INTERNET DATES FROM HELL (3 page)

I casually remarked, “I didn’t recognize you, Paul. Were the photos that you sent me recent?”

Paul immediately responded, “No, they were taken years ago. I look different now because I had to gain a lot of weight for a role I had to play as a Vietnam vet.”

“Oh, what was the name of the play?” I inquired. He then told me that he did not remember the play’s name. Of course, I knew the whole story was a crock of bull.

I don’t believe that I am overly shallow. However, if I’m not attracted to the candidate, we might as well not even meet. I tried to give Paul the benefit of the doubt, asking him about any other roles that warranted a drastic weight increase or decrease to fulfill. To this day I’ll never know if he heard my question or not, for no sooner did I ask him than he responded, “Would you reach over and grab that ketchup bottle from the other table? I think ours is empty.”

After the date I went home very disappointed and found solace in binging on Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream while opening my e-mail. I counted my responses over the first week. I had received a total of 840 responses and had met two deceitful people—but as I was learning the ways of Internet dating, I realized that there was much more to the equation.

3
 

Don’t Meet Your Date in a Foreign Country
 

March 1997

A few weeks later, I again perused the subject lines in the sea of e-mails. Here are a few examples: “You Are Hot!,” “Nice Knockers,” “Hey Babe!,” and “Are you a natural blonde?” Just to get a laugh, I opened a few. The rest I deleted right away. I included a sampling of some of the more outrageous responses in Part IV (just in case you need a laugh, too).

While scrolling through my e-mail, I discovered one with this subject line: “Englishman in New York.” I was compelled to closely examine this response. This respondent claimed to be Simon, although after my first experience with Chris (from chapter 1), I was a little leery regarding “name sincerity.” Since the response appeared charming and witty, I responded.

His profile read as follows: “I am a 6’1”, thirty-eight-year-old, buff, blond, blue-eyed writer…residing in a quaint cottage in a hamlet within Kent, England.” His occupation (although quite obtuse at first glance) was a writer (of what, I still do not know to this day). Although this intrigued me, for I consider myself somewhat well-read and a fair-to-middling writer, I was skeptical because he never mentioned the nature of his writing. Novels? Biographies? Children’s books? Self-help books? Comic books?

As a hopeless romantic, I was intrigued by foreign lands and foreign literature. This seemed perfect! However, perfect is a relative term. But I am a sucker for the exotic. Once again, more celestial than earthbound, I neglected to consider the main ingredient—distance! To the Brits, four thousand miles is a “skip over the pond”; however, to us mortal Americans, that is a five-to six-hour plane ride across a turbulent Atlantic Ocean. Not to mention the $2,000 plane fare. Since he gave me a toll-free phone number, I was curious; I decided to call the next morning.

His English accent pulled all the right strings and seduced me. Stating he was only two hours away via the Concorde, he said he would fly in a heartbeat to meet me at JFK. What would I have to lose? We spoke on the phone several times during the next couple of weeks, finalizing the plans for his trip to the United States. I was to meet him at the gate of the flight from Heathrow to JFK. If he was half as attractive as the photo indicated, then this would be a great experience!

I finally discovered the essence of his writing talent during our telephone conversations. He claimed that he wrote political exposes regarding the White House and its internal affairs, as well as other political issues. Wow! A far cry from the comic books I feared he wrote. Although as a child I loved Archie, Veronica, and friends, unfortunately Jughead is the character I most resembled before this debacle ended. I didn’t really delve into exactly what he did; I just got caught up in this “James Bond” type and was hooked by talking to him.

When I saw him in the crowd of passengers, he looked exceptional! Staring at his radiant smile, flowers in hand, I nearly fell over someone’s carry-on bag. After a polite peck on the cheek, which I felt proved his gentlemanly manner, we collected his bags. I drove him to the Marriott Marquis in Midtown as we exchanged small talk. After introducing him to a few friends, we headed to Central Park for a picnic. Since this was not his first time in the United States, or in Central Park, he knew exactly where to go—Sheep’s Meadow. I was impressed! I was so relieved that I had worn my light blue sundress that day, because it was perfect. Although I had an itinerary planned, he took the reins; this too impressed me, for that’s exactly what I needed at that time of my life—someone to take control.

By the end of the weekend, his control was dominating. At the airport, Simon bought a first-class round-trip ticket to London for me to use a couple of weeks later. Talk about hook, line, and sinker. I was netted and gaffed before I knew it.

For the next two weeks, I couldn’t think of anything but Big Ben, Piccadilly Square, and fish and chips. I even went so far as to listen to old Elton John albums, just to get into the British mind-set. Even the Oxford English Dictionary looked good, for I needed to brush up on my British terminology. Did you know that the English call an eraser a “rubber” and a cigarette a “fag”? I didn’t. Nor did I know a bundle of sticks is a “faggot,” an apartment a “flat,” and a wastepaper basket a “dustbin.” Odd!

Minutes before landing, I put on my spectator pumps once again, which matched my stylish sailor dress brilliantly. When I landed at Heathrow, Simon was at the gate, looking exceptional. How he got his teeth so white, I’ll never know. We loaded my luggage into the car and spent the remainder of the day in London. We even stopped to “take” high tea with scones and fresh cream. At that point I felt strangely like a Charlotte Bronte character, except that I had everything I wanted.

