After a break up, and several months of not dating, I went back to the dreaded on-line treadmill again. Ugh. What a drag. This time, my goal was to be “open” to new possibilities, without judgement, and observe what showed up. My new motto was “What can I learn from this experience?” My dating life had gone from “I want to meet the one.” to “How can I use this date to free my mind?” Sounds boring and a little woo-woo but it was actually pretty amazing once I was able to let go of being attached to wanting to find “the one.” I moved from being a damsel in distress to a scientist in a lab – learning from every romantic experience rather than racing to the finish line.
A new guy popped up on my dating app. We texted a bit. He sounded very, very good on paper. “My name is Jon; I am an engineer and real estate investor.” He told me that he had his PhD and was an Engineer for a fiber optics company. His cultural background was Greek; he loved wine, travel and was a Yankee fan. Score!
I soon discovered that although his profile said he lived in Queens, he actually lived in New Jersey. And he wasn’t Greek, he was from Cyprus. A little red flag went up but I decided since he said he’d never been on line before that I’d chalk it up to beginner’s nerves.
Jon wanted to talk on the phone right away which was a big plus and a few days later we had our first date. He took me to a nice Italian restaurant in New York City and showed up with a box of expensive chocolates. Over the course of the evening we talked a lot. He told me that he wanted to be “honest” with me and let me know that he and his wife were just signing divorce papers and the next year he wanted to focus on taking care of his son and having “fun.” I asked if he still lived with his wife and the answer was “yes” but that she would be moving out anywhere from two months to a year from now. Now I knew why he said he lived in Queens – he didn’t want anyone to know he still lived with his wife. No Bueno.
The morning after our date I decided that he didn’t match my vision so I wrote him an email: “Hi Jon, After thinking about our conversation, and your honesty, I wanted to be honest as well. I felt that what you were sharing with me was not what my vision is for my relationship. Some things stood out for me. You still live with your wife/ex-wife (not much you can do with a relationship in that situation). Additionally, you want to have fun and make your son your priority. That makes 100% sense knowing your background and the fact that you are getting your freedom back, but that is not my vision for me – to wait, wait for someone’s wife to move out, wait for you to have fun, wait for your son to go off to college. My life is about the now. So, no hard feelings. Lots of luck to you! Enjoy your new freedom.”
What I didn’t expect was his response: “Wow, simply devastating!! I did like you so much and I felt the same from you. Sorry, I did not get a chance to share more about me and I lied a bit. My name is not Jon, I am a professor and chair of a department of Electrical Engineering but everything else I said was true. Sorry I lied, too many crazies out there.”
Needless to say, I was shocked to learn that the entire night I was calling him by some pseudo name; and all the time he spoke of being an Engineer and his fiber optic company, it was all lie. I felt nauseous that I had allowed myself to spend hours with this person and I actually had NO idea who he was!
Let’s pretend for a moment that his intentions were pure. He was just a guy who after 18 years of marriage was getting a divorce and was back “out there” in unchartered waters of on-line dating. He was afraid of meeting crazy people; he “protected” himself by lying about his name, the state and city he lived in, his profession and his marital status. Basically, I thought he was a total nut case. If you take a 40,000-foot view of this – he CREATED exactly what he FEARED. He didn’t want to meet crazy people but instead, the person he met and liked very much now thought he was totally crazy.
Karma is literally a boomerang. It comes back around full circle regardless of what sort of Karma you put out there – good or bad. Remember the saying “You reap what you sow?” – same premise. The seeds you lay today will grow the future of tomorrow. There is no getting around it. It’s simple laws of nature, science and spirituality. It’s not woo-woo stuff here; it’s basic principles of SCIENCE. If you don’t believe in science it is also the principles of religions as well, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” (Matthew 7:12 NCV, AND Luke 6:31)
There was another big lesson here, and this one was for ME. Because there were two people in this situation, we both needed to take responsibility for the outcome. Yes, read that again…I needed to take responsibility as well. I had to explore the element of trusting myself. I was trying so hard to be “open” that I ignored some very important red flags prior to our going out. I knew that he had lied about where he lived and about his nationality – two red flags. If I was more in tune with my own instincts and I TRUSTED them more, I probably would have said, “No thank you.” to someone who had lied two times before date #1. Something didn’t seem right but I was forcing myself to be “open” more than I was listening to my true self saying, “Something here does not compute. 2+2 ain’t equalin’ 4, Lady.” When you are truly tapping into your Divine Self you are better equipped to pick up on these nuances.
And lastly and most importantly, there is no need to be angry, or protect myself, or say, “I’m not going to get duped again.” My lesson of being open just taught me a new lesson of listening more carefully to warning signals. I was still going to try my best to be open, albeit a little more difficult, but not impossible. If I start to take each experience as a learning lesson to free my mind, each new date will always have a great take away.
Update: I wrote this article some months ago. Since then I had a date with a different kind of liar – which is another fantastic story chock full of new lessons (for another article and another time!). These bumps in the road did not deter me from my vision and I kept going, dating others with an open heart and an open mind. I am in a beautiful relationship now. So, the scientist in the lab that I became learned from each experience, adjusted a bit and tried again. The big take away is – keep going and TRUST yourself!
Originally Published in KIND OVER MATTER, February 15, 2019, ON-LINE DATERS WHO LIE CREATE A KARMIC BOOMERANG
