Dating Disasters and How to Avoid Them

CHAPTER 1

The Too-Good-to-Be-Trues

Many women nowadays assume that all men are commitment-phobes, avoiding intimacy like an emotional root canal—in other words, anyone with a Y chromosome and testosterone will play hard to get, lie about any- and everything, put work first, won’t ever call, be fixated on Mom and/or his ex, and be out playing the field. Men are all believed to be serial daters on the lookout for bimbos, not real women; they want a one-nighter, not one true love; and they’re more interested in afternoon delight than an eternal partnership.

Enter the fellow who’s too good to be true: He seems genuinely interested without being pathetically overeager. He makes eye contact without making sexual advances or crude comments. He’s respectful, has good manners, and offers to take you to nice places rather than his apartment on the first date. He calls or e-mails you regularly. He seems to be neither a starving artist nor a megalomaniac. He doesn’t introduce you to his friends, yet he does seem to actually have some. He wants to talk about things you’re interested in, he listens, and he asks you how your day was. He seems like a gentleman who’s completely thrilled by your independence, yet he’s also tolerant of your occasional neediness. He asks no questions about your sexual history, is accepting of your child/best friend/mother, and is neither possessive nor jealous of you.

This guy is either the find of a lifetime, or he’s too good to be true because he’s got something else going on for him: a wife. He’s been domesticated, so he’s learned what women want, how to present himself, and how to couch his demands in requests. You may say to yourself, Well, maybe he just has a great mom. Yeah, yeah, yeah … everybody’s got a great mom (and we’ll talk about moms in great detail later on), but it’s much more likely that he has the mom of the universe, a.k.a. his wife. This means that he can afford to be the most charming man who seems completely interested in you, without having any concern about your entrapping him or making assumptions about his availability. He can seem to put it all on the line because really, nothing for him is. He’s already spoken for.

You’re going to call your mom or your friends and say, I just met this great guy who’s genuinely interested in me, but you very likely haven’t asked the obvious question, which is, Are you single? Available? Living with somebody? Separated? Recently divorced? In love with somebody? Getting over a breakup? By not asking any of those questions, you make it very easy to swallow the bait of this man’s availability, which is only a fantasy. He isn’t available.

Certainly, the way to make yourself miserable is to fall madly in love with this guy, who will be very appealing to you because he knows exactly what bait to use. After all, it worked once, and he’s had a long time to perfect his technique. …

But this book isn’t about abstractions; it’s about real guys with real pitches. (Okay, I did edit them down occasionally, since lots of them were really long and I had to change a detail or two if I felt I was going to otherwise get sued, but for the most part, what you see is what I found, unvarnished and delicious. If you recognize yourself or someone you know or have dated, odds are you’re right!) So without further ado, let’s meet, up close and personal, some real-life too-good-to-be-trues.

The Married Guy

MY WIFE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND ME

I know you’ve heard it all before, but my wife really doesn’t understand me. We’ve been in a loveless, sex-less marriage for years, but financial situations and my position in the community make divorce impossible. I can be the kind, loving, generous, sexy lover you’ve always wanted. Looking for an independent, self-reliant woman who knows that life is short and pleasure is to be grabbed and indulged.

Why would any woman in her right mind respond to this guy? Whoops, I forgot—we’re talking about dating disasters here! And seeing a married man should be at the top of that hit parade.

The Married Guy will give you all sorts of explanations as to why you shouldn’t consider the fact that he’s hitched to be a disadvantage, and if you really want to be miserable, follow his lead. He’ll convince you that his wife doesn’t understand him. (Believe it or not, some guy actually tried that line on me. I burst into giggles and said, Lucky you!) He’ll tell you that he thought you were a modern woman who wasn’t concerned about silly conventions like marriage. He’ll explain that he and the little woman are together in name only, haven’t had sex in years, or have an arrangement (that is, they live in the same house but lead separate lives). They’re waiting for the kids to grow up, graduate, get married, or die. His wife has major emotional problems and hasn’t been a real spouse to him in years. He’s afraid she can’t function or afford to live on her own. Neither of them have the nerve to tell their parents, or they’re prominent members of the community and would lose their social standing. He’ll come up with every creative notion there is as to why it’s okay for him to be married and, essentially, commit adultery with you.

Married men are catnip—especially to needy women—because they seem to provide everything. You think, Here’s a guy who tells me I’m the most wonderful person he’s ever met and that I make him feel special, which makes me feel good about myself, but the reason he can do all this is because he’s married!

