So he decides to start emailing me again after two years? Umm, OK... (long)

In My Humble Opinion
1

Here’s the story:

About two years ago, I met a guy in chat. (I know it was two years ago because I was still living with that bitch-slob roommate in evil Westmount.) We seemed to hit it off, and he came across as intelligent. We started emailing on a regular basis, but at the time he was heavily into after-hours clubs and ecstasy, heading down a path of destruction, and that kind of turned me off.

Anyway, we fell out of contact - not for the above reason, though. We just did.

So last week I’m checking my Hotmail (too see if my true love Jerevan Somerville had written :wink: ) and I see this “Remember me?” email from this guy. We started emailing again. He’s no longer into the whole ‘e’ scene.

He started subtlely flirting with me, even though he’d never seen a picture of me. Then he asked if I wanted to talk on the phone at some point. We have yet to do so, but his flirting intensified. Finally, today, I sent him a couple of pics of me. (Unfortunately, he has none of himself.) He told me he thought I was really cute and that he kind of recognized me from the clubs. Then, talking about his apartment, he suggested I should come see it sometime.

There were winks everywhere, but I know when I’m being flirted with. He said he might call me tonight if he can work up the nerve.

I don’t know. I’m not creeped out, but I’m not sure I want to meet someone right now, especially since I don’t know what he looks like (superficial, but he could be hideously ugly). Talking on the phone would be good, so at least I’d get a feel for what kind of conversationalist he is. If we hit it off on the phone and do meet, I’ll have to try my hardest to not go into it with any expectations.

However, it’s clear that he’s interested in me. What if I don’t click with him? I get dumped more often than not, so I don’t want to disappoint him, but I know I can just get involved with someone for its own sake.

I’d rather take all of this online chit-chat and flirting more slowly, but he’s really pushing it. I mean, he emails me on Thursday, and now he’s hinting that he’d like to have me over? Maybe I shouldn’t have sent the pics. I don’t know. The last time I met a guy online (it wasn’t in chat, but online nonetheless) we met within a couple of days, and he had me in bed on our first meeting. I’m trying to change the way I go about these kinds of things, but I always fall into the same pattern. If I do find myself interested in this guy, I’m worried that it’s going to be the same deal all over again, and that someone’s eventually going to get hurt, which always seems to happen when things move too fast(in my own experience, of course).

My work fag-hag (see another thread) tells me to go with my gut feeling, but I always do that, and I get into bad situations. So I’m trying to rationalize here. It may seem that I’m making too big a deal of this, but given how my last relationship went down, I just want to be able to protect myself from being hurt and/or disappointed.

I think what I should do is, if we decide to meet, mention that “It’s always nice to make new friends.” Then he’ll know that I’m going into it without expectation. It’s obvious he has expectations, though. That makes me a bit uncomfortable.

This was originally going to be a Pit thread, but I realized I wasn’t pissed off about anything. Then I started typing this in MPSIMS, but realized this could turn into an “advice needed” thread. So here it is, in IMHO. And sorry this post is so long. I didn’t intend for it to be.

I’m seriously considering not answering the phone this evening. I’m such a chickenshit sometimes. :rolleyes:

Any advice is welcome, but I don’t expect a deluge. ::sigh::

Cheers, thanks for reading.

  • s.e.
2

I meant can’t get involved with someone for its own sake.

Preview is my friend.

  • s.e.
3

Self: Hey, guys.
Gut and Brain: Yo.
Self: Got a hypothetical for you.
Brain: Shoot.
Gut: Um, is this a someone-else hypothetical, or a self-hypothetical? Because some self-hypotheticals you’ve ignored us on, hoo boy!
Self: You just relax, Gut. This is a SE-hypothetical.
Gut: I feel better already.
Self: I know. I like you better you’re not all knotted. But here’s the deal:

