I received a message from Professor Snooze-Fest when I was originally on a brief dating hiatus. I had decided to take a break after several discouraging incidents in a row – name calling, a polite (and much appreciated) “no, thank you,” and an inappropriate message request – but returned as always to the online dating scene. What can I say? I’m a masochist.
After engaging Professor Snooze-Fest in a couple back and forth messages, we traded numbers. In other words, he seemed normal enough to move to the next step. He called me one evening shortly after the exchange to talk. It was nice actually speaking with another human since most tend to gravitate toward texting. But then he laid out what he was looking for:
He wanted me to commit to a month (30 days) of exclusive dating before even meeting him.
Basically, he was asking me to sign a lease without checking out the property first. While the concept of not dating multiple people at a time was appealing, I was uneasy with this request. For some reason, though, I said I would try it out.
We talked a little more that evening mostly discussing what we did for jobs. It took me ten minutes to figure out what he did. Basically, he wants to be an author who writes and comments on history. I’m not a fan of history. I may read the occasional historical fiction book, but really, history is not and will never be my thing. I mean, my career is centered around the news. Once the day is over it’s not news anymore and I don’t care about it.
When we had our second conversation, he continued the history talk. As he prattled on about the first Thanksgiving (my fault, I brought up Plymouth Rock as a landmark) and something about some Ferdinand guy and a world war or something, I stopped listening. As the effort to keep myself from dozing off became too great, I finally told Professor Snooze-Fest that I needed to go which led to him inviting me on an in-person date.
Now, I was hesitant because I was pretty sure I’m wasn’t interested in this guy. Firstly, he talks way more than I do and it’s all about history and I am not interested in that. Secondly, he just gave me this weird feeling. I mean, who asks someone to commit to a pseudo-relationship before meeting? But I went ahead and made plans anyway.
As our impending date drew nearer, I grew more and more uneasy. Thankfully, I remembered that I previously made plans with friends and therefore needed to cancel the date (hallelujah!). I also decided that when I canceled I would also let him know I just didn’t feel good about his “method” of dating. While getting ready to call it quits with him I thought, “What will he say when I call to break the lease early on this thing? I didn’t sign anything and everyone knows verbal agreements are shit in court.” I obviously had no idea what was coming – clearly I was thrown by his previous Snooze-Fest demeanor.
Finally, I connected with him to cancel the date and told him I’m wasn’t interested in moving forward with this whole thing. What did I get in return? Pure aggression which then lead into him SCREAMING at me over the phone. I got out what I could over his ranting for why I wasn’t interested in moving forward with this nonsense. Not one to ever stand for that level of verbal abuse though, I hung up on him. He quickly called back and I declined the call, sending him directly to voice mail (thank you phone feature).
This is what I got:
Rage much? The voice mail confirmed my uneasy feelings about not wanting to meet him, and definitely supported the news clipping about an arrest I had found detailing an assault and harassment charge (thank you Internet detective skills). I’m no expert on this, but I think that may have been headed for an abusive relationship.
Needless to say, I clearly dodged a bullet there. Part of his plea on the phone when he was screaming, ranting and all-out raging, was that he NEEDED the 30 days to get to know someone – that’s just how it works for him.
You shouldn’t NEED 30 days to prove you’re a good person. That should come through right away. All I got was a Rage Monster.
Related Articles:
- How to Spot an Abusive Man on a First Date – InstantCheckmate.com
- Abusive Men: The Red Flags – Oprah.com
- Abusive Men: Top 10 Signs of an Abusive Man – WomanSavers.com
Wow! Intense.
It was really intense! And a little scary…
We love your blog and nominated you for an award!
http://juststoplooking.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/verbose-may-be-an-understatement/
OMG. First of all, Thank GOD you did not end up even on a date with that guy. Second of all, you are my hero for putting that on sound cloud. Third of all, get Google Voice – even if it’s just for online dating. Lastly, I need to write a post about Google Voice and why it has totally changed the game for my online dating.