First of all, we know that he’s capable of commitment—he’s married. Second, we know that he doesn’t have to put anything on the line because he’s married. So if you’re unfortunate enough to get involved with this guy and he’s still living with his wife, then you’re a moron. If he’ll cheat on his wife, he’ll cheat on you; therefore, you can’t view him as a long-term commitment at all. If you’re really determined to date a married man, then you needn’t read any further because you’ve already perfected a recipe for disaster. Just go buy yourself a giant supply of waterproof mascara and settle in. You’re going to be spending a lot of time sitting by the phone, waiting for him to call with tears running down your cheeks, and being dissed by your friends, who’ve heard the story for the 80th time.

The married man is fairly straightforward: He has no intention of leaving his wife and may even tell you as much. But the next man we’re going to meet is in a slightly different, but even scarier, category.

The Separated-but-Still-Married Guy

SEPARATED, LOOKING FOR COMPANY

I am recently separated. We got along fine until we got married, then she changed. I’m looking for someone that will lay all their cards on the table from the start. Don’t tell me you like something just because I do, and you want to please me. If you don’t like it, tell me. … About me, I am an easy-going person. I hate bringing my job home. I would like to meet someone that likes to go out and have fun. And you have to be decisive—if I ask your opinion about something it’s because I want to hear it, a joint decision is better than always doing what one person wants.

This guy’s got a chip on his shoulder the size of Des Moines—and guess who will be asked to go around it, over it, or try like crazy to reduce it to gravel? You, my little cupcake.

Away from the personals, this type may manifest himself as the soon-to-be-divorced, handsome, professional, passionate male with full custody of a six-year-old boy. He’ll tell you that he and his son are a package deal: He’s looking for friends who want to have fun with both of them, so his time is limited. When we get the chance to do something, we make the best of our time together, he’ll say. If you like to have fun and enjoy being with kids, come and join us. I love to cook, and I try to keep a clean house (as much as I can with a six-year-old), and I’m very handy. Do you need a Mr. Fixit? I try my best with broken hearts.

Touching, right? Wrong. He’s still married, and is interviewing for an unpaid nanny, cook, housekeeper, and fun person. As for your needs—sorry, there’s no time.

That nice-looking man you keep seeing at the dog park will tell you that he’s just looking for a companion, since he and his wife have been separated for six months. He’ll get a bit misty-eyed when he mentions how much he misses his 14-year-old daughter, who’s staying with his wife in an apartment in another town, and all he wants is someone who could help understand what he may have done wrong. In other words, he’s still married. Beware.

Or you may find a sweet, hardworking guy who likes bowling, fishing, baseball, and the great outdoors, but he’s only available on Sundays. Well, this is a man who may have already moved out of the family household, but you’re going to have to deal with all sorts of issues. You’re going to be his emotional Red Cross, making concessions that you wouldn’t normally make under healthier circumstances. He won’t be able to afford dinner, vacations, or birthday presents because he’s going through a divorce that he either hasn’t filed or finalized yet. He may or may not be legally separated (many states don’t have such a thing), but regardless, he ain’t single.

The biggest problem with this guy, lest you miss my point: He’s still married. He may not be living with his wife, and he may not even like the woman, but he’s still lawfully tied to someone else. In other words, this dude has financial, relationship, parental, and legal issues to deal with (not to mention who gets the dog). So even a man who may no longer be living with his wife needs to be considered still married until the divorce is final—not pending or in process.

You may consider the Separated-but-Still-Married Guy one step up from the man who says he’s not going to leave his wife, but at least the Married Guy is being honest with you. In some ways, the Still-Married Guy is the scariest of married men because even if he’s in process (and let’s give him the benefit of the doubt at this moment and say that he does intend to get divorced), he’ll still be going through an unsettled, adolescent time.

I’m sure you remember how emotional and flaky you were during your own adolescence, when you could no longer accept the constraints around you. You knew that where you were was only going to be temporary, but you didn’t really understand how it was going to be when you were completely out from under the situation. That’s why teenagers are such unpredictable, unlikable people.

Now do you really want to be involved with somebody who’s going through a marital adolescence? This guy sees where he was and clearly doesn’t want to be there, and he doesn’t want to be with his wife anymore—but understand that you’re both going to be haunted by whoever she was. That is, if she was always late, then the first time you’re even five minutes tardy, he’s going to be all over you like white on rice. If she was somebody who had headaches, then the first time you don’t want to have sex with him, he’ll view you as being just as cold as she was. It’s a very treacherous time for you, and you may find that this guy has all the control because you’re always auditioning for him.

He’s also going to be dealing with a ton of baggage—for example, he’s going to have to see his kids all the time because they’re traumatized. If his not-ex wife calls, he’s going to say he owes her. It’s very likely that he’s going to be with her on her birthday, their anniversary, and Christmas, whether it be for the kids, for him, for the in-laws, or for his own guilt. You’re going to be haunted by her ghost, and she isn’t dead … for either of