Gut: Wow.
Brain: …
Self: That’s it? “Wow” and dead air?
Brain: Oh, sorry, I was thinking about video games.
Gut: I’m glad that’s a SE-hypothetical there, Self. I think if that was a self-hypothetical, I’d respond with this: <knots into something Lovecraft might describe in vaguely portentous non-euclidian terms>
Self: Urk. Brain, interpretation of Gut’s statement, please.
Brain: Gut is saying that he’s getting a vibe of someone possibly dangerous, but mostly probably sad, desperate, and emotionally vampiric, the kind of human-type critter who will latch on like a tenacious, hell-spawned barnacle, drawing the attached down into a whirlpool of angst and misery to rival Charybdis, the kind that ultimately part of you would want to crush like a malaria-laden mosquito bloated with the blood of a thousand doomed babies just about to sink its proboscis into your jugular, but that you hesitate to because of pity at its puppy dog eyes.
Self: Wow.
Brain: I tend to agree with Gut on this one, Self. Sorry about the image of a mosquito with a puppy’s eyes, though, that was my bad.
Gut: You’re SURE this is a SE-hypothetical?
Self: Yes!
Gut: Good. <unknots>
Self: Thanks for the input, guys.

There you have it. Other theaters may vary.

4

This alone is enough to creep me out a bit. In 1998, say, I’d have bought it. But not now. Goodness, every soccer mom on the continent has a scanner, and usually someone in the family’s got a digital camera, too. Besides, how many Kinko’s are there in North America? How many photo shops where they’ll give you your pix on CD-rom?

And he has no images of himself he can send you. C’mon. There’s something wrong, here. Sure, he might be a perfectly attractive person - but “no photo” suggests that he doesn’t think he is. And that’s a much bigger problem, really, than how he actually looks.

First choice: stay well away.
Second choice: meet him, in public, and give him as little info about yourself as you can.

5

Well, frankly I’d Stay Away. If you’re even the slightest bit uncomfortable than that’s enough. However, I’m currently reading The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker*, so YMMV (and yeah, I know you’re not a woman but the book still applies…)
cricket
*http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0440226198/qid=1023154522/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-7623267-2966300

6

Well your story made me uncomfortable just reading it. Does that tell you anything? Something’s not right here.

7

My Robby the Robot alarm is going off as well- “Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!”

Not in a physical sense, but in that creepy emotional vampire sense. Sounds like he’s the sort to want to move in after the second date…

8

Take all of the above responses and multiply by at least two. - especially the excuse about no pix. Not even a driver’s license pic?

Don’t dismiss the fact that everyone who has responded to you is at least a little creeped out. They’re all correct, something’s not right here.

If, after all this, you still want to meet him, make it at a very public place in broad daylight during a very busy time.

9

I think you basically answer your own question in the beginning of the OP; you say “I’m not sure I want to meet someone right now.” If you’re not sure you want to meet someone, don’t meet him. It’s as simple as that. You don’t owe him any laborious explanations and you certainly shouldn’t feel guilty for not wanting to talk.

10

From way back when, my rules of meeting guys from the internet (one of which I am currently engaged to):

  • emails back and forth for a couple of weeks; get a sense of who this person is
  • he gives me HIS phone number; I use caller id block when (and if) I call him
  • we meet after I’m pretty sure, by the things he says and the way he says them, that he’s probably not a psycho-killer
  • meet in very public place (usually a Tim Horton’s), both take our own cars
  • meeting goes well, more phone calls, possible discussion of dates in future
  • meeting goes badly, one of us tells other “sorry, not really interested”; end of story; move on to next guy
11

Well, he left me a message (I’m at work until 6:30). He sounds pretty normal. I know that doesn’t mean anything, but there you are.

You guys have got me all creeped out now. :frowning: I’ve met in person countless guys from chat. I don’t think I have anything to worry about. The only thing he proposed was meeting up for coffee or a drink. The “you should see my apartment sometime” thing was just flirting.

Besides, we have club friends in common. When we were emailing two years ago I asked my friends about him, and no one’s eyes bugged.

I just want to find out what the guy looks like. He never had a scanner even when he lived with his roommate whose computer he’d use. (He no longer has one.)

Anyway, I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself, and also make the decision of whether or not I want to meet him.

I suppose at some point I should tell him my name isn’t really Scott. :stuck_out_tongue:

  • s.e.
12

OK so I told him my real first name. Whatever.

So we had a great two-hour conversation on the phone tonight. I kept cracking him up. We’re probably going to meet up at a local gay bar (him with his friend in tow) on Friday. We’ll see.

This is kind of weird, but I’ve had weirder experiences…

  • s.e.
13

So long as he doesn’t have a Brit accent and a “Made In England” tattoo around his navel… oh, wait, they caught that guy today! :slight_smile:

Have fun storming the castle!