The Magician I speak of in this post shall be named "Bob" - not being his real name of course. Bob sent me the first message - a pleasant "Hello. I liked your profile. I think we have a lot in common..." kind of message. Non committal yet sincere sounding. After some brief swapping of messages we exchanged photos. Bob was a new immigrant to NZ from England and was woefully lonely and lost - perfect for rescuing I tragically think somewhere deep inside. Having left a 15 year old child behind after a messy break up, my heartstrings tugged. We shared a few personal stories and then exchanged photographs. This is where the Magician begins to wend his spell...
I noticed that 'Bob' was somewhat larger than he had stated on his profile - but in these situations one compensates 'perhaps he doesn't have a set of scales at home'. Clearly a man of that size and height would not look quite as - well, how do we put this politely? - chubby. Still, I am a believer in not judging a book by it's cover, and he was quite attractive despite being slightly larger than men I would normally be interested in. My new attitude was to look past the looks and get to know the person - if only I had known he was a magician!
A couple of weeks pass with nervous phone calls exchanged and many a chatty and flirty email. Despite only seeing two photos of him, I was sure he would look as he described himself and appeared in the photos. The photos had only been taken "a couple of years ago" - which is when the alarm bells should have begun to clang loud and clear. Also in his photo was his child who is now 15 but is clearly only about 8 or 9 in the photo. Even having questioned him as to the age of the photo, Bob was adamant it was only a couple of years old and he looked exactly the same.
Bob lived 2 hours drive away but finally we agreed to meet. My dream come true! Not only was he eager to happily drive the two hours to meet with me, he was going to pay for a lovely dinner at one of the most expensive restaurants in town! I was very excited - a real gentleman instead of the 'cheap and nasty' types I will mention in another story.
The evening finally came around - Mum was geared up to baby sit. I was dolled up to the nines, my stomach churning but all the while telling myself to not be so stupid - it's not like I'm some ninny headed 16 year old going on her first date!
I pulled up outside the restaurant - it was dark by now, and the winter cold was blowing down the street. No sign of my prince charming. I walked nervously up to the restaurant door and peered up and down the street, when my cell phone rings. It is Bob, who is just checking that I am indeed the woman he sees standing outside the restaurant door. I look around and see four cars along from mine, Bob getting out of his car, smiling and waving...
There is no other word for my emotions at this point - shocked, disappointed and angry. Now I am sure there will be a multitude of people who will read what I say next and call me shallow - blah blah blah. But the truth is, we are all attracted to different things. And truthfully, most of us are not attracted to overweight people. My magician had gone from 'chubby' - as in his photos - to severely obese. He was a very, very large man. He didn't walk, he rolled like an oompa loompa. He actually puffed walking up the three steps to the restaurant door. He ate an enormous meal and sat with his legs apart - simply because he could not close them.
I was horrified. But, felt obliged to continue with the 'date' as he had come so far. I felt cross and cheated - what point in lying about your photographs and size, when I would see for myself when we met? All I saw was dishonesty and lack of self respect. A few of my friends thought perhaps I should have dated him anyway (I noticed they weren't asking me for his phone number though) but I decided that I would continue to lose weight by going to the gym, not by being flattened to a wafer under a dishonest sumo wrestler during sex.
The most difficult part - having to politely tell someone you are not interested in them - although perhaps I should have been more direct and told Bob that I don't date men who weight more than twice what I do, and who lie about it into the bargain. Beware the magician - this ones trick was to appear online thinner than he was...
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