Writing a Dating Blog IS Bad for Your Dating Life

Lovelies:

So, yes, Hugo (opens in new tab) found the bloggerino. He'd promised me he wouldn't look for it and I'd--naively--assumed he'd be true to his word, in part because he didn't even know my last name, so how could he search? But curiosity go the better of him; and apparently I am VERY Google-able; and he found me in two seconds flat.

And then he spent every day of last week (opens in new tab) reading about himself.

How did I find all this out?

Well, I finally got a note from him at some point VERY late on Saturday night, in which he said:

Sorry I've been M.I.A. You didn't deserve it and I was really an ass about it. I think we should talk, either in person or on the phone. I will
call you  tomorrow. Also, I didn't resist the temptation: I broke my promise and read your blog. I apologize. Big problem.

By that point, frankly, I kind of hated him. (Sorry Hugissimo (opens in new tab), but it's true.) Very little, short of a promise of buying me my own brownstone in Brooklyn, or giving me a villa in the South of France, probably would have won me over at that point. But really, that's all beside the point: It was clear from his note--and from the fact that he obviously had not cared much about the anxiety he'd been putting me through (opens in new tab) all week!--that he had no interest in trying to win me over.

The next day, he called like he said he was going to, and when I rang him back, we had a brief phone conversation.

After apologizing again, and repeating that I didn't deserve such a non-response (opens in new tab), he explained that reading about how attractive I'd found him (opens in new tab) was a weird ego boost; that he'd walked around for a few days feeling cocky about it; and that he'd gotten rather magnetized by the blog--addicted to reading it, and to seeing what I would say next about him. However, of course, being so privy to what was running through my mind was a bit weird for him. (If he thinks it's weird for HIM, well, imagine how I feel!)

By then, we'd already been on the phone a good ten minutes, when he suddenly suggested that we get together for coffee right then and there--"no showers, no nothing, let's just meet and talk, as we are"--in a neighborhood near mine. I hesitated. I really didn't want to waste one more minute of time on this person, particularly because it seemed perfectly clear from his phone call that he did not, indeed, have any romantic interest in me. And yet, maybe there was some big interesting story about WHY he didn't, or at least why he'd blown me off ... Why else would he be so eager to keep talking, right?

Plus, he had reached rather mythical proportions in my brain, and I suppose I also wanted to see if he matched up to my memory.

So I agreed to meet him ...