Hypothetically Speaking...

You know how everyone says that if you want to meet people, you have to "put yourself out there"? Well, I finally did. And man, did it ever bite me in the blasted rear.

Okay, to preface this, I ride the bus home on days I'm too exhausted from work to walk home, and the guy that drives my bus is friendly and we've talked for a while, flirting back and forth and whatnot. So he recently asked me out, and I got up the nerve to actually give him my number the yesterday. Okay, so now we're all up to speed. Perfect.

In my mind, I am thinking, "Okay, he'll call me sometime next week, great". But no, not 15 minutes later, the guy calls me. Okay, whatever. So we chat for a little bit and then he goes.

I go back to doing whatever it was I was occupied with, but an hour later, he calls me again. This time he's on an actual break from work and can talk longer. We talk about a lot of things, movies, Utah, school, etc...then he mentions that he is divorced. Okay, I can handle that. He says they divorced because his wife cheated on him. He tells me he hates lies and people who lie. I ask if he and his wife had any kids, to which he replied to the negative.

Then my warning flag goes up a bit when he starts talking like we are in a relationship, and projecting things into the future. Not so bueno. On top of that, I look him up on Facebook (I love facebook right now) and see that he is still listed as "married". I find that really disconcerting, but don't mention it, assuming he just hadn't changed it since the divorce. Anyway, I make a hasty goodbye, and he says he'll call me tomorrow (aka today).

So I go out with my friend Megan to Color Me Mine, a pottery painting place. While I'm there, I kid you not, the guy calls me. Not once, not twice, but seven times! Seven times in the course of 2 hours! Weird, creepy, scary stuff! I relay the situation to Megan, and she advises me to run. I love Megan!

So I get home from my outing, and am talking to Kelly, and I mention his incessent calling, and his relationship status on facebook. She wants to check this guy out, so we look him up, and it turns out that Kelly and he have a mutual friend, so Kelly decides to ask her for information about him, unfortunately, her friend doesn't answer her phone. However, facebook did help us determine that this Gem of an individual is not only still married, but he has 3 kids. Yeah. I love Facebook.

I went to bed, determined never to speak to this guy again. I was awakened at 6:30 this morning by my phone ringing. It was him. I ignored the call and placed my phone somewhere I wouldn't be able to hear it go off.

Okay, as if this isn't creepy enough, when I eventually got up for the day, I checked my phone to see if Megan had left a message about when we're going to go to the Farmer's Market. To my horror (yes, horror) this guy had called 10 times and left me 4 text messages between 6:30 am and 10 am. Creepy creepy!

So I message him and tell him I don't feel good about this situation and asked that he please leave me alone. When he asked why, I confronted him about his being married and having kids (a fact he previously denied), he denied this again, but I stood my ground and he eventually cracked. Later in the day, Kelly's friend called her back and told her that this guy is crazy. He is a pathelogical liar, still married, with kids, and is just plain nuts. Wow...

Honestly? Why do guys think they can get away with things like that?

To sum up, here is what I have learned from this:

1. Don't give out your number (unrealistic, I know, but seriously...don't do it)

2. Trust your gut

3. Friends and Facebook are great resources

4. Stand up for yourself, your morals and your values and don't be afraid to call people on their crap.