Why Additional Screening Is Needed Before Email Romances Begin

I have made reference several times on this blog to gal pals. Yes, they are that – not girlfriends, not besties, but straight up, gal pals. I have been incredibly blessed to have a plethora of gal pals that I’ve picked up along the way through different chapters of my life. I boast about them, I brag about them, I live vicariously through them, and quite frankly, I have all out girl crushes on a lot of them. They are the best friends a girl could ask for, and as I wrote to a friend of mine in a card celebrating her work success, “Here’s to the day when we are wildly successful and wear fabulous clothes and meet for six martini lunches that our assistants set up for us.” I wish nothing but the best life can offer to these girls, and that includes finding a mate that loves and appreciates them as much as I do.

So you have no idea how beside myself excited I was when my dear friend Lauren gchatted me one morning to say she had met someone. Stop it! Lauren is maybe one of the most hysterical people I know, so deserving of meeting a wonderful guy, yet had just gone through an absolutely terrible break up with a completely worthless human being. We hate him. (Do not cross a gal pal or all gal pals will wish for your death. ) However, at a wedding that weekend she met a guy we went to college with and it seemed they hit it off. This was huge.

Before I go any further, here’s something you have to understand: our college is famous for alums marrying each other, and not in a “we met in college and got married shortly after” kind of way. More often, it happens like this: two best friends wake up one day and say, “Oh my God, I love you! Let’s get married!” or two people who were complete strangers meet years after graduation, never knowing each other during college, fall in love, and get married. This looked like option two. His name was Reed Dunn. Honestly, I knew of him, but did not know him personally. Frankly, I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup, and neither could Lauren, for that matter, until the wedding.

So Lauren and Reed apparently danced a few times at the reception, hung out a little bit, but that was it. No drunken kissy face, nothing. While she thought he was cute, she was quite surprised to find a message waiting in her Facebook inbox upon her return to New York:

Hi Lauren,

How was your drive back east? I guess maybe you’re still driving though. I didn’t realize how far it is from Minneapolis to NYC. Anyway, send me a note when you get there.

Reed

PS – I really enjoyed hanging out with you this weekend.

Ohmygodyou’regoingtohavebabies!

Okay, so it’s not Shakespeare, but it’s sweet, and let’s be honest, if you were already mildly interested in a boy, and you got an email like this, you would be swooning too. We were at least.

And so an email flirtation began, except it wasn’t really over email, all Facebook messages (weird, I know, but we looked passed it). He would begin messages with openers like, “Lauren – person- I-hardly-knew-in-college-yet-became-the-highlight-of-my-weekend-extraordinaire,” and we would squeal, and get excited, and say things like, “Oh my God, you’re soooooo getting married.” He once added a PS that said, “If we were to fall in love and get married, promise me our first dance as man and wife would be to ‘Superman.'” Ok, kind of weird since you’ve met once, but hey We Like Him!

At the same time this was all going on, Lauren and my other friend Emma were planning a trip to DC to celebrate yours truly’s birthday. Reed lives in the DC suburbs. (I know, red flag, but we looked past it.)

“Lauren, I give you full permission to ditch us to go hang out with Reed Dunn.”

“I would never do that. I’m just going to make out with him.”

“Whatever.”

So the grand plan was that Emma and Lauren would come in Friday, we’d do a girls dinner/drinks thing, Reed would come to my birthday party the next night, and they would make out, hook up, fall in love, and get married (in that order).

However, things did not go exactly as planned.

Friday night, the girls and I go to dinner, and Reed starts texting Lauren. Incessant texting. At first, we think it’s cute. Awww, he wants to see you. Then it’s like, um ok, leave us alone. Fine, come meet us.

He tells Lauren the bar he is at with his kickball team and tells her he’ll meet us in 10 minutes. (Two red flags: kickball and the bar he named is just fratastic. I’m an admitted bar snob, so I feel free to judge.) Okay, deal. So we wait, and wait, and wait some more. Finally, 45 minutes later (because making a girl wait is so attractive) Reed walks in the door with his friend Blake. They are wearing matching black tshirts and still carrying red solo cups from the beer pong party they just left. Sweet.

