[fabsroman]

I went out on dates with 15 different women and probably corresponded with 50+ women via e-mail over a 3 month period.

Here are some of the crazier dates:

1. Law student that was attending the same law school I graduated from. I should have known something was up when she didn't have her profile up and only gave me 5 minutes to read it over after she made it visible. Anyway, I got to her place in Baltimore and found out that she had a nose ring, she smoked, and she was a lot heavier than what her photo showed. Okay, I sucked it up and went out to dinner with her anyway. All she did at dinner was argue with me about the law, which wasn't my cup of tea since I had just finished a day of working. On top of that, she was a flaming liberal that wanted to work for the public defender's office or on behalf of children even though she had a ton of school loans (e.g., they would never be paid off). After that miserable time, she wanted me to go to a party with her. I politely declined because I had work to finish and I had to get up early the next morning, which were white lies. That was the only date I went on with her.

2. Okay, this woman here probably gets the runner up prize. We went on three dates and she was calling me non-stop. On the way to Court one morning she called me because she was freaking out about some meeting with work. She had recently gotten divorced and was allegedly making $200,000 a year. She owned a house in Southern Maryland that cost $189,000 when her and her husband bought it, but the payments were so large that she needed to get a male roommate to help her pay the mortgage. I have no idea how the mortgage could have been a problem when she was making $200,000 a year. I thought about going to the courthouse and pulling up the divorce papers, but figured that if I was already at this point I shouldn't be seeing this woman (i.e., I didn't trust her). The capper was when I went to California with all my siblings to hang out with our cousins and she was continuously calling me. She called at all times of the night and I didn't always return the phone calls. Once, she called at 11:00 at night California time and we were in a bar, so I didn't hear the phone ring. That was 3:00 Maryland time. She called again at 2:00 California time that same night because she couldn't sleep without hearing back from me. That was 5:00 Maryland time. Mind you, we had only been on three dates. At that point, I decided to call it quits.

3. This is the prize winner. This girl was the best at everything, supposedly. When we first started e-mailing, she said that she had been dove hunting with her ex-fiance and that her first time she shot her limit (i.e., 12 doves) with a .410 while the birds were flying and that was more than her fiance and his father had killed that day combined. I might have believed it if she said the birds were sitting on a tree or that she had been shooting before, but that was her first time out. She was also a really good pool player with her own cue, but I beat her every time we played. I went out on three dates with this girl too and then decided that she just wasn't right for me. She even looked me up to see if I was a CPA and an attorney. After I called it quits, she kept IMing me under a different screen name posing as her 6 year old nephew. I played along for a little while, but I knew it was her because no 6 year old, other than maybe Einstein, could write that well, and even Einstein was bad with English.

Then there was the zookeeper that was a big animal rights person, but was okay with me hunting after we met for the first date. That was right when I met my wife, so the zookeeper was cut loose, but she kept calling and writing just in case things didn't work out with this new girl, who is now my wife after 2 years of dating. The big difference with my wife and these other girls is that she is pretty straight forward and honest. She had been clay shooting twice before she met me. She isn't good at it but would like to go again when nobody else in my shooting group is present. She has absolutely no intention of ever killing an animal, but wouldn't mind coming along hunting to see what it is like. She likes fishing. She and I have a lot of character traits that are very similar and we did really well on our focus test that the church gave us as part of our pre-marriage classes.

Okay, that is enough about my internet dating experience for now. I am sure I could elaborate on the stories above, but I have to get back to work.