the consultant

I think this will be the last of the backdrop stories before most everything is up to date. This one is about Mr. Consultant. Mr. C and I met online, my first actual online dating experience. At first, I was really digging things and marveling at how great online dating was in bringing together people who are both single, looking for similar things in a relationship, and looking for each other.

Mr. C and I first started exchanging emails about a couple of months ago, which then moved on to Instant messenger. He lives in town, but gets shipped out to New York Monday through Friday because of his job (consulting). Since I was going out of town almost every single weekend from July 4 to mid-August, this made it a bit difficult for us to get together. We managed, though, a couple of times. First date was in a swanky steakhouse (we ran up a $250+ tab on dinner for two, yikes); second date he cooked for me at his place.

I should have gotten a clue then. I told my friend right after we set up the second date that I was a little bit nervous because I really don't know this guy and here I was going over to his house for dinner. She didn't think it was too out-of-the-ordinary. In fact she said that a lot of guys cook on second dates now because it's romantic, and it's a chance for them to impress the girl. That made sense, so I believed her and went along with it.

Thus here I was, dating this guy whom I'd met online. He was the first Asian guy whom I have found attractive enough with enough personality to date in a long time. He was assertive when he needed to be; he knew the right things to do, the things to say when, and he certainly wasn't shy despite being a total dork. So, I would say that things were going really well.

All except that he never gave me any space what-so-ever, and I should have known his asking me over to cook for me on a second date was him moving things along a little TOO fast.

As long as I was on IM, he would IM me. During the day when I'm at school, he would IM me things about his co-workers. At night when I'm at home listening to music and doing stuff on the internet, he would IM me to tell me about how hungry he was at 10pm at night. He IMed me so much so that I stopped signing onto IM. This didn't stop him.

I use gmail for all of my mail (every account I have forwards mail to gmail so that I can keep it all in one place). He also has gmail. When I stopped signing onto AIM, he started im-ing me via Google talk. So much so that I became afraid of checking my email because I was afraid that as soon as I logged on to check my email, he would google talk me.

Then came the text messages. At first it was kind of cute. I'd wake up in the morning and find a text from him: "Wake up sleepy head!" or I'd be staying late on-campus, and I'd get a text from him, "I'm going to dinner with friends." Or randomly when I'm out shopping, he'd text, "I'm so hungry!" The little things were cute initially; they made me feel like I was a part of his life. But only for a couple of days. The mundane texts never stopped coming. I would literally get a text at 11am from him saying "I'm so hungry!" followed by a text at 12pm saying "I'm going to lunch, yay!" followed by a text at 1pm: "oh man, I think i have food coma!"

I started dreading my phone vibrating me telling me that I have a new text. I would look at the text, see that it was from him, grit my teeth, roll my eyes, and just all-in-all be very frustrated. Then i would go talk to my one girlfriend whom knew about Mr. C to tell her just how ridiculous Mr. C's latest text was.

I didn't want to be a part of his life that much.

Plus, he ran up quite a bill on my cell phone. My bill still goes to my dad, who emailed me the other day to tell me that I had gone over my monthly text allowance by 136 texts. This is 136 over the 200 texts I get per month on my plan. So he ran up 336 texts on my phone in one month. That's some 10 texts a day. Yeah. And they are stuff I have no idea how to respond to. What do you say back to a guy who texts "I'm hungry!" almost every single day ???

So gradually, I no longer enjoyed the time that we spent together. It didn't help that every time I spent time with him, I felt like he wanted more of my time. I got the feeling that if I were to just give the okay, we would spend every minute of the weekend he's in town together. Not to mention I felt pressure from him to stay the night (to sleep, nothing else ... at least I wouldn't have allowed anything else). On multiple occasions, he asked, "you sure you can't just stay here tonight?" I thought it was kind of creepy and presumptuous, but I suppose it could have been sweet-/well-intentioned.

Essentially, things came down to my feeling very smothered and suffocated by him. I would go out with my friends and get some 10 texts from him in the course of the night. Part of that was my fault in advocating this initially. Because I was interested, and thought it cute that he would text me, I would text back, and we'd go back and forth several rounds, despite my being at a concert or in a club or at a bar. I did this for a couple of nights, and then everything became very old very quickly. But he never seemed to see any problems with it. Thus he continued to text me, IM me, gtalk me ... and I stopped responding, stopped signing onto IM, started putting up the red "busy" interdit symbol as my gstatus.

I think he kinda got the hint that something was going on when we made plans for dinner on a Saturday night, and I told him that "Sure, but I'm going out with some friends afterwards." I had actually considered asking if he wanted to come out with us, but I was really torn on the situation. I wasn't sure I wanted to introduce this guy into my friend circle yet, and given all the drama and hooking up in my friend circle, I think that I was more unready for my friend circle to know about him. In the end, I didn't invite him out, and I left him by himself around 10pm on a Saturday night so that I could go out with my friends without him.

