally saw each other. For this I can hardly blame OKCupid. No, I guess their only crime is not offering a Warning: May Cause Addiction disclaimer at the top of my profile.

10 Comments on "My Online Dating Disaster: Prince Charming the Stalker"

  1. Janers says:
    Thu, 31st Jan 20083:45 pm 

    bleh, I guess this is what guys get for falling for you huh?

    poor pitiful you, someone likes you, that's not stalking by the way.

    Sorry to be so judgemental but it sounds like you are just out for the next cute thing.

    Maybe if you were that into him, you should've let him know all along instead of leading him, with the kissing and eating his (good) meals that he made for you.

    no wonder he doesn't want to talk to you anymore

    to me, it seems like you are the one in the wrong, and that's from YOUR side of the story. I'd hate to hear his!

  2. Klee says:
    Thu, 31st Jan 20085:04 pm 

    No way! You're not bitchy at all. It'd be different if you were dating the kid for a while, but you only knew him a few weeks. He just got attached too soon.

  3. Casey says:
    Thu, 31st Jan 20086:40 pm 

    Okay, so the guy was a little intense, but I wouldn't label him a stalker. Why put yourself on a dating website, meet a guy, and date him as though you were interested in a relationship when you knew you wanted to find someone new on your trip? Maybe the new guy you met was Mr. Right, but it seems like you went to China with the intention of hooking up with someone, and to start dating a guy who you (at one time) considered "polite, funny, interesting, and sweet" just seems mean. Yea, he got clingy and obsessive, and that's totally not your fault…but if it were me, and I started dating a great guy who told me two weeks later that he'd met someone new, and I was merely getting left behind because he'd taken off to better places and different girls, I'd be in bad place, too.

  4. Jes says:
    Fri, 1st Feb 20084:19 am 

    Well I think this just goes back to how creepy (and slightly pathtic, needless to say) dating sites are in the first place. Well, I guess some people are shy and have a hard time meeting folks, but thats still a level of social awkwardness I'd prefer not to venture into.

    And I totally feel you on the creepy guy syndrome… I've been with my boyfriend for over a year, but all the guys I've dated before and between our last relationship, end up "falling in love" it seems within the first 3 dates and almost go into stalker mode themselves. tisk tisk..

    Talk about a hard time… even when you TELL guys "Hey, I'm NOT lokoing for a boyfriend.. just to hang out and have a good time."

    Bottom line: guys can be really creepy.

  5. Dasha says:
    Fri, 1st Feb 20087:06 am 

    I wouldn't call dating sites pathetic at all. Sometimes there aren't any fish in the sea of your workplace or college you would want to fish for. I myself have tried them I have friends who have tried them, and none of us are socially awkward, we have a huge friend circle, and we are normal and dare I say "POPULAR" people on our campuses.

    You can't help who them men are that surround you and online dating is just a proactive approach to finding something you really like as opposed to settling for something you simply have readily available.

    Me=dating sexy hot Bostonian Italian for 1+years now who I met online. We lived like 20 minutes apart and never would have met otherwise. Is it forever? Who knows, that isn't the point.

    Don't knock it until you've tried it =]

  6. Carly says:
    Fri, 1st Feb 200812:09 pm 

    Oh man, you guys, I'm loving this discussion! Yeah, it would have been one thing if the dude and I agreed to have a relationship, but I made it clear to him that even though he was great, I couldn't have a boyfriend at that time. And he told me he was OK with that, but I guess he actually wasn't. Communication! It's the bane of all relationships….

    Oh, and P.S., I don't use online dating sites anymore, but I def don't think that everyone using them is socially awkward (even though I am…). It's a whole spectrum of people and there are crazies and dreams come true on any site, just like in any city. It can be hard to tell what somebody's like just by looking at his/her profile.

  7. Sara says:
    Sun, 3rd Feb 20086:52 am 

    Why would you even pursue something with someone you meet online (or otherwise) if you're going abroad a few weeks later? I don't even understand why you'd go and put yourself on a dating website in the first place if that's your situation.

  8. Mollye says:
    Tue, 18th Aug 20099:40 am 

    I wouldn't consider this a disaster. I'd say that you would need to take some of the blame for this since you were knowingly taking off to another country for a semester. That's a little harsh to try to Start Love with someone and then break it off 3 weeks later because you want to be single. I also understand that you guys had just met as well and it is understandable to want to break it off while you were away, but I think you're reasons for doing so were wrong. Typically, I would think someone would break off a relationship while they were gone so it wasn't so difficult during that period and if things pick up again, they do. But to be single because you wanted to be available incase someone were to ask you on a date isn't a good thing. As for the guy, he did get a little clingy it seems to have been saying "I love you" through emails, but maybe he just fell really hard, really fast. I'd say give the guy a break.

  9. jerome says:
    Thu, 14th Jan 20106:54 pm 

    I really can't stand people like you. You seem to me like another nervous nelly that cries about everything because you read women's rag mags and lifetime movies.

    You LIKE drama and create it in your mind for your entertainment – reading into things that aren't there.

    People who think and speak carelessly like you are dangerous.

    "middle age alcoholic" – yea, cause all alcoholics are dangerous and a middle age guy could only be a perv even though he's not doing anything illegal, right?

    How intelligent.

    I'd say "have a nice life" to you, too, and good riddance.

    My girl's cousin had a girl flirt with him for a year when he'd shop at the store she works at. But he was too shy to do anything about it. One day he was feeling brave and innocently asked if she was there – 10 minutes later some woman manager says "we don;t allow stalkers inside the store!", it freaked him out and he's never been back and last I know he's speaking to a lawyer about going after them for slander. He's one of the sweetest guys I've ever met and now this thing with this girl is most likely ruined because at the very least she will hear about it, the gossip and set a bad precedent that killed an innocent thing.

    Maybe you and that manager are related.

    Have a nice life, creep.

  10. Chris says:
    Sun, 2nd May 20107:04 pm 

    Yeah he does sound kinda clingy, but really you can't lay all the blame on the guy. It goes both ways.

    Why do girls think somoene's a prick for not wanting to be their friend after they've been rejected? Friends shouldn't hold eachother in Limbo like that.

    I bet you sent mixed signals to. The problem with your story is you don't accept any of the blame, and he really didn't do anything creepy or horrible. He just rejected you as a friend after you rejected him as a love. What the hell do you care if he stays your friend? Don't you have enough friends? If he was so creepy when you first saw him why would you even talk to him?

    Be single for a while. Figure out your stuff and leave us good guys alone. He may have come off weak and needy in your eyes, but you don't know the strength it takes to stay loyal and supportive, and the weakness that you showed by not being upfront when he did something romantic like the callender thing. You knew you were keeping him on the sidlines it was subconcious.

    that's what girls don't seem to understand. Guys who leave are tougher and more assertive than ones who will stay and try to work out a relationship no matter how bad. Who's more pathetic? the rejected lover who stamps the perp out of their life, or the one who sticks around as a friend hoping for things to change? I know for one I can't afford that with my demanding career. To bad I have to move so much and I end up in bad long distance relationships.

    I'm not damnig you, just giving you another perspective on things. If you want to improve your life and avoid situations you've gotta realy think about all sides.

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