DEAD TO ME 2017
AFTER MY DIVORCE, I got disillusioned with the dating sites and went on Craigslist, where I found an intriguing post with a photo of a recently divorced, good-looking guy running on a beach. One hundred and thirty-eight emails later, I drove to Annapolis to meet this man, who lived on a sailboat. That day, after a long, adolescent kiss on a park bench, I became obsessed with him. Unfortunately, this caused him to flee from me entirely.
I forgot all about it, except I didn’t. Every October 3, the anniversary of the kiss, I would think of him, and some years I would write and say hi. In 2016, he suggested we meet again, and we returned to Annapolis, where we made out in a parking garage. This time he was very clear that he was not looking for a relationship. Neither was I, at least not with him, because now I had enough distance to realize what a player he was. I didn’t care. In this stage of my life I was much less motivated by desire than in my younger years, but somehow this particular bug bite was still very itchy.
Eventually plans were made for an indoor meeting. They fell apart repeatedly, but I bided my time. One morning in early December, three minutes after my daughter had left for school, he showed up at my door. One thousand butterflies flew all through the house. And I have never seen him again, though appointments were made and cancelled. Then he mentioned that he was involved with someone else. I bid him adieu.
In September 2017, I received the first phone call I ever got from him. My wife would like to speak to you, he said. Then a woman got on the phone—his second wife, I would imagine, though I’m not completely sure where she fits in the timeline—who had just read 573 emails between her husband and me. She said she just wanted to tell me that he had herpes, but he probably got it from his other girlfriend. Yes, she shouted, there’s another one. He’s cheating on you, too! I had a few things I wanted to say, like I didn’t know he was married and I’m sorry, but before I could open my mouth, she hung up. I wasn’t all that sorry, anyway.
He probably isn’t dead, but if he is, I hope she has a good lawyer.