Excuse the delay; I am just leaving you on pins and needles. Yes, I have a sense of humor, or sassiness, whatever you want to call it. I blame the state of my finances and work life. The bandwidth to write was not necessarily there, but it’s been on my mind, especially lately. There is so much to type out of my system. Trust me, I have lists per year of everything I want to talk about, write about, or say.
One reason you started reading my blog was because of the funny or cringe-filled first-date stories. This one was purposely left out of the other entries from 2020. I think it was due to the level of messiness. Yes, this is not an all-happy-joy type of story. Being in such a weird time in the history of the world and not being able to truly be out there, well, we were in lockdown for most of it. Then it was, “Oh, I hope you haven’t been exposed,” since I have an autoimmune disease. I thought he was a great guy—well, at least that is the story he sold and probably continues to sell. We will call him Chad because I don’t want someone to sue me, and let the record stand: I have never dated any “Chads”. He is working on his master’s at Harvard. Divorced dad of one. Great job as a non-profit consultant. There are so many lies in those lines. In hindsight, everything was so good and had been going so well since day one—maybe too good. Even though “they” say not to, I regret meeting and spending seven months under the spell of a monster. Spending the holidays together. Our Sunday nights were date nights.
While I was never physically assaulted, the wounds are there. Trust, morals, and ethics are the hardest to heal when someone trespasses on them. This continues to haunt me today as I try to get ‘back out there’. Chad was not his name, consulting was not his profession, and, oh yes, the best one was that he had more than one child. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be entangled with someone living essentially a double life. What makes it worse is what he does; he is a pastor at a Southern Baptist church. While I am not the picture of Christianity, I certainly would never lie. It is like my friend hiding who he is and his love for hockey. My friend has been playing hockey since he could walk and even played pro; that is the reason I use him as an example. Chad had even received his bachelor’s degree from an ultra-conservative Christian university on the east coast. Every degree has something to do with his faith, yet he lied. While this is obviously no reflection on me, man, did that wreck me. I really thought what we had was real, yet it wasn’t. What tipped me off were his comments about his ex-wife and how derogatory he was. I could never find anything on him because that wasn’t his name, but when I found his ex-wife’s name, everything on the world wide web was a complete word vomit, and the truth was out. I thought it was worse than having a criminal background, but I still do. Lying about who and what you are to show your face is incredible.
Let this be the warning and the free pass you need to do your research. While it might be an internet joke that women are like FBI agents, this is exactly why. My close friends said that under no circumstances could I confront him in person. Who knows what he would have done knowing that I knew his secrets, It was literally a life-in-danger situation. Ladies, trust your intuition in knowing that something is not right. Search and search, and the skeletons will fall out of the closet, then run.
XOXO
Ana
Everyday Banana 