Fuck you.

How’s that for a welcome back to the land of the Southern Strip?  Now that I’ve got your attention, have I got news for you!  Don’t worry, I will pick up where I left off in Vegas, but I really have to share some recent events.  I have officially met Satan’s disciple in the flesh: and her name is Deluded.

In my effort to bring in the new year with optimism and a healthy dose of hope, I took to the online dating scene once again.  Back in December, I joined this really fun free site where I could look at pictures, send and receive messages and read funny quizzes – all from the comfort of my home.  It was perfect for me, since these days I prefer passive socializing to actually leaving my apartment and meeting people.  But this time, I started sending out messages, flirting and actually responding!  It was addictive.  I got to carrying on more than a few conversations at a time.  I was popular!  I was an online ho!  No, it wasn’t cybersexual or anything.  It was just simple flirting with no nervous fidgeting and where I could edit what I was going to say.  Who was I kidding?  This was BETTER than actually meeting people!

I was getting a lot of hits.  I put up my hottest pictures and the response was overwhelming. And then I saw her.  She glowed.  Her picture was almost unreal.  It looked like she had great skin, long, dark hair and a pretty smile.  I was smitten.  I haggled with myself back and forth: should I message her?  should I just mark her as a favorite and see if she comes to me?  No.  Be a big girl and go for it.  So a couple of glasses of red wine later, I sent Deluded a message.  It was very upbeat and touched on some stuff we had in common from our profiles.  I was proud of it and if she responded, great.  If not, her freakin’ loss.

She replied the next day.  We’re both writers.  We both had domineering, abusive mothers.  We both love this.  We both love that.  OMG, you’re so sexy.  Nooo, you’re so sexy.  And so it went.  I can’t really pinpoint the moment when it started to get weird.  It just was.  She kept mentioning commitment and making jokes about lesbians u-hauling and wouldn’t it be a great idea to come visit.  Huh?  Really?  I had to think quickly.  Did I or didn’t I?  If she didn’t, could I really get to know someone well enough online to call myself being in a committed relationship, given that she lives in another city?  Did I want a long distance relationship?  Or should I go ahead and let her come on down to Atlanta and we’ll see if we have any chemistry?  We agreed that she’d come to visit.  For a week.  And stay with me.

Instead of boring you with our continued banter over the next few weeks, I’ll give you the quick and dirty version.

She likes wine.  She’s a minimalist.  She prefers to take Ambien to help her relax.  Her mother passed away and she was back home, living with her grandparents and organizing her mother’s belongings.  She likes sex.  She’s a minimalist.  She dated celebrities. She was searching for jobs to no avail.  She really liked taking the quizzes on the dating site.  Did I know that we were only at 57% compatibility?  She was nervous about meeting me.  She was excited to see me.  She loves her cat.  She drinks coffee like water.  She’s a minimalist.  She loves eBay.  She only eats granola.  She just bought a miniature dollhouse.  Her house is too cluttered.  She thinks the South is behind the times and do they still lynch blacks in Atlanta?  (She was serious.)  Her grandfather bought her a double-headed dildo after she commented that she thought she’d might like it.  She’s a minimalist.  She doesn’t know what a perm is because she’s never had a need for it.  She’s a vegetarian.  She went to the best university for cinematography in the states.  She has connections in the film industry.  Her ex-fiancee is psychotic.  He sent her an email telling her that she has substance abuse issues.  She posted the email on Facebook, insisting that he was the crazy one.  She’s bisexual.  She’s a health nut.  She’s never been in a relationship with a woman.  She used to be a stripper.  And stop.  Ding ding ding!

Sigh.  Oh great.  Another one of those.  Boy, can I pick ’em or what?  This tidbit of information, coupled with her incessant chatter was driving me insane and her random bursts of emotional distress clued me in to the fact that there was no way I’d be in a committed relationship with this woman.  And now I knew what that nagging pang in the pit of my stomach was – a warning signal to get the hell out of dodge.  Too bad she already bought her plane ticket.  I stuck it out, even through all of her hypocritical statements: it was like she had more than one personality.  More on that later…

I even gave in to her unveiled attempts at trying to arouse me.  See, she insisted on skyping me and one of those times she was naked.  She liked to be naked a lot, apparently.  In between sips of her wine, she’d let her arms slowly drop, revealing her big, fake boobs.  Ugh, not enticing to me in the slightest.  But I played into it…I still can’t believe she thinks she’s sexy.  Eventually, she ended up in the bed, as did I and I had my first and only skype sexepisode.  It was gross.  I didn’t find her the least bit attractive and her obnoxious attitude made it all the worse.  Why didn’t I just say something then?  I don’t know.  Guilt?  It all came back to that already purchased ticket.  At one point during our skyping, she bends over looking for her vibrator (on the floor, I might add, which explains a whole hell of a lot later – suffice it to say her hygiene was less than immaculate), and her ass is completely exposed to the computer cam.  I just gagged again at the memory.  Not in the least bit tempting for me.  I mean, she has an hourglass figure with a flat stomach and all, but everything else is too much.  For me.  I finished what I had to do, no thanks to her.  I just zoned off into my own la-la-land and was sincerely in a hurry to get it over with.

By the time she was scheduled to arrive in Atlanta, I was already done with her.  It sounds mean, but if you could only have been a fly on the wall.  She was obnoxious, judgmental, hypocritical, dishonest and not cute enough to get away with any of it.  Oh, and did I mention that she didn’t have a cell phone?  Her excuse was that she wanted to reduce her dependence on technology, but she sure was glued to her laptop 24/7.  I didn’t understand her and I was fearful of allowing this woman into my home.  What the hell was I thinking?

I was thinking: I’m being too judgmental, too picky, too passive about learning about people, passive about having new experiences…so I was going to make the best of it.  She arrived in Atlanta on the evening of January 5th.  I could tell by her nonchalant acknowledgment of my presence as she eyed me then walked by, that she was going to piss me off at some point during this visit.  Her next statement made me want to do the last thing I ever saw myself doing – defend Atlanta.

Deluded: “Wow, this airport is pretty big.”
Me: “Yeah, it’s an international hub.”
Deluded: no response

A few moments later, walking…

Deluded: “Wow, it’s just so busy here.”
Me: “Yeah, you can go anywhere in the world from here, so it’s busy all the time.”
Deluded: “That’s what international is.”

Before we even sat in the car, my only thought was, ‘What a bitch.’

And trust me.  It only gets worse.