Anatomy of a Catfish, Day 2

Day 2, December 13, 2016 I'm breaking up my days into the standard Midnight to Midnight format that most of us follow and posting texts per day.

Good morning comes well before I wake because he needs to be the first person on my mind. Even at 5. I'm a light sleeper so I look, ignore and try to sleep a bit longer.

We talk about our lives and he tells me about his work. It's exciting and the opportunities are always huge and impressive. The work he's about to do always has a huge payout.  Once it was a man leaving town to be with his relative that was alone and in need.  He was going to be a hero and needed my support after he was beaten and robbed in a city he doesn't call home,.

My interest in a country I've never been to gives him the opportunity to suggest an Aladdin opportunity to show me the world. Never mind the fact that we just started talking the day before and under any other circumstance this would just be creepy. Well, it is creepy.

He's establishing the fact that he will be gone but not for long. It's enough of a breadcrumb trail that I might want to support a long distance relationship for a short while. He has no clue that I pass on military men about to retire in two months that want to find a wife and have much more husbandly promise because I want company this week.

This is where it starts to get really sweet. He's laying it on thick enough to give me cavities and I begin to troll my catfish right back.  I pretend I don't know the difference between infatuation, lust, love and connection.  I let him believe I'm not self aware enough to know how I feel about myself and what I want and am willing to sacrifice in my life. I pretend I might be in love with him, rather than being in love with falling in love.  I act as if he has all I need and that I'm not at all creeped out because I need what he's selling.

Typically he lives on his own in a lonely city with few and far family in another state or country. When he inevitably needs my help, he'll need me because we've been talking two weeks and his family... Well, they can't help the successful man I've fallen in love with that is usually the one helping them.

Day 2 and he wants us to meet each other's families. Day 2 and he wants me to fly across the country with him. Day 2 and we have yet to nail down a meeting for coffee and dinner. I went to New York once. It was a trip I funded to take my ex boyfriend to see the family he missed.  We were together for over a year and a half and I didn't see all I wanted to see.  When I go back to the Big Apple, it's very likely going to be a solo trip.

Monday after being a daughter for a few hours after a full work shift, I got to my kids around 9. My mom surprised us with a Christmas tree. It's not a big deal for her because she drives a minivan.  I drive a 2016 Toyota Camry and I had 3 kids.  I wasn't up to strapping the tree to the roof, so I put down the back seat and shoved it in the trunk and through the car.  My kids squished in alongside it.  My boys were angry that they had to wait so long at Grandma's house and they weren't feeling helpful. I got home, and I threw an 8 foot tree over my shoulder and carried it down a flight of stairs after fighting it out of my trunk. I put it on the tree stand and made sure it was straight. I dragged it into place, all alone because I am a badass and wanted to give the boys space for their anger. My only help was Kid3 closing the gate behind me.  I really don't want more kids although I miss being pregnant sometimes and a man that changes my mind about that will have magic dust stowed away somewhere. I've been a single mom with a husband that parented from the couch.  I need to see how amazing he is as a Dad before I'll even consider kids with someone else, and my usual gut reaction to the question of "Do you want more kids?" is "Hell the Fuck No." So here, I was totally trolling him.

I'm not nice.  I've said this, right? The plan for tonight is we're trying to meet up.  I expect him to flake and have other plans anyway.

If it sounds too good to be true, he's probably a catfish.