I’ll have to look into Google Voice. Courtney and I had previously discussed getting pre-paid phones for dating at one point. It might be time for that…
I think you need to give this to the police. Most departments keep files on people who are the subjects of complaints just in case a pattern (beyond what can be gleaned from the public record) emerges.You already know you’re not the only one he has raged at. Reporting this will help keep you and others safe.
That’s actually a good idea. I’ll need to look into that.
Ho… lee… shit. Somebody needs a tiger cage.
HAHAHAHHA OMG THIS IS CRAZY! That dude is mental. Yo’re definitely lucky you didn’t go on a date with him.
As he been in contact with you since?
“I need 30 days to get to know someone” clearly = “30 days is how much time it seems to take for me to completely isolate a woman enough that she is willing to fall for my batshit crazy abusive assholery!”
Yikes. Stay safe.
Just have to say I’m SO sorry that happened to you. You did not do ANYTHING to deserve that – you thought you would try a new way of dating, and trust me, as a 32 year old single person I like the idea of not dating multiple people at once. 30 days of commitment is something that I would read as 30 days of I’ll stop dating you when I damn well feel like it (commitment is a word that I would apply loosely from an internet dater). Thank you for posting this and reminding us all to trust our guts!! Hugs to you, sister.
This is all kinds of messed up, and he clearly has some issues.
However, I have a tiny bit of push back.
Your gut was leading you in the right direction. You clearly were not interested. You do not have to accept date invitations, and if you do this, you will not have to fall back on scheduling drama to back out.
My point, you should have never said yes in the first place.
” I may read the occasional historical fiction book, but really, history is not and will never be my thing. I mean, my career is centered around the news. Once the day is over it’s not news anymore and I don’t care about it.”
Wow.
There is so much wrong and so much willful ignorance and utter hypocrisy contained in that statement I’m not even going to try and cover any it, because you are obviously hopeless.
However, I shall jump all over your ass regarding the hypocrite that you are and this blog of yours is proof. Do you know what an online blog/journal is? A historical document. It and this blog is history, which you claim to care not a wit about because it is HTE BORING!!!!!!!!!
Gee, I’m so sorry that history doesn’t have 1/10 second jump cuts and bright shiny fahts going off to keep your 1/1000000000000000000 of a second attention span.
Mommy and daddy raised you all kinds of wrong.
AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAA, wh-what the hell is this? Butthurt because she doesn’t share your interest in history? Professor Snooze-Fest, is that YOU?? Oh God, so funny – you win the internets.
This does sound remarkably similar to the professor… file that complaint, seriously.
…that’s your takeaway from this?
Not the possessive domineering ragemonster, but a thinly-stretched interpretation of a single harmless opinion? Ad-hominem much?
Well, as a trained historian, I’m more interested in your document trail than hers. We’ve got an abusive voice message, and now an abusive blog reply (that’s legally defined as stalking, by the way), in the broader context of a history of harassment charges and a dating ad indicating controlling behaviour. All on the public record. You were a private, anonymous douche. Now you’re a publicly exposed one.
Amanda, congratulations on a bullet very well dodged. File a complaint. For history.
Wow. She didn’t dodge a bullet, she dodged a mortar shell!
I disagree with the conclusions you reached but that paragraph also struck me. How can someone whose career is in the news claim they’re not interested in history? Everything happening in the world today is somehow related to history and it is the task of the journalist/newscaster to be informed of that history. Otherwise, how could they even make sense of what they are reporting?
Other than that, that is one terrifying voicemail and I hope that you take the steps necessary to protect yourself from this clearly unbalanced man.
Kill yourself
do you live in los angeles, because this guy sounds a lot like my rage-a-holic neighbor who i often hear screaming at people on his cell phone!
I’m sure this sounds like a number of men out there (and probably some women too). Stay from that rage-a-holic neighbor though!
This is the first time I’ve ever been to your blog and I have to say, you’re officially a hero of mine. It takes guts to be like “hey this is not okay and others will know,” so good on you. And oh, my, God give that recording to the police ASAP.
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I just can’t imagine why he’s still single! Snatch that catch up! *puke8
Sounds like the guy has Asperger’s or is elsewhere on the autism spectrum…
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Hot damn!
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