Tom, who is a friend of mine, has my complete attention. He has spent years, maybe close to a decade at this point, navigating the world of online dating, but he has not yet found someone with whom he can build a life and a family.
Tom usually only goes on a few dates with a woman until he finds something about her that he finds off-putting or disturbing, at which point he dumps her and moves on to the next. When Tom found out that his longest online dating relationship had lasted only six months, he turned to the internet in search of a new partner. I thought he had terrible luck, which made it so interesting to watch. He just wouldn’t get up. He’d get thrown off the dating horse, but he’d get right back on without even taking a week off. He always had a date every Friday night.
This pattern went on for years before he finally met Malia, and I was there to witness it all. He told me he had a lot in common with Malia and felt a real connection and wanted to see if it grew before meeting in person, which is why he chatted with her online for two weeks before deciding to meet her in person, which is more than a week longer than he usually chats before meeting someone in person. After two weeks of talking online, they finally went on their first of many dates on a Friday night at an exclusive restaurant.
Tom and Malia did not see each other every day, or even most days in the week; but, they did communicate daily through phone calls and texts because they had mutually agreed that they wished to take things slowly.
After a few weeks had passed, it finally dawned on Tom that the only time he was spending time with Malia was on Monday and Friday evenings, and always at his house. He expressed his want for more to her at that point. When Tom told Malia that he desired more, he did not receive the response he had hoped for from her.
Malia explained to him that she did not have time to see him every day since she was very busy with her job as a cashier, but that she was content with the schedule that they currently had in place. When he insisted that she give him more of her time, she reluctantly agreed to spend the majority of Saturday with him as well. Despite this, she insisted that she return home on Saturday evenings because she enjoyed having Sundays free to relax by herself or hang out with her friends.
Tom asked if he could meet up with her and some of her friends on a Sunday, but she refused. Malia told him, “You wouldn’t like my friends because they’re all bitches,” and then she changed the subject. After months of dating, he started to wonder why Malia was so protective of her time and space and wouldn’t give him any more.
I told him it was okay to feel the way he did, and I was the one who told him he might want to follow Malia one day to find out where she went after she left him on Saturday afternoon.
Tom did just that one day. Malia left, and Tom got in his car right away and drove after her. Malia told Tom that she lived in an apartment downtown, but Tom followed her to a nice suburb, where she pulled into a driveway and got out of her car.
Tom watched as two kids from the neighborhood ran up to her and gave her hugs. He saw them say “Mommy” with their mouths. The front door opened a second later, and an overweight man walked out. Malia met him at the door and kissed him, and then the man put his arm around her waist and followed her inside, with the kids following behind.
Therefore, Malia was not only being unfaithful to Tom, but she was also being unfaithful to her husband with Tom. This last Monday, when Malia showed up for their date, Tom was not quite ready to go. He was drinking brandy while lounging in his jammies in his living room.
As in, “Don’t you want to go out?” Asked Malia.
When it became clear that Tom was not going to say anything else, Malia walked out of the room after Tom remarked, “I want you to go home to your husband.”
When the weekend was over, Tom dated someone else, “again..”
Can you imagine what you would have done if you had discovered your girlfriend spending time with her family?
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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