- I went on a couple of dates with a man who I met on a dating app.
- After it became obvious we were not a match, I ghosted him.
Most dates I'd been on as a single woman in my 30s were forgettable. And the ones that stand out in my memory do so for the wrong reasons.
Still, I was always down to give someone a chance. So when I met a man on a dating website, I found him smart and attractive. Our first meet and greet consisted of a walk along a riverfront that snaked through both of our mid-Michigan cities. It was there that I learned that he was a journalist for a local paper and acted in community theater. This seemed like a good sign. I had long aspired to be a writer, and this seemed like an important detail to have in common. Also, I was a graduate student at the time, and he seemed genuinely interested in my work as a teacher educator, whereas other men had mocked my profession.
Our second meet-up consisted of checking out the local theater fest, which also went reasonably well. But it wasn't until the third time I saw him that I considered us to be on a real date. And that's when things got weird.
I quickly realized it wasn't going to work, so I ghosted him
I was relatively new to the area and in an unfamiliar part of the city that he was excited to introduce me to. We decided to go to a local bar, and just as we'd parked the car across the street, a man bolted through the bar's doors with someone's purse. The next thing I know, my date is chasing him up the street along with a group of people who'd also bolted from the bar in pursuit of the purse-snatcher. I couldn't get back into the car because it was locked, and I was too far from home to walk, so I'd stood terrified on the side of the road waiting for him to come back — which he did about 30 minutes later. Assuming he was just trying to be a good citizen, I decided not to hold it against him.
But after a few more dates consisting of similarly odd choices — like putting on fake accents and unironically talking about other women he was interested in — I decided we were not to be. I made myself unavailable until he got the hint. Little did I know I'd not seen the last of him.
I started seeing his face everywhere
Soon after I ghosted him, he put his acting and modeling chops to work, and I started seeing his face on billboards across town. The first time this happened, I was running errands and was at a stoplight. I looked up to see his face, large as life, smiling down at me from a health insurance ad. That same ad appeared on roads and highways throughout the city, and it was impossible to avoid, especially ten years ago when people weren't yet outsourcing every task and errand.
Soon thereafter, I was perusing YouTube when the video I'd been watching cut to a local real estate commercial. he appeared again, this time on my screen, to discuss his elation about a fictional home purchase. I've logged onto the internet with a VPN ever since.
It would be about a year before he stopped appearing in odd places. And soon after that, I met my husband.
Christina Wyman is a writer and teacher living in Michigan. Her debut novel "Jawbreaker" will be available in October.