Now that they have arrived (finally), we decide to change venues and go to a bar down the street. Lauren and Reed seem to be quite taken with each other. Emma, Blake, and I immediately take on our supporting cast roles as we all know that we have to feign interest in each other just so our friends can hook up. We order drinks. Reed and Blake order pitchers. For themselves. Some of you may be thinking, “I did that once.” Sure, IN COLLEGE.

So we all sit down at a table. I look over at Lauren and Reed. They already seem deeply in love. He is all over her, she’s laughing at him, gazing in his eyes. Emma and I try to make conversation with Blake.

“So what do you do?”

Because I seek to protect the innocent, I cannot put up an actual picture of this boy. However, this is totally something he would do.

“Well, I sell insurance outside New York, however, I started this happy hour club and we now have over 400 members. I’m thinking of quitting my job and going nationwide.”

I nod. Okay, cool, I guess. I mean, I go to happy hour all the time. I don’t really need a club to join, but I salute your entrepreneurial spirit. I guess.

Reed is practically molesting Lauren at this point, grabbing her while she’s talking to us, just the works. I have zero patience for boring people, and these people were just boring beyond belief. I look at Emma, “Dear God, these people are awful. What do we do?” “We have to be supportive. She likes him. There is nothing we can do.” Gulp.

Finally, last call is announced. We just might get to go home. (After a late night the night before, I was literally falling asleep at the table, making Emma fend for herself in the rough waters that are awkward conversation. Again, zero patience for boring people. I can’t even fake interest or stay awake.) Oh wait, there are good byes. As we’re standing in this bar with the lights on and the wait staff mopping the floor and three friends staring, waiting/begging/pleading to go home, Reed starts making out with Lauren. Blake, Emma, and I kind of look around awkwardly, trying to pretend we don’t notice that he’s sucking her face off with us two feet away. I look at Emma, “Oh my God, this guy is going to be in our lives forever.” “Shh…we have to be supportive. We like him, remember?”

We haven’t made it five feet passed the door, when Lauren goes, “Dear God, he is awful! He’s so stupid! He is just completely unacceptable.”

Thank. God.

Little do we know, as Emma and I were marrying Lauren off to a life of beer pong and “slammin'” house parties, she was in complete misery with Reed.

“Oh my God, did you know he went to grad school just so he could swim for two more years?! He delayed life to swim! I kept trying to start adult conversation with him like, ‘Oh, you’re from Chapel Hill. That’s a beautiful town, are your parents connected with the University?’ and he’d bring it back to drinking! He is absolutely unacceptable.” He also started planning a vacation at her parent’s summer home in North Carolina. Just the two of them. Remember, this was only the second time they met. In addition, at one point Lauren said, “I love to swim, but i just hate having to breathe underwater – I bet that’s hard to get used to doing .” Reed’s response: “No, even three year old retards can do it.” Swell guy.

“Okay, Lauren, we thought you liked him and were preparing to make all these fake nice comments about him. Granted, we had two, but we were ready.” “Awww, you guys. That’s so sweet.”

The next day, we woke up, still dumbfounded. How could this guy have been so charming over email, wait, facebook messages (yeah, why didn’t he ever use email?) when he really was such a douche bag, a term I hate to use but just seems so fitting. I decided to take a look at his Facebook profile.

Some highlights – all of which are absolutely, positively, swear on a stack of Bibles true:

Religion: Jesus!

Interests: Beer, Drinking, Work, Hittin’ the gym to look hot for the ladies (Ok, this would only be acceptable if he weighed 450 pounds and he was saying this to be ironic. However, he is not.)

Favorite Movies: Jim Carey Movies, Adam Sandler Movies, Denzel Washington Movies, Will Smith Movies,Teen Movies (My Embarrassing Confession) [Yes, the teen movies part is the only thing embarrassing.]

About Me: I’m young, black, and famous with money hangin out the anus. (Except the black and famous part, and the money hangin out the anus part too.)

Yes, he really used the word anus on a Facebook profile.

I have nothing more to add.