But nothing could have prepared me for what came next. After a wonderful day we went back to his so-called “cottage,” which was actually an English Tudor mansion! I was so jet lagged that I went to sleep in one of his many bedrooms, which was actually an apartment containing a dressing room, a parlor, a lavatory, and a view of the veranda. I was thankful that he truly was the gentleman he portrayed.

The next day we enjoyed muesli and cream and took a ride to Canterbury, where we experienced the beauty of the cathedral where Chaucer’s pilgrims journeyed, the burial site of Saint Thomas a Becket (the blissful martyr), poet’s corner, and a plethora of enchanting country roads and village shops. Before we knew it, even Simon admitted we were lost and I believed him. You might think this was the oldest trick in the book, like an American high school boy running out of gas to cop a feel or, as the British put it, steal a peck. Nevertheless, we were indeed lost! As we veered down one country road after another at a very comfortable speed of forty miles per hour, I never felt apprehensive or worried, because both Simon and the Jaguar were handling the situation brilliantly. The bucolic scenery was breathtaking.

Finally, after forty-five minutes of enjoying the views, Simon recognized more of a road than the dirt paths we had been traveling on. As if Chaucer himself were personally guiding us, we found ourselves at the outskirts of London, at the threshold of The Tabard in Southwark. For some reason this ancient public house intimidated me. Simon’s explanation clarified why. I was where the pilgrims originally departed from in Chaucer’s great story. Amazed, I marveled at the excellent quality of the building’s restoration. I couldn’t wait to get inside, where I was transported back in time. It was no longer the twentieth century. Although the people were dressed in twentieth-century garb, eating and drinking in front of me, the surroundings took me closer to the fourteenth century. At the waitress’s insistence, we ordered bangers and mash and, for dessert, a slice of pork pie. Even though the English are known for bland food, I truly enjoyed these dishes. It may have been the company, the surroundings, or both, but I have never looked at sausage and potatoes the same since. After great post-meal revelry (guitars and English country folk ballads), we booked the last two rooms that The Tabard had available.

After the customary English farewell, we thanked the host and headed north to York to meet Simon’s dad. At this point, Simon alerted me that the drive was about three and a half hours from Southwark to York, but he assured me that it would be worth it.

As our drive commenced, Simon was right to ask whether I had slept well. I felt extreme fatigue without any reason. In the midst of one of his sentences, I think I fell asleep. Blame it on jet lag, the lush countryside, the antiquity of Southwark, or a combination of the three. I could’ve sworn he told me his father had left his mum for his kindergarten teacher. My slumber must’ve been only minutes long, because when I awoke he was still talking, not even realizing I had dozed off. The topic was still his family, so the jury was still out on whether he had said that or I had imagined it.

Simon was right; it was three and a half hours to York. After approximately three hours, he told me it wouldn’t be much longer. We turned onto yet another country road, and he told me to look for an imposing eight-foot stone wall with a wooden shingle reading Kensington Manor. Finding it, he turned left through an enormous arched wrought-iron gate, which seemed to be hundreds of years old. The scroll on the shingle was calligraphic. It too was not of this century, or even of the last two. Even the wood itself seemed to have endured at least two hundred years of English rain and snow. As we drove between two gargantuan hedgerows, which seemed to run for miles, Simon’s jack-o’-lantern grin frightened me. Talk about a Bronte novel, this was far more ominous than anything Jane and Catherine, put together, had ever experienced. As the hedges disappeared, the house was remotely visible at the end of two rows of about a hundred yards of enormous Norway maples. I hesitantly looked to the right at Simon, hoping the grin was more Cheshire-cat at this point. I was relieved. His face was as normal as I knew it in the brief time we had spent together. I decided it was a good time to refresh my lipstick. Circling the enormous fountain and listening to the crush of

English limestone under the Jag’s tires, my apprehension faded, and exhilaration returned.

Staring at the enormity of the edifice, I didn’t realize that Simon had opened my door. How in the hell did he turn off the ignition, exit his side, circle the car, and open my door that quickly? Needless to say, there was something wrong here.

Before I knew it, two servants materialized on the top steps outside the front entrance, beckoning the two of us forward. A third mysteriously appeared from behind the car with our luggage, asking Simon, “Did ya have a lark, Mr. Simon?”

“Most definitely, Albert. Please show Ms. Patricia to the vestibule; thank you,” Simon said.

As if in a dream, I was whisked up the stairs with Simon nowhere in sight. When I asked where Simon was, Albert grinned at the other two elderly servants, and they returned stoic glances. Once inside, I truly realized the garish wealth of this family. Adorning the vestibule wall were life-sized portraits of the Kensington men dating back hundreds of years. Oddly, each face was relatively similar: their apparent evolution was more static than any other family I have ever seen. As I ambled through the vestibule, awestruck, I approached Simon’s portrait. It was Simon as I saw him in the present day, not advanced in age like the others. When I turned to ask Albert about the odd nature of the portrait, I found myself virtually alone at the end of the vestibule.

Controlling my inordinate fear, I reexamined the portraits and concluded the following: these men looked eerily similar. Even the tuft of hair on the bridge of the nose was perfect in each of the likenesses. However, the most disturbing factor was the sardonic smile each possessed; it was too much like Simon’s smile once he saw the Kensington Manor shingle. No sooner had I pondered this thought than a voice interrupted my concentration. It was the voice of Simon, Sr.