If  Devon* was my shortest and most bizarre dating encounter, then Nigel* was my very long, very pointless and almost as bizarre dating encounter. He made an appearance after Devon and after dozens of others including Tony*, Hunte* and Luke*.  He might have viewed my profile more than once before reaching out to me. And, when he did, he sent me one of those generic and bland “I like your profile- hope you like mine too” sort of messages.

His message was well on the way to being deleted when something guided my hand away from the delete button and over his username. That something then made me click on his username. When the next page opened, I was thanking that something since my eyes were pleased with what they saw.

I had long given up on being deep and his photo appealed to everything shallow in me. His dating profile wasn’t particular strong- didn’t really give a complete picture of who he was, but, what was there was sufficient.

So, instead of doing the right thing, I responded to his generic message. To my credit, my response did include me mocking the generic message. He happened to be online and we spoke via the particular dating site’s chat system for a bit.  He was taken aback that I had actually responded to his message given our significant age difference (he was my senior by almost two decades) and my obviously off-the-chart attractiveness. I was appropriately flattered by his surprise.

I paid keen attention as he rattled off details about himself. He was from Southern USA* and owned his own business.  He wasn’t very educated (so much for me looking for the totally package), but, had quite a few decades of street smarts to fall back on (well, that also counts as being educated).  He came from a large family. One brother was gay and he did not get along with one sister in particular. He was divorced and catholic. And, he had a preteen daughter- age 9- whom he adored.

He reminded me of Devon- just laying it all out there in the first chats. After our third chat, I sensed I would soon get the inevitable invitation to move our chats outside of the dating site’s system.  I quickly laid him on the table and began dissecting him in a bid to discover whether or not I was/should be interested in taking this any further.

His age I had no issue with. I was an equal opportunity kind of dater- bring to me your young and old. The same for his level of education. Being around men- educated and not so educated in real life- had already schooled me on the real importance of the education factor. His being divorced and Catholic also presented no problems. I’d long gotten over my subconscious hang-ups about dating divorced men…and Catholics. I also cared very little for whatever family drama there might be- gay brother, bothersome/hated sister and all.

So far…so good…for my dissected specimen.  There was but one issue which made me a bit unwilling to stitch my specimen back up and declare him dateable. Even before I’d decided to be a shallow online dater, I had made a promise not to date any daddies or granddaddies. And, Nigel* was very much a daddy… to a preteen daughter.

 *Name(s)/places have been changed

Stay tuned for NEXT SATURDAY's entry.