Thinking back, that was pretty bad, but I also wasn't having a very good time with him because we were always talking about his work, or the new car he wanted to buy, or why this thing or that thing or the other thing in his life is such a "killer", his favorite adjective. 20 minutes after I left, he texted me "I got roped into seeing snakes on a plane at midnight. see what happens when you leave me alone?" I just rolled my eyes because I couldn't believe that he was texting me TWENTY minutes after I left.

Later that night, after my friends and I left the bar after last calls, we went to a burrito place that stays open late. Sometime around 2:30am, he texts me "it was terrible!" referring to the movie. Okay Mr. C, too much texting. Please just leave me alone.

Here is where the passive aggressiveness started. He would IM me, I would take 5+ minutes to respond to each exchange, and after a few lines I would tell him "sorry, I've got to run. I have a meeting."

Oh my god, I just remembered more. So part of the reason I started this blog was to get away from people who can google my name and come across the blog associated with my name on my own domain. I think he did something like this and thus found my other blog. I knew that he was reading my blog because I have a tracker on that blog, and he inadvertently, during one of our IM conversations, dropped a key piece of information about his mode of internet connection that allowed me to piece two-and-two together essentially and know exactly which IP belongs to him, so I always knew when he was reading my blog.

He did this for several weeks without mentioning a thing, which was fine. I understand the awkwardness of having googled someone and not wanting them to know lest they think you a creepy weird stalker but still being curious that you want to read what they have to say. However, Mr. C's problem was that he would use the information on my blog to make himself look better in conversations with me.

Here's an example. I was very stressed out at points this summer, particularly because I wasn't taking enough time to be by myself to just enjoy quiet life. So one of my blog entries was about needing time for myself. The next time I saw Mr. C, after I checked my blog tracker to see that he had indeed read the entry on needing time for myself, he asked how I was doing. I said that I was kinda stressed out, and Mr. C says, "Gosh Mini, I'm worried about you. You really need to take some time for yourself. Sometimes you just need to be by yourself."

Basically, he repeated back to me what I wrote on my blog. I could only think "How manipulative of you, Mr. C! You're hoping that I will think you so perceptive by telling me the exact things that I was thinking enough to put in my blog." If only he knew that I was aware of what he was up to the whole time ... wow, I can't even imagine having that conversation.

The way this all ended:

I think he picked up on the fact that I may be losing interest. Why else would I always run off with a "meeting" or "work" a few minutes after he IMs me? He sent me an email a couple of weeks ago:

Hey Mini,

Is everything okay? I've felt a little guilty after our conversations lately, cause I feel like I'm stressing you out by taking up time that you could've spent doing something else... if you need your space, just let me know...I understand how when times are busy/stressful even people you want to be around can seem kinda suffocating...I always have a great time whenever we hang out; sometimes it seems so fleeting because of our schedules, but it definitely makes me look forward to the next time =)

Anyway, drop me a line when you get a chance. I just wanted to let you know what I was thinking (and was wondering what you were thinking too), and I figured e-mail would be a little less intrusive than an IM or a text. Hope you have a good day =)

- Mr. C

Just now, reading over the email, it actually sounds much sweeter than when I first read it. When I first read it, I was furious, mostly out of just sheer frustration that he would keep trying to invading my space. I was also really puzzled as to why an e-mail was less intrusive than IM/text. I really wanted to shoot an email back along the lines of "Mr. C, you're right. I really need my space right now. I'll talk to you later."

Anyways, so I didn't want to say anything over email, so I called him that night. My friend helped me come up with a script that I typed out in front of me so that I would remember what I wanted to say and how to say it. I small talked for a while with "how was work today?" etc. etc. To Mr. C's credit, he is actually pretty perceptive. After a few minutes of small talk, he point blankedly asked, "So are you calling because of my email today?" which made it easy for me to transition into my scripted schpeal.

I essentially told him that I really needed space right now because I am really busy, I have very little time, and that I just don't have time/energy for dating. He asked me "What do you mean by you need some space? Do you want to take things slow? Or do you want to just be friends?"

I hate the phrase "let's just be friends," so I was trying to avoid that, but he pretty much made me say it. So I did, and he was understanding, accepting, and said "sure, no problem. I am fine with whatever you decide to do. I'm also not completely closing the door here either. I know that you are pulled in too many directions right now and that you are really stressed out, so I totally understand you needing to take some time for yourself."

So that's how this fiasco with Mr. C ended. Except he still texts and IMs me. Not as much as before, but just the other night I got a text from him about business school (I was out at a club with friends around 11:30pm on a Thursday night). A couple of days ago, he sent me a link to his photo album of his new corporate apartment in manhattan. Tonight, he IMed me about more business school stuff.

And he still reads my blog.

But at least we're not dating anymore, so I feel no obligations to actually entertain his immense need for attention.